Good bye, Henry

By palmd on February 26, 2009.

Yesterday, a fellow medical blogger suffered a blow most of us cannot imagine. She goes by the name "drsmak" and was a great writer before her son fell ill, but when her son fell ill, her document of the struggle showed us how good the blogosphere can be. She allowed us a view of what it is like to love, and how that love is sometimes distilled into a painfully small elixir.

Drsmak did us all a great favor---she showed us how it is possible to survive the unsurvivable, and she has done it with great dignity and art. The blogosphere owes her a debt.

And you can help memorialize Henry, and show your respect for drsmak. The family has specified some charities to donate in his name. These charities benefit children with cancer, and some of them rely on large numbers of small donations.

I've never given a shout-out to a cause before, but kids with cancer---that's a big deal. And drsmak is a seriously important netizen. Go over to her blog (linked above) and read some of the pieces about her son. Then scoot on over and give a even a little bit in memory of Henry. It's the least we can do.

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Medical Musings
medicine

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All the most poignant memories I have of my training were from peds oncology. Very special people.

Thank you for this link, Pal. The death of my children is far and away the most devastating, frightening thing I can imagine. I imagine it as briefly and infrequently as possible, but I think most parents are powerless to keep such thoughts, however fleeting, from arising unbidden. Such fears are an inseparable component of parental love, I think.

It is nearly inconceivable to me, in the abstract, that I could survive such a loss, but I realize that parents must endure such things regrettably often, and reading Dr. Smak's poignant story brings a deeper understanding of this process. I am in awe of her courage, and my heart goes out to her and her family in their grief.