Reviewed by: Zhou Jian (Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University)
I'm a radiologist, probably the person who has the most exposure to cancer patients besides oncologists.
From exposure to ordinary X-rays in his 20s to his dealings with CT and magnetic resonance imaging in his 50s, he received suspected cancer patients from various departments almost every day. Radiology for a long time, often give me a "life and death by man" illusion, mistakenly think that I have penetrated life, watch the patient get the test results of the collapse, and even some strange.
It turned out that everything was just because I hadn't touched it yet.
First, help others to check the tumor, but also become a patient
At the end of July 2003, I was doing magnetic resonance imaging for a patient sent by thoracic surgery when I suddenly felt nausea rushing to my heart, and I didn't even have the strength to reach for the workbench. I thought it was just the day before that I had a bad stomach and didn't care too much.
For several days, the appetite was not very good. My lover urged me several times to look for a colleague when I went to work, and I was in good health, and I usually had very few colds, and I didn't pay attention to it. But by September, the weather had cooled down and didn't look good.
I was on my way to work on September 15 when I suddenly fainted, top-heavy, and almost fell in the department. My colleague nervously hung up the cardiology department number, thinking I had a heart problem.
The diagnosis came quickly, and my colleague in the cardiology department directly let me go to the oncology department, and finally got a diagnosis of liver cancer: intrahepatic tumor, 3.3 cm in diameter.
The tumor came, the first hour was still doing tumor screening for others, and the next hour he became a tumor patient. But to be honest, the moment I was diagnosed, I wasn't particularly panicked.
Image source: Stand Cool Helo
Second, argon helium knife cryotherapy, the first step of freezing to death of tumors
A colleague in the oncology department suggested that I find a large hospital for liver cancer "argon-helium cryotherapy", which is a minimally invasive treatment of tumors.
Before the treatment, I also checked the information to see the introduction of argon-helium cryotherapy.
Argon helium knife is a special rapid freezing device, which can make the temperature around the argon helium knife rapidly decrease at a rate of 10 degrees Celsius per second, and in a period of more than ten seconds, the tissue temperature around the argon helium knife can be reduced to below -150 degrees, so that the tumor tissue around the argon helium knife can be completely frozen to death.
Argon helium knives can be guided by CT, ultrasound and other imaging equipment, through a 2 to 3 mm skin incision directly into the tumor, almost without destroying the normal tissue structure of the human body.
As a doctor's occupational disease, after reading some domestic and foreign literature, I felt that I understood almost everything, so I accepted the advice of my colleagues. Soon the treatment was done in the hospital near the home, and the effect was not bad.
Since then, I have started a monthly review, accompanied by some anti-cancer drugs. Because I was a doctor myself, I didn't act very flustered. Usually at home, I also take the idea, so the state of the lover is also good, except for telling me to take medicine every day, there is not much change in the family.
At that time, I was very confident that I could take down the cancer cells in one fell swoop. Less than half a year after the argon-helium cryotherapy, trouble came again.
Third, the new lesion suddenly appeared, I decided to be the "medicine king" myself
In February 2004, just after the Lunar New Year, when I went to the hospital for a review, I found two new lesions in the liver suspected of appearing in the MRI.
The problem was a bit troublesome, and I was mentally aware of it. "The hospital at the doorstep may not work, and we must find a more professional cancer hospital again." I calculated in my mind that the suspected relapse seemed to be about to break through a small hole in my psychological defense line. I quickly gave myself a preventive injection to remind myself to adjust my status.
After pondering for half a month, I finally gritted my teeth and went to the Oncology Hospital in Beijing, which is one of the best cancer hospitals in the country. When I arrived in Beijing, I was checked and there was indeed a new lesion.
I was timid, muttering in my heart. Dreaming at night, dreaming that I was lost in the scenic spot, standing on the edge of a straight cliff, there was no way back, there was a person behind me, I looked back to see that my daughter was pulling me, but I felt that there was suddenly a force in the abyss ahead, desperately trying to suck me in. When I woke up, my clothes were wet and my forehead was still sweating.
During that time, various other problems also came to the fore, and the pressure was particularly high. The original unit was poorly managed, facing bankruptcy, the rice bowl could not be saved, and the medical insurance was unsustainable, which meant that all the medical expenses had to be borne by themselves.
But the old man in the family is a medicine jar, every month there is a fixed medical expenditure, the lover's work is not stable, the daughter will graduate immediately, the job is waiting to be fed...
Compared to half a year ago, I feel extremely tired. I can't come up with money, but I can't cure the disease. Many people have advised me to do another argon-helium cryotherapy, but I haven't done it for the first time.
I decided not to operate first, I treated myself, entrusted people to buy a lot of Indian generic drugs back, and gave myself food. At first, I was a little proud of myself, but fortunately I was a doctor, which was difficult for me.
But soon, there were many poisoning reactions, vomiting up and down diarrhea, numbness, not only failed to control the development of tumors, but also made themselves not a ghost.
Fourth, embolism, Chinese medicine does not improve, do you still have to save?
Seemingly unable to cure myself, I went back to the hospital and had selective hepatic artery embolization at one of our local cancer hospitals. Unfortunately, the operation was not successful, the treatment fee of 20,000 yuan was adrift, and I was so distressed that I continued to rely on traditional Chinese medicine to maintain myself after returning home.
The interventional treatment of liver cancer, the standard name called "transhepatic artery chemotherapy embolization", is to die by inhibiting, destroying, and blocking the blood vessels that supply blood to the tumor, so that the tumor tissue does not grow large and lacks blood supply. Transhepatic artery chemoembolization developed because the liver has a unique anatomical feature of dual hepatic artery and portal vein blood supply structure.
Chinese medicine has been eaten intermittently for more than half a year, but the condition has not improved, and the controversy over whether Chinese medicine can treat tumors is getting bigger and bigger. My lover watched me fiddling at home every day, relieved, and urged me to go to the hospital.
5. Surgical infection into severe disease, 8 operations at the moment of life and death
Coincidentally, a friend of my daughter's interned at a nice hospital. In March 2005, with his help, I was admitted to their hospital and subsequently had laparoscopic cholecystectomy + tumor radiofrequency ablation. Thinking that the gallbladder has been removed, there will be no more problems. It can happen again unexpectedly, and there is an unexpected infection during surgery.
For 35 days, I continued to have a 40-degree fever, sweating profusely and delirious. After so many years as a doctor, I understood what an infection meant, and I lay in the ICU and even remembered the sarcopical pneumonia that raged two years ago.
My heart was blocked, I didn't know how to solve it, and I didn't know if I could see my family again. So I asked the nurse for paper and pencil and wrote my first suicide note.
Seeing a doctor has depleted the family's only savings, and there is nothing left for lovers and children. But I still want to write a few words to them, and my parents, who are old, and if I leave, I will have to have an explanation with my eldest brother.
I knew very well that I had combed through everything, but my body could not hold it, and my first will was interrupted by septic shock before I could finish writing it.
By the time I lay in the ICU for a month, I felt basically hopeless, sentenced myself to death in my heart, asked the nurse for paper and pencil, but passed out as I wrote.
Neither will was written, but the lover brought it back and kept it. Later, when my daughter got married, she took the initiative to bring up this topic with me, saying that since God would not let me finish writing my will, she wanted me to accompany her mother well. It was just a matter of three, saying that I had to desperately take care of myself.
The daughter's instructions can only be done. And I haven't finished writing it twice, and in the darkness, I also feel that God is taking care of me, and I don't dare to let myself have an accident and cause them trouble.
During that time, the notification of critical illness was continuously delivered to their mother and daughter. The daughter said that she was still very scared at first, but she was numb when she signed it, and she would look forward to the next opportunity to sign in her heart, which meant that I had survived again.
The lover signed the critical illness notice while raising money everywhere. Relatives in my hometown and my colleagues borrowed it all, but the ICU (the intensive care unit) was like a lion, opening its blood basin and engulfing the money she had borrowed so hard.
It's hard to borrow money, and it's hard to use money, and the money is used to give me "torturing and saving people" surgery to control the infection.
In the 40 to 50 days from March 20 to May 6, I had eight large and small surgeries such as puncture, drainage, and abdominal opening. I could feel the pain of tearing my heart and lungs in my groggy state, and even once I was punctured, I actually cried out in pain on the operating table.
I haven't cried for nearly 40 years and lost to liver cancer. Before and after many tosses, the body damage is very serious, I suddenly lost more than 30 pounds.
Sixth, the deterioration of the disease to intervene, I shook hands with the tumor and made peace
In November 2007, I was hospitalized again due to deteriorating conditions and underwent interventional surgery, and this time the results were satisfactory. To reinforce the efficacy, I had a second interventional surgery in January 2008.
I went through 13 surgeries, large and small, and I dragged myself back from the hands of Death.
When I was still in medical school, I heard teachers say that tumors are a lifelong thing, and later when I worked, I often heard people say "survive with tumors". But I didn't expect that one day I would also taste it.
Over the years, cancer has shook hands with me, but I did not dare to be sloppy. Go to the review on time every month, and a small fluctuation of the indicator is as nervous as anything. When I think about myself at the beginning, I always feel that the patient takes life and death too seriously, and it is simply a slap in the face.
It is said that those who have experienced life and death know the preciousness of life. Indeed, I have been a bystander of patients for more than 30 years, and I have not understood the reasoning, and when I walk through the door of my ghost, I suddenly become enlightened.
In the past, I always thought that this was a "poisonous" chicken soup that deceived young people, but after experiencing it, I realized that it was all the proverbs and insights of people who came over.
The road of life, there is never a simple time, cherish the present, there is tomorrow to look forward to, is happiness.
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