When there is no cure

It is a question I dread.  “Can you cure me?”  With general knowledge of disease here so poor, and belief in all kinds of weird and wonderful cures here so rife, it is a common one. 

I have built up something of a reputation for curing leg ulcers and preventing amputations.  The recent cure of a diabetic man who came with his foot literally a ball of pus, who had been told at the hospital the only alternative was a below knee amputation, has created quite a stir.  People are genuinely astonished that he is up and walking about again after 5 months of honey dressings. 

They are so astonished I have had several cancer patients brought to me hoping I can work a miracle for them.  The 60 year old man with advanced gastric cancer asked me the question.  “Can you cure me?  I am too weak to get up out of this wheelchair.  I just want something to give me energy.” 

It is a hard thing to take away someone´s hope.  But at some point surely the truth has to be faced.  This man cannot have many weeks left of his life.  I hope we helped him focus on spending those days in the company of his loved ones, rather than travelling the length and breadth of the country, exhausting himself more in the vain search for a cure. 

The 46 year old woman with terminal breast cancer´s brother asked me that question.  “Can you cure her?”  Her chest is covered in a huge fungating weeping cauliflower of a tumour.  It has been growing and spreading round her back for a year now.  The cancer hospital is waiting for some new drug to arrive from Switzerland as a final attempt to control it. 

I showed them how to dress it to stop the smell and the bleeding.  I gave her medication for her pain.  But this is no diabetic ulcer.  This is uncontrollable malignant cells running riot and causing havoc.  Distressing as it is – and it truly is distressing – I cannot cure it. 

But I can help them.  I can work with them and make her more comfortable.  I can give them someone to turn to for advice, someone to phone when she takes a turn for the worse.  I can touch her and listen to her and point her to the Saviour who loves her and offers her hope. 

The 32 year old woman with 3 children under 7 years old who is dying of cervical cancer asked me that question too.  She went to the cancer hospital first, had all the tests and was told there was nothing that could be done.  Then she went to the general hospital, without telling them she had already been to the cancer hospital, and went through all the tests again, only to be told again there was nothing that could be done.  She was sent home to die with no medications.  She was constantly vomiting and in pain.

“Can you cure me?”  That question laden with hope.  “I can stop you vomiting.  I can take away your pain.  I can help you sleep at night.” Was my reply.  But I cannot give her more days with her children. 

As we accompany these patients on their journey, as they accept their diagnosis and bravely try to make the most of the time they do have left, I hold on to the conviction that even when I cannot offer that cure they so desperately want, it is still worth doing what we can. 

I don´t know why one person dies aged 32 and another aged 102.  But I am convinced that this life is short for all of us in comparison with eternity.  I hold on to the hope that God can bring beauty from ashes, that beyond what we can see and touch there is something more wonderful yet to come. 

First Do No Harm

I was concerned to receive Johanna´s recent school report and discover her grades had fallen considerably.  So had her self-confidence. 

Johanna suffered a brain injury at birth which means she has always been partially sighted.  She has an 80% sight loss, but you would never think it to watch her running and climbing like any other girl her age.  You would only notice it when you watch her reading and notice her putting the book right up close to her face and squinting shut her eyes in order to make out the words. 

Johanna is very motivated to learn.  She wants to be able to finish Secondary School and work with young children.  She was crest-fallen to have done so badly in this term´s exams.  “I will be able to finish school, won´t I?” she asked her Mum.

I asked her Mum how Johanna had been health wise recently and the whole story came out.  The school had told Johanna´s Mum she was negligent for not taking her to see a neurologist every year, and had insisted she make her an appointment.  This duly done the neurologist in question had done a CT scan (which was reported as normal) and prescribed her medication for headaches. 

I looked at the medication and was horrified to see it was medicine for epilepsy.  Johanna does not have epilepsy in any shape or form.  Taking such powerful medications explains her lack of concentration and ability to perform at school this term.  And it had done nothing for her headaches, her only complaint. 

Education is so important.  Johanna has a non-progressive brain injury.  It will neither get better nor worse.  There is no medicine available to treat it.  She has learnt to adapt to her disability remarkably.  The primary law of medicine is First Do No Harm.  The doctors treating her need to understand this, rather than prescribing harmful, unnecessary drugs.  The teachers need to understand this rather than demanding unnecessary, detrimental interventions.  Her mother needs to understand this and be able to defend her daughter.  Johanna needs to be able to learn so that she can make something of herself in this life.

I hope I have persuaded Johanna´s mother to stop the medication and only give her paracetamol for headaches as and when they occur.  I think the next step may be to accompany her to the school to try and explain Johanna´s problems.  I don´t suppose I will ever understand why the neurologist prescribed the drug in the first place. 

Welcoming a baby boy into our world

Some babies are born into this world to be greeted by showers of clothes, cuddly toys and a Mother and Father longing to meet them at last and hold them in their arms.  They will never want for anything.  They will always have food on their plates, always have clothes in their drawers, will have every opportunity to study and learn, medicine if they are sick, and much, much more besides.  And isn´t this how it should be? 

But I know babies for whom this is not the case.  I know a little baby boy about to be born for whom this is not the case.  His mother, Sarita, is 17, but is only in her second year of Secondary School and greatly lacks emotional and mental maturity.  She has 4 younger siblings and lives with them and her mother in a house we built for them.  Her father abandoned them in pursuit of a younger woman with whom he was expecting yet another child.  Sarita´s mother has no work.  Sarita has no job, and insufficient education to secure one.  They do not always eat 3 meals a day.  The children´s schooling is paid for by sponsors.  Their clothes are donated to them. 

A married man started taking the family gifts of food.  The result was Sarita becoming pregnant.  The man in question has now fled and denies everything. 

Sarita has nothing and no means to provide for her baby.   This little baby will be born into this world with no clothes waiting for him, no snuggly blankets and certainly no cot or pram.  His mother will struggle to feed him.

I have already given away all my baby things or I would give her something… If anyone reading this has some boy baby clothes going spare, I would be very happy to make space in my suitcase when we visit the UK in December, to take back for Sarita´s little boy.  Please send them to Andrea Gardiner (Sarita), Headcorn, Erbusaig, Kyle of Lochalsh, Rossshire. IV40 8BB.  Let´s give this tiny baby a brighter welcome into this world of ours.  Thank you.