The Other Side

My fiance Evan died on May 27, 2020, in the medical ICU of our hospital from complications related to metastatic salivary gland cancer. At the time, Evan was a general surgery resident and I was a pulmonary and critical care fellow. Throughout my medical training, I frequently took care of patients...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association 2021-10, Vol.326 (15), p.1479
Main Author: Perez, Alyssa
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cancer
Complications
COVID-19
Metastases
Metastasis
Oral cancer
Patients
Prognosis
Salivary gland
Salivary glands
Surgery
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:My fiance Evan died on May 27, 2020, in the medical ICU of our hospital from complications related to metastatic salivary gland cancer. At the time, Evan was a general surgery resident and I was a pulmonary and critical care fellow. Throughout my medical training, I frequently took care of patients with critical illness, metastatic cancer, and poor prognoses. I prided myself on my ability to connect with patients and to get through to families about grim prognoses. None of these experiences prepared me for having a partner with metastatic cancer and limited treatment options. A clinical trial provided Evan with 7 to 8 months of excellent disease response. He felt great and was able to go back to surgical residency. We got engaged and spent 2 weeks on vacation in Thailand. He applied for a vascular surgery fellowship. But the response was not durable, and soon the other shoe dropped. As the rest of the world started to implode with COVID-19, Evan's cancer progressed.
ISSN:0098-7484
1538-3598
DOI:10.1001/jama.2021.17694