“Maybe tomorrow you can be discharged,” the doctor leading my team said to the patient. I’d lost track of how many days in a row he had said that.

The patient had cancer and was undergoing treatment. Did you know that chemo is poison? We use it hoping to destroy cancer before we destroy the person who has the cancer. Chemo saves lives. Chemo causes all kinds of side effects. Chemo often works. Chemo doesn’t always work.

This patient was neutropenic which means that they had no white blood cells to fight infection. No white blood cells to fight infection means even the wimpiest infection could kill them. To avoid death by infection, they needed to stay in the hospital for IV antibiotics and monitoring every time they had a fever.

We couldn’t find the cause of their fever. No source of infection. 24 hours without a fever, “Maybe tomorrow you can discharge, you just need to be 48 hours without a fever to go home,” my supervising doctor said to the patient.

The patient’s red blood cell count dropped so they needed a blood transfusion. Were they bleeding? “Maybe tomorrow you can discharge, if you don’t need another transfusion.”

 They also had a rash. Was that from chemo, cancer, or something else? It was a really uncomfortable-looking rash. Blisters and red all over their torso. “Maybe tomorrow.”

The “maybe tomorrows” dragged on. All the patient wanted to do was go home. They wanted to have some control over their life. They wanted to feel the breeze on their cheeks. They wanted to live. They wanted to see their friends and family. But cancer is a tricky beast. It takes one’s freedom and lands one in the hospital more days than anyone would ever choose.

But, at last, tomorrow did come. We were all happy when the supervising doctor said the patient could leave the hospital. The patient was excited to go home. No one mentioned that it was only a matter of time before they’d be back to start another string of maybe tomorrows. Sometimes there’s no point in saying things that everyone already knows. No need to speak the unpleasant into existence. It will come when it comes.

The patients and families on the cancer wards are among the strongest people you’ll ever meet. Their strength is like the endurance of ultramarathoners, not sprinters. Their strength is one of days running into weeks running into months. Counting the years. Their strength is one of setbacks and small victories. Of bodies changed and freedom lost to be reinvented. Their strength is keeping hope for tomorrow while knowing that it may never come.