Positivity

Today I saw a very ill but very sweet patient who, lucky for me, happened to speak fantastic English. She had AIDS and was failing 2nd line therapy, was having trouble feeding and losing a significant amount of weight. She looked very, very thin but at the same time she looked different from many of the other severely wasted patients with AIDS that crowd the wards. The reason was her attitude. Despite her weakness she was friendly, always smiling, even chipper. She was incredibly patient and cooperative despite the many people poking and prodding her. She mentioned that she had not pooped in days because of pain and after she mentioned that she had "ulcers down there." We examined her and found extensive, significantly denuded ulcers across her vagina and anus. They looked so painful everyone in the room cringed. Yet she put a smile on her face despite the pain, and gave us more of her story so that all the medical students and residents in the room could learn from her case. I've seen so much depression and defeat among patients with AIDS so far, that it was both heartwarming to see her positivity, but also heartbreaking to realize that despite her attitude her prognosis was so bad.