Combien de temps me reste-t-il? "I can't go on. I will go on" (NY Times)

Un texte triste et dur pour un dimanche? Peut-être, mais surtout un texte pertinent. Il s'agit de la réflexion d'un neurochirurgien de 36 ans sur sa maladie et les pronostics des médecins. Pour les personnes atteintes de cancer, la question que ce médecin se pose oriente bien des choix et/ou des comportements. Pourtant, rares sont les médecins qui osent avancer une réponse. En sont-ils incapables?  Non, ils s'y refusent probablement parce que c'est mieux ainsi... L'angoisse de la mort ne trouve pas de réponse dans les statistiques. Dans sa quête de sens et/ou de motivation l'auteur s'en remet à cette phrase de Samuel Beckett: "I can't go on, I will go on".

 "The reason doctors don’t give patients specific prognoses is not merely because they cannot. Certainly, if a patient’s expectations are way out of the bounds of probability — someone expecting to live to 130, or someone thinking his benign skin spots are signs of impending death — doctors are entrusted to bring that person’s expectations into the realm of reasonable possibility.

 But the range of what is reasonably possible is just so wide. Based on today’s therapies, I might die within two years, or I might make it to 10. If you add in the uncertainty based on new therapies available in two or three years, that range may be completely different. Faced with mortality, scientific knowledge can provide only an ounce of certainty: Yes, you will die. But one wants a full pound of certainty, and that is not on offer.

 What patients seek is not scientific knowledge doctors hide, but existential authenticity each must find on her own. Getting too deep into statistics is like trying to quench a thirst with salty water. The angst of facing mortality has no remedy in probability.

 http://app.nytimes.com/#2014/01/26/sundayreview/how-long-have-i-got-left