When the Physician Becomes the Patient

Ed Les is a pediatric emergency physician.  After four years in veterinary practice in Tupelo, Mississippi, he attended medical school at the University of Calgary, graduating in 1998.  He completed a pediatrics residency in Calgary and Australia, and followed that up with a fellowship in emergency medicine.  He has maintained a practice at Alberta Children's Hospital since 2004.  Dr. Les met his wife Sherri in medical school, and they live in Calgary with their three small girls and a dog.

Calgary, Alberta, Canada... It’s a spectacular  locale on the great Canadian prairies, blessed with incredibly wide-open skies and endless sunshine, nestled on the doorstep of the most magnificent soaring granite peaks the Rocky Mountains have to offer.  

However, tropical it is not, and January of 2007 was seasonably, bitterly cold  (felt like 90 degrees below zero, at least) and snowy.   I stayed warm with plenty of snow-shoveling, chasing after two small girls aged six months and 2 ½ years, and juggling the responsibilities of a busy pediatric emergency medicine practice.  My shift schedule consisted largely of nights, evenings, and weekends.

My wife, Sherri, also a physician, had just returned full-time to her obstetrical practice, and we had hired a nanny to help with the little ones.  Things were hopping to say the least.  And I was tired, always tired, and a teensy, weensy bit grumpy, just sometimes, hardly ever.  Sherri (I love her dearly), however, thought I was inordinately irritable, a real pain in the neck as a matter of fact.  Which was ironic, given that I HAD a real pain in the neck, bothersome for a couple of years, which I dismissed as the likely residua of banging a soccer ball for years with my head and surviving a couple of spectacular car crashes.  

Sherri was worried, however, and thought it might be contributing to my less-than-sunny disposition some days.  She’d been after me for months to get it checked out.  I started being troubled by a bit of nausea as well, so I called up a radiologist buddy who owned an MRI clinic and asked if he’d scan my neck, and just for good measure, to “do” my head as well.  I thought at most we’d find some disc problems, bone spurs, or something like that in my neck.

Well, we didn’t.  I had a big tumour growing from my 39-year-old skull-base, which had pinned my brainstem against my skull.... looked like a chordoma.  Now, I was a pretty good student in med school (a professional student, in point of fact – I had previously trained as and practiced as a veterinarian), but I had never heard of this pleasant little tumour.

Suffice it to say, we got a crash course in the niceties of chordoma and its implications.  I had a two-stage resection in Toronto, fought off meningitis and a few other complications, landed in Boston for eight weeks in the proton-beam rotisserie, and limped home to recover.  I do have some residual tumour, which we admire every three months on MRI.

I managed to return to my medical practice in January 2009, on a half-time basis, which I supplement by torturing medical students and residents with my teaching skills.  Oh, and, because our lives were not nearly complicated enough, we welcomed a third little girl, Peyton, in May 2008, to join her big sisters Megan and Taylor.  Guess I thought the radiation would somehow sideswipe my fertility, but my friends point out it was directed at points north! Really - I was an excellent medical student!

Kidding aside, there have been plenty of dark days, but we truly appreciate the blessing of every single day.  Trying to explain the change in perspective that occurs to someone whose life has never been so threatened is near impossible, but certainly the paradigm shift is not all bad.  If only we could all learn to treasure our moments without getting clubbed over the head with this particular shovel!

A major source of inspiration and real hope for us has been the work of the Chordoma Foundation.  Simone and Josh Sommer, and the many talented researchers they have recruited, refuse to relinquish their certainty that a cure is attainable, and soon.  The progress they have already made in two short years is astonishing; our challenge, and the challenge of all chordoma survivors and their loved ones, is to help to make sure their work continues apace.

Incidentally, for any Canucks reading this, Canadians can now make tax-deductible donations to the Chordoma Foundation, through Tides Canada (a “button” on the Chordoma Foundation website for Canadian donors will trigger this mechanism).  Canadian fundraisers can also send cheques and cash to Tides Canada - specify that the donation be ear-marked for the Chordoma Foundation.

As Josh Sommer, would say: “Onwards!  Good advice, especially for this neck of  the woods.  We had 2 inches of snow April 26.  If I stop moving, I’ll freeze.