Salty Water
Paul Kalanithi writes about diagnosing his cancer in How Long Have I Got Left?:
I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed both nothing and everything. Before my cancer was diagnosed, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. After the diagnosis, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. But now I knew it acutely. The problem wasn’t really a scientific one. The fact of death is unsettling. Yet there is no other way to live.
Lots of wisdom here, considering the doctor authoring the piece is only 36. I particularly liked this one: “Getting too deep into statistics is like trying to quench a thirst with salty water.” I have to keep that in mind when trying to give patients a meaningful statistical number. More often than not, I simply say it might work out and it might not, we will see, and you know where to find me in either situation.