The struggle against despair

Time in the waiting room seemed to drag on interminably. Finally we were called into the doctor’s room where we were met by a young doctor who proceeded to explain the procedure that Natalia would undergo.


He told us that a biopsy would have to be done but he believed that the initial diagnosis of Ewing’s Sarcoma was the most likely one. I started to cry and he told me to hold myself together and stay calm. “It’s not finished.” he said. “Here we will fight. We are very good, though Natalia has little chance of survival. Her X-rays show that the cancer has metastasized throughout the lungs. There are 5 to 6 very large mets and many small ones that have almost almost coalesced into another large metastases.” I was stunned into silence by his indifference as he casually assessed her chances of survival at no better than one in a hundred. I was angry and detested him with all my heart. How could he be so cold?

I would learn later that this young doctor would die of an illness less than two years later. Perhaps he knew of his own prognosis at the time and that was why he was seemingly so indifferent to our situation, a cold rationality to keep his own emotions under check. Or maybe he was just callous by nature. It’s not something I would ever learn and it would be nothing more than speculation to say more since I would not hear the true story of his passing nor would I try to pry into his affairs. Though I was hurt by his insensitivity to my daughter I was saddened when I heard he had died. My immediate reaction to him had been to his pessimism not to him. My anger toward him, I realize, had been a reaction against his rejection of the hope I struggled to keep alive in my own heart.

I had dealt with tragedy in my life but this was completely different. There is nothing more difficult to endure than the suffering of a child except that is when the child is your own.

I suddenly developed a phobia about talking to doctors. Had it not been for my partner Darek I would not have been able to manage. Darek would be first line of defense. He would talk to the doctors who treated Natalia and then convey the news to me. On one occasion when I was alone in the hospital and the chief of staff tried to talk to me I found myself running away with my hands over my ears. I did not want her to tell me that Natalia had no chance to survive again. The doctor would have to wait for Darek to return before we learned what she had to say.

Natalia was admitted into the oncology ward and Darek returned to our home. I would stay in Warsaw at the living quarters provided by a Foundation associated with hospital for relatives of sick children.

All of us were housed on the third floor of the building. I was thrown in with a group who quickly proceeded to drive me crazy. They chose to dwell and recount in lurid detail the history of tragedy at this hospital, of children who had died. The most vocal were those whose own children were not threatened, who were well on the road to recovery.

I was already struggling against the pessimism of the doctors and here I was thrown in with a group who seemed to want to throw me headlong into despair again.The worst was a woman whose daughter I would learn had recovered from a relatively minor ailment but continued to linger in the hospital for undetermined reasons. She seemed to revel in telling me terrible stories.


Like I had with the doctors I withdrew from the pessimism of these people and I learned to look people in the eye and listen to see if they would help me, aid me in my battle to keep hope alive. These people garnered my unadorned affection and I would help them in any way I could to keep their spirits high.