The day before medical school began, I found out my dad was in the ICU.
The youngest of four siblings, he immigrated to the U.S. from South Korea fourteen years ago. When I got scared as a child, he would say “strawberries strawberries strawberries” over and over again to help me remember my favorite things. When I quarantined at home during COVID, he would give me driving lessons throughout the Blue Ridge Parkway each Sunday. There would always be a bowl of cut-up watermelon in the fridge because he knows what I love. We hung a hammock from a tree in the backyard together, lined up for the COVID vaccine together, drove up to Philly together, and ate jajangmyeon at H-Mart together. In my new Philly apartment, there is a framed selfie of my mom, my dad, and me when they helped me move in. Little did I know how little time I have left with my dad.
The beginning of classes coincided with the beginning of my dad’s hospitalization. As I learned about the molecular basis of cancer, he experienced its agonizing symptoms as he waited on lab tests and treatments and hospital transfers and so forth. Words like jaundice, edema, and biopsy became layered with grief. The tenor of my daily questions evolved from “Which cream cheese spread do I get?” to “Will Dad’s tumor spread?”. I wondered aloud, “How do I navigate the new reality of him belonging to the camp of the immunocompromised?” “Should I even consider going home for Thanksgiving and risk spreading the Delta variant to him?”
Paradoxically, his cancer diagnosis was both devastating and grounding. I learned that the hospital lanyard around my neck does not confer a cloak of immortality, and my loved ones and I are just as vulnerable to sickness as anyone else. By the virtue of our humanity, we all enter and leave the world as patients. At the same time, I am not helpless. Medicine is the path I chose to fight against the problem of suffering. Though studying and suffering might seem disjointed at times, this medical education will ultimately equip me to take care of patients like my dad. When I walk through the JMEC atrium between classes, I look up at the sky and remember it was my dream just to be here. Only after I look beyond my little bubble of classes and preoccupation over my daily to-do list do I become aware of the PennSTAR helicopters flying overhead, urgently escorting the hopes and fears of patients and loved ones, a solemn reminder of my own future role in fighting for their healing.
One day after classes, I invited my friends over for afternoon tea. When I had ordered a yellow cast iron teapot for the occasion, I noticed my dad had ordered a black walking cane on our family Amazon account. The notion of him becoming dependent on a cane stunned me, and I mourned the loss. And yet, it was also true that I became delighted when my friends and I baked almond croissants and enjoyed Genmaicha tea in the yellow teapot together.
I wonder if suffering well includes simultaneously holding the delight of a teapot on one hand and the devastation of a cane on the other. Wonder and woe can coexist quite beautifully. For instance, my dad was not well enough to travel to Philly for the White Coat Ceremony. As I eagerly took family pictures for my classmates and their loved ones, I participated in their celebratory laughter and quieted my private longing for my dad’s physical presence. But then, my phone buzzed with his recording of the moment when I went up to the stage and shared my “fun fact.” My dad had virtually watched me say, “My name is Rebekah. My Korean name means ‘grace flowing like a river,’ and I want to thank my parents who gave me that name.” He was present with me. He congratulated me and told me he was proud of me, and that he loved me.
On the first day of anatomy dissection, my lab partner and I discovered a subcutaneous port for chemotherapy on the cadaver we were assigned. As a professor explained its function and cut it away from the connective tissue, I realized the possibility of my dad getting a port similar to the one the cadaver had. Death and dying had never seemed more immediate. I could no longer hold back the tears as I asked the professor, “Do you know what kind of cancer this person had?” He didn’t know. Hoping my mask and my face shield would obscure my sorrow, I resumed working. But my lab partner saw. She suggested, “Do you want to step outside for a bit?” In the restroom, she gently handed me a paper towel, and we exchanged a formaldehyde-infused hug. The professor had parsed my garbled words in attempts to explain my reaction and checked in on us multiple times. After the lab period, another friend from our lab dissection group was waiting outside the door, holding up a sign with our names as though she were picking us up from the airport. In the midst of my woe, I wondered at the kindness of my friends and the professor. Precious moments of such strange paradoxes are what I hope to remember about the beginning of my family’s pursuit of healing.
Rebekah Chun is an MS1 at the Perelman School of Medicine.
Image also by Rebekah Chun.
