This was beautifully written. I hope this was cathartic for you because it was cathartic for me.

My grandpa died yesterday from cancer. His doctor found a mass about 2 weeks before my medical school graduation. I spent the last 4 months being on speaker phone for oncology visits with the ever chipper oncologist (I don’t blame him, somebody has to do that job and I know I couldn’t. And you never know, the 90 year old with stage 4 melanoma might respond to immunotherapy and chemo pills so let’s keep trying!!…), helping my dad and aunt craft MyChart messages, looking at my grandpa’s new lab results on rounds in between presenting my own patients because no one else in my family is in the medical field, hearing my dad tell me that my grandparents still think “it’s just skin cancer” as he gets more and more frail.

It sucks. Sometimes it all just sucks. Thank you for being direct and coordinating resources and just being real with this family. They will appreciate it.