Between Hope and Grief: A Medical Memoir of Father, Son, and Family

By GEORGE BEAUREGARD

This piece is different from the typical “health-care industry” topics covered in this forum. 

My Sunday morning routine usually involves getting a cup of coffee and downloading the most recent editions of magazines on my iPad.

The cover of the February 13 edition of Time magazine immediately caught my attention because the title read “OUR CANCER MYSTERY. WHY IT’S NOW STRIKING US SO YOUNG’’. Four people are on the cover: their names, cancer types, and age at diagnosis displayed. 18 to 40. I imagine that the majority of readers might describe their expressions as neutral and composed, their posture calm.

But I see what exists below the restrained surfaces. Something I am all too familiar with. Disbelief. Worry, Bewilderment. Uncertainty. Sadness.

Although overdue, a major news magazine had finally put it out there, front and center. A call to action.

On September 14, 2017, I was standing in a hospital room in Boston, when my previously healthy son, Patrick, then 29, received the shocking news that he probably had stage 4 colorectal cancer, which further tests confirmed. That grave diagnosis came with a bleak 14 percent relative 5-year survival rate. Like the cognitive simulation of Schrödinger’s cat, my beloved son’s life now lay in a sealed box, with a hammer hovering over a flask of toxin. Would it fall, smash the vial, and kill my son? I could only be an observer. I desperately wanted to be the one in the box instead of him.

Fatherhood and medicine are integral to my identity. Throughout the three years during which he received superb care at Dana Farber Cancer Institute,  in Boston, I had to be his father first, offering emotional support with love and hope. The physician adviser part was a secondary role.

Despite his indomitable spirit, positivity and best efforts, Patrick took his last breath on September 6, 2020, in his childhood home, Although relieved that his suffering was over, I was caught in immense sorrow, not yet realizing that eventually acceptance would slowly weave itself through the grief,  and I would gain a nuanced understanding of “before and after.’’

As I mentioned in my 12/6/2024 piece in this forum, I hadn’t thought very much about early-onset cancer during many of the  years that I was in clinical practice and as a physician executive.( I had categorized my experience with bladder cancer at 49 as an anomaly.) But that has changed in the past few years, during which the rising incidence of cancer in younger adults has been, first, in the scientific and medical literature and then sporadically in the broad national news, especially since the summer of 2023. But millions of people still have no idea that this is happening. 

Writing is how I express myself best, so in early 2020, I started writing to help myself navigate what was happening to Patrick. As the global phenomenon of early-onset cancers expanded, I felt compelled to tell my son’s inspirational story and raise awareness of early-onset cancer and  the need to dramatically expand screening for it. Over three years, I wrote a book titled RESERVATIONS for NINE: A DOCTOR’S FAMILY CONFRONTS CANCER, published earlier this month and timed to CRC Awareness Month. A labor of love and grief, it’s a book about family, love, loss, science and spirituality. Craig Melvin, NBC’s TODAY Show co-anchor, graciously wrote the foreword. Three months after my son passed away, Craig lost his 43-year-old brother to the same disease.

Many books have been written about cancer. From a patient undergoing treatment, to a family member or other caregiver, to a doctor treating a patient, to a researcher looking to change the trajectory of those being diagnosed and treated. But this one is unique. Part memoir and tribute, interspersed with journal entries by my son and others in my family. Part medical saga, the book aims to educate the public about the dangerous global rise in early-onset cancers, and  to help provide a roadmap by example of loved ones going through cancer battles, and a call to action to the medical community to get ahead of this crisis. 

My son’s life shouldn’t be defined by cancer, but, rather, how he responded to it. Most inspirational was how he became a strong public advocate of screening  and funding for cancer research.

I hope that readers of THCB can find the time to share the messages of this book with family, friends and colleagues.

Thank you, Matthew and THCB for providing this forum to present my story.

My website is https://www.georgebeauregard.com and you can buy the book there or on Amazon. My appearance on the Today show is here.

George Beauregard, DO is an Internal Medicine physician whose experience includes 20+ years of clinical practice as well as leading organizations strategic and clinical initiatives