I was initially going to write an entry about a rough day I was having and how really it wasn't rough at all compared to some of the difficulties my patients were facing. I get my point but, man, to be honest it’s tough seeing death before you and it can all be very bleak no matter who you are - patient, clinician, family, friends, sideliner. There were several patients that made yesterday tougher than normal. One of my patients had Leukemia and was admitted due to a sudden onset of excrutiating abdominal pain. All she wanted though, was to be able to attend her only son’s wedding in December, all of which would only be possible if the doctors could: 1) figure out what was wrong with her stomach problems, 2) successfully treat her stomach, 3) successfully give her a bone marrow transplant. My heart went out to her. There’s so much loss of control when you get cancer, and I think what makes it one of the worse diseases is that when you get it you know exactly what’s going on the whole time. Other diseases sometimes leaves you incapable of moving about or thinking coherently in the world, but with cancer you may possibly live a normal life but with the continual afterthought that these are your last days. It’s got to be pretty frightening. ........................................ What keeps coming to my mind is that passage about Lazarus, Mary, and Martha. Chen Ye-Ye seems to have done a good job in drilling that passage in my mind. The phrase that continues to pop up is this: “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.” In all these cases I feel hopeless. I’m ashamed to say it but I feel more hopeless than the patients and probably the doctors. These people will die, maybe not now, but it will end sooner than they should. Or more like, sooner than what I’d want. I touched the hands and legs of my patient and couldn’t help but think to myself that this softness and the warmth of the blood flowing through her body may cease. That she may cease to exist. “Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’” When I pray to God, do I take his answers for real? Throughout the gospels Jesus speaks both figuratively and literally yet it’s so difficult to grasp the literalness of all his words. “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” Do I believe this? He is life and he gives us life. He has the power to heal, to raise up sick, cancer-ridden souls from the dead. He also says when we believe we “will never die”. If I can semi-understand the first part and see that Jesus was being VERY literal, why can’t I grasp this last part? We will never die. We will never die. And Relient K's words continue to resound in my ear, Stay with me until my life is through, and on that day please take me home with you. |