Storytelling's palliative care
On Friday, cube-mate Sondra and I were talking about The New Yorker, and she asked if I kept a list of people I'd met who had appeared in its pages. I never had, but we got into a good, recollecting conversation of encounters. Working on my stack today, I added a name to the list.
Eight years ago, finishing my time at Northwestern, what made one of my days was a student named Monopoli winning a real estate award at NU's Kellogg school. I blogged about his win. Twice. I was tickled. It was like a student named Scrabble snagging an English class prize for writing. Or a student named Boggle… I don't know, making ice cubes.
Months later, I received an e-mail from Monopoli. He was amused in his note: "Embarrassed as I am to admit it, I googled myself yesterday. I don't do it often and when I do, I typically feel guilty. By the way, my girlfriend is OK with it." I liked him even more. Good name, good guy.
It was sad, then, to read in the August 2 New Yorker how he'd lost his girlfriend-turned-wife to lung cancer in 2008. His wife's battle is at the heart of Atul Gawande's long, educational and compassionate article, "Letting Go: What should medicine do when it can't save your life?"
"So Sara and I looked at each other," Rich recalled, "and we said, 'We don't have cancer on Tuesday. It's a cancer-free day. We're having a baby. It's exciting. And we're going to enjoy our baby.' " On Tuesday, at 8:55 P.M., Vivian Monopoli, seven pounds nine ounces, was born. She had wavy brown hair, like her mom, and she was perfectly healthy.
The article is as tragic as you'd expect. But the exposure and telling of the story offer long-tail surprise, especially as Gawande covers what basic information about options can do for patients and families. Good for Gawande. Thank you to Monopoli for sharing his wife's story with us readers and — if you Google him these days — many, many others.
August 8th, 2010 at 4:59 PM
Beautiful.