Week 4 - Aniqua Rahman

This was a short week due to 4^th of July. Therefore, it was really busy at the clinic on Monday. Out of all the cases, there were two cases that I found really interesting.  First one was a case of 57 years old male patient. This patient had been a drug addict for a long time and now he is psychologically disturbed. He was talking to himself and telling irrelevant stories during his entire stay at the clinic. He seemed so lost in his world that he didn’t realize his phone was ringing until the nurse practitioner told him. But he had clear knowledge of his surgery histories and medication he is currently taking. He was first diagnosed with meningioma in spine about 15 years ago, which was removed by Dr. Schwartz. Then, meningioma was found in the brain and resected. After the surgery, he was scheduled to get five stereotactic radiation sessions. But he didn’t continue his sterotactic radiation and now he is back with few other meningiomas. This time, Dr. Pannullo suggested Stareotactic radiation surgery to resection cavity and new meningiomas. His mental instability is due to menigiomas or drug use is still a mystry! Hopefully this time he will finish his radiation sessions and tumors won’t come back. Next case was of patient with Primary glioblastoma who had a surgery few weeks ago and now needs to have stereotactic radiation surgery to kill few remaining cells left after surgery. Her case was simple, but one thing was noticeable. She had surgery on the right side of her brain and now she has limited left side vision. She doesn’t notice/see things placed on or coming from her left side. For example, I was handing her a paper from the left side and she didn’t make a move to take it from me. It seemed a bit awkward to me. I thought she was ignoring me, but then Dr. Pannullo explained that she didn’t even see that I was trying to give her the paper. It happened repeatedly while she was in the clinic. Towards the end of the visit, when Dr. Pannullo wanted to shake her hand with the patient, then the patient didn’t make any move to shake her hand because she fail to notice things that happens on her left due to her partial left side vision. This patient is getting neuro therapies with a team of neurologists and hopefully she will learn to deal with this problem, which will stay with her for quite a long period of time.

On Wednesday, I went to the NeoNatal ICU. The attending doctor (Dr. Perlman), residents and fellows visited more than 15 babies. One of the cases was quite different than all others. It is about a 7 months old baby boy, who has external hydrocephalus. He is on life support and probably will have to stay on it as long as he lives. He can never breathe on his own, move his hands and legs. He has a big head than his body. His eyes are always half open and he can never close it. Basically, this baby doesn’t have a future. This is a very sad case, because no one from the family now comes to visit the baby. The family is obviously upset and the parents don’t know what to do with their baby. Shockingly, both parents work in medical field. They realize that they can keep the baby alive on life support, but their baby doesn’t have any future. This baby might be able to feel things, as he will grow up, but could never express feelings. Parents are in a dilemma and doctors cannot take any decision without parent’s permission. After seeing this baby, the only thought came to my mind was that we should always be thankful for having a healthy life. Sometimes I take many things for granted and complain and get upset about tiny little things that go wrong. I should change my attitudes towards the small problems of life. This was a good lesson for me.