A Reminder to JB, Ali, and Me

The photo below shows JB (right), my second son, and Ali, my niece. They are now both resident doctors in the US.

In my February 1 entry, I wrote about instant doctors and the warm caring they give spontaneously. One reader quickly affirmed this and mentioned her own instant doctors—circles of precious friends who heal, not often physically but always emotionally, making a hurting someone feel a whole lot better.

Won’t it be wonderful if these instant doctors were real, licensed doctors? You see, some of the real doctors we consult—not by choice but by reasons of our HMO or their availability—don’t come close.

One real doctor caused me pain and I hurt within a hundred steps from her clinic.

There, I got that off my chest.

Twenty four hours earlier, I was humped over my computer, shut off from the world outside. Suddenly I saw a mosquito on the right side of my face, about three to four inches away. I tried to clap it dead or wave it off but it wouldn't go away. Wherever I looked, it circled my right eye. It didn't take long before I realized it was not a mosquito but a shadow that looked and flitted like a mosquito.

What's wrong with my eye? Am I going blind? Or is it my brain? Am I seeing things?

One of my instant doctors, youngest son JR, said, "Turn off the computer, Mom, and close your eyes."

My husband, another instant doctor, added his prescription. "Sleep it off; it will be gone in the morning. It’s just computer strain."

I jumped into bed and slept 12 straight hours. When I woke up for my five AM walk, everything was still in shadows. But there it was, the mosquito! It came with me in my walk, at breakfast, in the bathroom—all over.

I called Casa Medica at SM Southmall and was told that an ophthalmologist, accredited by my HMO, has consultation hours late in the afternoon. So all day I had to live with my questions, mutating every second.

Will I still be able to write? Or will I simply dictate my thoughts to someone? Will I finish my books before I lose my eyesight? How can I live without reading or watching American Idol? What will happen to my paints? And my blog?! Plus a million more questions.

Still swimming in the deep end of worry, I heard the ophthalmologist arrive, two hours late. As soon as my turn came, I rushed into her clinic and forgot to close the door.

"Shut the door," she said, writing on her pad and not looking at me.

Uh, oh, she's had a long day, I thought.

"Sit down," she said, a bit curt for my fragile nerves. "Not there, here," she added.

I looked around and bigger-than-life eye illustrations stared at me. I looked at her face and her colder-than-ice mien bored through me. Smile isn’t part of her regimen, I noted.

"What's your problem?" she asked.

I’d have retorted, "What's yours?" but dry humor isn’t part of my own regimen. "There is this pesky mosquito hovering over my right eye."

"Floater," she burst and grabbed a leaflet showing a big eye and all its veins in full color. The word sounded like a dread disease and her movement seemed like emergency.

"Oh, my God!" escaped from my ashen mouth.

"Don't say, 'Oh, my God!'" she snapped, as though I had uttered a four-letter epithet. "I will explain."

I thought she meant I should stop using the Lord's name in vain so I silently said a quick prayer for forgiveness.

But she meant no such thing. She was saying, or it sounded like she was saying, "Stop breathing while I talk." Her mouth was taut and her eyes were sharp; her every word sounded like a pellet from a shotgun. "Don't say, ‘Oh, my God’,’" she popped again, as though I had committed a crime punishable by execution.

"You will not go blind, okay, okay? Your eye is made up of gelatin bound tightly. When a shred of it loosens, it floats,” she said while her pen heavily pointed to the vein-like structures on the eye illustration. “That's why it's called a floater. When it floats across the range of your pupil, you see a tiny shadow."

I locked my mouth so no word, or sound, will come past it. What she said was all great news but the way she said it sounded like disaster of tsunamic proportions.

"That floater doesn't go away very quickly. You’re lucky you only have one. Buy this solution," she said, scribbling on her prescription pad. “One drop twice a day to hasten the healing.”

I wanted to ask, “Should I stay away from my computer for a while? Should I go easy on my reading?” But the way she flicked the prescription sheet made me stand up quickly. She didn’t say, "Now, out of my clinic!" neither did she utter anything out of turn but she invited silence.

I mumbled, thank you, which is an important part of my regimen, but not too loudly—careful not to attract more pellets in my direction.

Despite the wonderful news, for which I silently said a prayer of thanksgiving, I felt no better when I went out than when I came in.

You’re making too much of it, I admonished myself. I’ve heard similar real doctor stories from friends in the past but I laughed them off, saying, “You’re making too much of it.”

What could have worked me up?

Job description. With every job come responsibilities. Whether you are a bank teller, a messenger, a lawyer, a plumber, or a creative writer, your calling requires the best that you can do: excellence.

How about a doctor? She helps heal (total healing is the sole choice of our Creator) and care for the sick. Failing or passing that, she makes a patient feel better. That might be too simplistic, but each of my doctors, except this new one, made me feel better just by his presence, even without detailed explanation of what was wrong; or even when I was told, “You need immediate surgery for your gall stones.” I hold them with deep affection.

On top of a job description, doctors take the Hippocratic Oath (now in various versions, but with the same essence). Let me quote parts of it:

I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant: . . . I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug . . . I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family . . . If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

Why do I know about the Hippocratic oath? JB and Ali, new graduates of Medicine, both took the sacred oath, an invaluable moral guide. For me, no other profession has as much emphasis on humanity; doctors are God’s hands on earth to help heal and care for the ailing.

Due to busyness, whining patients, failed diagnosis, non-paying HMO (or for whatever reasonable reason), have some doctors made this oath a meaningless relic?

After a deep, deep breath a hundred steps away from the ophthalmologist’s clinic, I decided I’m helpless to do anything about which I cannot change, except to come to terms with it—and not allow such encounters to rile me any more than it did.

Then, in His own perfect timing, God’s grace turned on my light bulb, and I found what I can do with those who are within the circle of my influence—people who are an email or phone call away: JB and Ali, young doctors brought up to have a good heart.

I will remind them to never, ever, lose the joy of healing the people who seek their help. I’ll tell them (as I tell myself) to etch in their hearts the ultimate job description for those who believe in and serve the great Healer Himself. It is found in Philippians 4:8 (ESV), “. . . whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”