《First in Human》：当医生和患者相互感恩

Steven Rosenberg, MD, PhD, Chief, Surgery Branch

I wish I could tell you that when I lay awake at night, I think of the patients whose cancers disappeared, but that's not what I think about.

I think about all the patients who did not respond, whose families had to watch their cancers progress, who went on to die of their cancers. And so, there's just too much left to do.

Rosenberg

If I had any Philosophy at all that guided what I'm doing, it's keep at it and be optimistic. Because you encounter so many disappointments in patients who do not respond, each one is a crushing blow.

Terry Fry

When I have these difficult conversations with patients, you know, and treatment didn't work, the cancer's come back. I have flashbacks to being on the other side of the table, when my wife was diagnosed with a rare cancer.

You know, at that moment, I spent some time, a little unsure to whether, you know, I'd eventually, be able to go back and do the work that I did. But she was always about giving back. It was a mantra that she lived by her whole life.

Honestly, I mean, what ultimately drove me to come back and do what I do was...was not what she said, but, you know, she was.

Fry和Bo的difficult conversation：

Fry: When you enroll on these sorts of trials, you do it with all the uncertainty about whether it's gonna help you. And there's no way that I know what it's like sitting in your shoes.

Bo: CAR-T cell therapy never cured me, but it kept me alive. We just don't know why yet, it's just too early. I...I always understood that, and it's going to cure other people, I have no doubts. At the very least, we're gonna help people and, I mean, that's what you're trying to do, and that's what I always try to do. That's I why became a firefighter, to help people.

Fry: And it's humbling to hear that and it's also hard because, you know, when I get to know patients as well as I've gotten to know you, you know, to be as close as we were, it's hard. There's no doubt that it was beneficial, incredibly helpful, you know, from the standpoint of the trial, and will certainly help with the development of this therapy. I...I'm very optimistic. But it doesn't change the fact that I hoped that it would have more of an impact for you.

Anita

Participating in that TIL treatment gave me more time. We talk about kind of kicking the can down the road, you know, just kick it a little further, and a little further, and a little bit further.

You start to see everything as a gift, and ever...everything is precious and that every moment, and so, you don't wanna waste anything, not a bit do you wanna waste.

Stephanie Goff, MD, Surgical Oncologist

When we start contemplating the fact that a treatment hasn't worked, it's difficult on the entire team. But that doesn't mean we're stopping. It means we keep our nose to the grindstone, and we keep working.

What Anita is giving us, we're gonna translate into findings, that are gonna help people 20 years from now. Anita is always and will be the woman that I helped take care of, the patient that I treated, that young mother with a beautiful family.

When you step into the lab, she becomes a series of numbers. But over time, those numbers are gonna be her legacy here.

整部纪录片挑选的都是坚强、乐观，且亲友不离不弃的患者，他们对生的渴望和死神降临的无奈形成了巨大冲突，Anita曾说，她不畏惧死亡，她只是还想继续扮演母亲和妻子的角色；Bo也是，他们与死亡相伴惯了，但仍不想年纪轻轻就离开，丢下父母妻子，丢下曾经的同事战友，他仍希望去格斗，去救火，去帮助更多的人。

所以，当看到最后一集看到有的人在多次治疗好转后依然不能根除，我在屏幕前哭得像狗一样，就是，你明知道结果多数是无奈的，但当看到无奈的时候，还是会哭得像狗，Bo甚至连那次残忍对话的录像都不愿放出。

Dr. Fry在Bo的白血病细胞降到仅剩0.01%的时候曾经说过，希望你们知道，我通常不会表现得太激动，我在这里工作得太久了，见过太多，但我现在的确为你们激动。

“见过太多”四个字是多么无奈，而Bo后来也不意外地，成为了“太多”中的一员。

NIH充满了希望，NIH也充满了最后的死刑宣判，但因为是最后一搏，无论结果如何，医患之间仍旧相互充满感恩。

健康是注定无法常相伴的东西，愿每个人都能抓住幸福的光。