08/27/2025
We thought it was a liver abscess. Treatable. In and out. Though it was unusual, we had an explanation.
Yet…. Liver abcess really? What?
I gently asked the resident to actually go to radiology and talk to the radiologist, rather than just “text them”, we learned something else.
At first, I was met with blank silence. The kind that tells you a clinical behavior once considered “standard” is now considered “extra.”
To their credit, the attending followed through.
They walked over. Had a real conversation. And the radiologist? Used all the words doctors use when we want to say something serious but don’t want to sound too serious.
“Could be a mass… an abnormality… early to tell…”
I know that tone. I’ve stopped using that tone. It tries to hold space for uncertainty while still protecting the patient’s feelings. But it rarely does either.
Because if this is a tumor, then how did we miss it on the dozens of scans from weeks ago? Turns out it wasn’t there 4 months ago. And if it grew this fast, it’s either aggressive and his days are numbered, or it’s not a tumor at all.
Turns out: it’s a mix of both. A tumor hiding in infection.
A new MRI also revealed that the old spinal abscess had returned. A new one growing in the same infected area. Is that all? Anything else?
Trips to radiology. Bed. Stretcher. Scan. Transfers. Pain.
Drainage, again.
And a liver biopsy.
Each one requiring more time, more explanations, more conversations.
To an old man.
Now a frail man.
A tired man.
Oh.
That’s why he lost 45 pounds in three months.
I thought it was the meals he skipped. The fatigue. The stress. The surgeries.
But his body was sounding the alarm long before we could name what it was fighting.
Now we wait.
We wait for the biopsy.
We wait to see what this is.
We wait, even though none of us are wired for waiting.
And in this waiting, I’m realizing something:
These are the days we’ll never get back.
The last days of uncertainty, before a label comes in, before treatment decisions become binary, before the next chapter writes itself without asking permission.
So we hold the pause.
We bring him things he likes.
A date shake. A baked good. A joke. A podcast clip. A moment.
Because joy doesn’t stop just because medicine hasn’t caught up.
And yes, I’m tired.
I’m tired of repeating updates to my siblings, my nephews, my mother, our extended family in Morocco, each in their own language, their own emotional dialect.
I’m tired of translating scans into human speech, and fear into measured calm.
But I’m also grateful.
For the nurses who show up daily and hold so much in silence.
For the clinicians who still sit and speak to you, not at you.
For the friends who check in.
For the days where “nothing is happening”, because that too is something.
We haven’t lost hope.
We’re just holding space for both possibilities:
That everything is fine.
Or that everything is about to change.
But today, he smiled at the date shake.
And for now, that’s enough.
