ARE OUR DOCTORS COLD AND CALLOUS???

“Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.
Children born to a young man are like sharp arrows in a warrior’s hand.”
Psalm 127: 3 & 4

This post is written with due respect to our doctors and their profession.

Recently this has been on my mind, how can a doctor tell a woman that she will never be able to have children or that she should never get pregnant or try to have any more children.

A friend of mine was told by a doctor that she should never get pregnant. She said this was so hard to hear and she could never picture her life without children. As I sat and listened to her, something came over me, something so familiar because for many years, I was forced to picture my life without children and it was really one of the most difficult things I ever had to do. Today this friend is very pregnant, a difficult pregnancy of course but she is an ardent Christian and is totally relying on God to see her through this pregnancy. She should give birth in a couple of days.

There is someone else I know who had one child at the time and wanted another, her doctor told her she should not try to get pregnant again. Of course, she had her second child and both are doing fine up to this day and I am sure there are many other such stories out there.

I know these doctors are advising their patients against pregnancy because of medical issues that could endanger their lives and the lives of their babies, should they get pregnant, but I still think this is a cold and callous thing to do. Maybe they could find some other way of telling their patients news like this and have them involved in the process as much as possible. I am also thinking that probably, many doctors who are guilty of this are male and therefore will never be able to know what it feels like when a woman finds out she can never have children. I know this affects men too, but not in the same way as it affects women. For women, the pain is more raw and more personal. I guess it is because it is women who carry the pregnancies.

Another thing that doctors do is put timeline on people’s lives. When there is a diagnosis of a terminal illness, doctors tell their patients how much time they have left to live. As a Christian, who believes that God gives life and takes it away, this is one thing that I have a problem accepting. Senator Ted Kennedy was told he was lucky if he lived for six months after his brain tumor diagnosis and he lived fifteen months. The story was told at church on Sunday of a gentleman, a former pastor who was told he had five years to live after a surgery many years ago, and he lived twenty more years and I could go on and on with stories like these.

I cannot help but wonder if a doctor’s program of study trains them to be outright with people in such a callous way. I am all for honesty but I have a hard time dealing with honesty of this nature. I cannot imagine a doctor telling me how much time I have left to live because either I would die before the time the doctor give me from just mere fretting, or I turn the situation completely over to my Heavenly Physician. I am really hoping I would do the latter as one cannot say for sure what they would really do, until they are faced with the situation.

I was watching a television pastor once and he was telling a story that he recently went to his doctor for a check-up. His doctor took a chart and began calling out the names of some diseases and asked him if he had them in his family. Each time the pastor replied yes, the doctor ticked off a disease that he would most likely have to face in his life. The Pastor got angry, took the chart from the doctor and began going down the same list of diseases and ticking off as the doctor replied yes to them. The Pastor then said, well doc, I am just giving you an idea of how it feels to be putting timeline on people’s lives. He was simply saying, doc, you do not have that right, my Almighty God has the right to decide what diseases I get and how long a life he has afforded me here on earth. That story left an impression on me, as it happened many years ago and I am still able to relate it.

When I did my laparoscopy (surgery for PCOS) in 2002, I was so nervous and anxious. It was a minor surgery but there was nothing minor about the anxieties I was feeling. The mere fact that I had to go under anesthetic was enough to drive me crazy, that a few days after the surgery I broke out into a rash, which was later diagnosed as a type of eczema brought on by stress. I remember when I walked into the hospital lobby the morning of the surgery, a picture of a doctor with God bent over his shoulders, apparently giving him some instructions, caught my eye and that was the image I took with me into surgery. This gave me the reassurance I needed that I would have made it out of that surgery because I knew God was in charge, I trusted my doctor but I trust God more. I still use that image today whenever I find myself in situations like these. Let me say also that I was given a timeline after this surgery within which to get pregnant and when this timeline expired I was told that only invitro-fertilization could help me at this point. Well here I am today, I did not do invitro-fertilization and my husband and I are the proud parents of a vibrant and healthy two year old. Is'nt our God good.

Wow, a big mouthful indeed, but what I am really saying is that our doctors can only do for us what Almighty God entrusts them with and when they give us news that is difficult to hear, before we think it is the end, and especially if we are Christians, we should look to our Great Physician, our Head Physician and turn the situation over to him. I know in each of the cases above, these persons called on their Heavenly doctor for a second opinion and I strongly believe that, that is how they were able to rise above their conditions.

Be encouraged therefore and until next time, keep clinging to hope.