Patient List

Over the past 2 days, the patient list exploded to 40 patients from our usual 25-30.  And here I thought people were not supposed to get sick before the holidays so they can spend it with family.  Many of our new patients are newly diagnosed, and unfortunately, one of them will be spending both Christmas and the birthday in the hospital because they're on the same day.  There are 2 really interesting new patients though because they have pretty rare cancers.  My team is specifically the for lymphomas and sarcomas so usually we'll see diffuse large B cell lymphoma, Burkitt's lymphoma or non-hodgkins lymphoma.  Sarcomas are much rarer and one of my patients has Ewing's sarcoma, a cancer found in bone or soft tissue that sometimes appears to be osteomyelitis.  It's especially odd for my patient because this cancer is usually more prevalent in young males and the patient is a middle aged woman.  The chemotherapy involved is very complex and often requires 2 different multidrug regimens.  I will be following this patient closely though I only have 1 week left at the National Cancer Centre.