This patient came into the consultation room with a cough. He was sure there was nothing wrong with him, and that it was nothing else than this sneaky cold which had bothered him for a while. His doctor told us about his case only yesterday, during dinner.
It was one of these moments at which all talking and smiling seizes into a silence which seems to last forever. And nobody knows what to say anymore.
Because it wasn’t just a cough.
One examination led to another, and further medical images were taken. And an MRI scan clearly showed a mass in the patient’s brain — but that wasn’t the primary site. The primary site was localized in his bladder, and the cancer had spread to his head.
The cancer must have been hiding there for a very long time — long enough to spread, and long enough to eventually only appear through a simple cough, buying itself even more time.
Near the end of a long consultation round, on a day which would become gloomier than ever before, his doctor had to tell him that the patient had a week left — one week of saying farewell to his family and friends while his health would quickly deteriorate, and he would eventually evaporate into the electric mist.
This patient had entered the consultation room with a cold.
And four days later, he dissolved.