The waiting room.

R oman had been in the hospital for 7 days, and no one had visited him. He had been diagnosed with meta-static lung cancer after losing pounds from an already thin frame. He had not been very active since retirement, but the cancer left him even more sedentary, and he had to move into a nursing home. He was admitted to us on this occasion with pneumonia. Because the infection was located in his upper lung, we uncovered a distant history of tuberculosis exposure and moved him to a negative-pressure isolation room. Each morning, wearing suffocating baby-blue isolation masks, we entered one door and knocked on the second to find our patient hidden inside, wooden and silent like a Russian doll. He did not have many hobbies and was not much of a reader. Most mornings we would find him lying in bed and staring at the ceiling, wearing thick glasses that seemed to weigh more than he did and left moist, red welts on the bridge of his nose. Roman was 68 years old. He had worked as a carpenter , then as a welder, and finally as a salesman. He had served in the Army but did not talk much about his experience. His wife had died 10 years ago, and he had been living alone until the cancer left him too weak to manage on his own. Years ago, he had been told that he had diabetes and made a point of staying away from cookies and potatoes. He also smoked heavily and was never able to kick the habit. He realized he had only months left, and his voice was steady when saying he was not ready to give up. He wanted to live as long as possible and wanted " everything done. " His hospital room was like a waiting room— clean, sterile, and value-neutral to the point of blandness. It was meticulously devoid of any of the signs that accompany patients with histories. There were no red-eyed pictures of sons, aunts, adoptive grandparents, hard-smiling mothers, or half-lidded uncles. There were no oddly shaped, dark wood trinkets from the Caribbean. There were no bowls or plates, no collection of glass figurines or mugs. Each morning, we stuffed ourselves into our masks and then into this borrowed room and asked what we could do to make him more comfortable. Perhaps a magazine , a chaplain, or …