The Type of Life Being Led

Harold: What is wrong with you? I don't want to eat nothing but pancakes, I want to live! I mean, who in their right mind when given the choice between pancakes and living chooses pancakes!?

Dr. Hilbert: Harold, if you pause to think, you'd realize that that answer is inextricably contingent upon the type of life being led... and, of course, the quality of the pancakes


Firstly, let's agree that this quote from the movie Stranger than Fiction from a few years ago (and previously posted on this blog way back when) is hilarious and a comedic high point for Dustin Hoffman and Will Ferrell's characters in the film. It makes me laugh on a basic level... but moreover I love how they scratch up against the concept of how we CHOOSE to live our lives. Doesn't choosing between pancakes or life truly depend on the individual pancake up against the individual life? 


On the floor this week I had patients who have made decisions that have brought them to a place where they just might chose pancakes. Diabetes and alcohol abuse and Hep C and failure to thrive. And I had patients this week who, like Harold, want to live. 


An elderly partially-English speaking patient with beautiful long hair, a husband with kind eyes, and grandkids to get home to came into the hospital with ankle and knee pain. She left with a shiny new walker. I worry about if the walker will serve as more of a hindrance than a help to her longevity as she comes to rely on it more and more. But her eyes were bright, her medication was minimal, and her eagerness to get back to living her life with her family is proving to be more important in patient outcomes than I ever realized. Before she discharged, she told me in broken English that I chose a wonderful profession that will really help people - and to guard my smile and optimism closely. 


Another patient had been battling breast cancer since 1997 and done everything in the medical arsenal to kill it; unsuccessfully. She's one of a very small group receiving experimental chemo treatments now, and came to us because of pneumonia risk. Short of breath, exhausted, weak. She vomited up her breakfast the moment she attempted it, and wearily told us that that hasn't been a symptom for her until this new therapy. The chaplain was doing rounds shortly after and she invited him in for communion while I was in there for vitals. I made myself scarce in the corner of the room while he spoke the Lord's Prayer over her and I literally forced tears back into my eyes, willing them not to spill in front of the patient. I wondered at what drove her to fight for 14 years like this, but when I heard about her two doctor daughters and saw her teenage granddaughter sitting by her bed later in the day, I understood that the decision was inextricably contingent upon the type of life being led.