Unlikely Bedmates: Belief and Unbelief

I have stared at the ugly face of sickness and death more than I can remember in the 28 years that I have been a physician. I can work by the side of a child in the grip of death, doing everything to save his life – something like playing God, and not have one ounce of emotion to muddle my efforts. 

To be effective in treating patients in emergencies and life threatening situations, a doctor must remain unattached, unaffected and unperturbed by the condition of the patient and the demands of anxious relatives. Emotions are not allowed to cloud the mind and sway the decisions that could mean either life or death. Every second counts, and affected and wayward thoughts can spell disaster.

Doctors are trained to see into the future of a certain problem. They call this prognostication. By any given medical condition the doctor can assess how the patient would fare in the following days, weeks or months. It could be improvement, status quo, or a decline in the state of health and death.

Both situations mentioned above, through the years, have been deeply ingrained in my consciousness. Something that has been part of me to the point that even when my own mother lay with a dissecting Aortic aneurysm that was at the verge of rupturing, I attended to her devoid of emotion while at the same time conscious that I could do nothing to save her and that at any moment she would be gone. I may have deteriorated into a robot, but again to be effective in life threatening situations, doctors sometimes just have to be. 

This attitude could have never been a problem to deal with until I took up the role of intercessor. I mean praying to God for the healing of a dear friend who burst an artery in the brainstem. Any clinician will tell you that vascular accidents in this area of the brain are 99.9% fatal, just like a bullet entering the nape and exiting between the eyes.

Here I am asking God Almighty to perform a miracle for Tim and at the same time my doctor-brain tells me that Tim won’t make it. It’s nothing but belief and unbelief sharing the same narrow bed and elbowing each other throughout the sleepless night. I will admit that I am in dire need of a miracle as much as Tim is and I pray that God will pour out his unlimited mercy on us both.

July 18, 2016 update: 

While cycling from Bangkok to Siem Reap I got a message in the phone informing me that Tim finally passed on to life eternal. It may have given me some relief, knowing that Tim was now in a place where I too wanted to be, but I felt some sadness from the thought that the miracle that I was praying for, for the duration of four years didn't happen. Maybe this is how it really is in this life. We can't get all the answers.

Reminiscing:

Thoughts of the fateful event in April 2012 came back to me and I realized that Tim's life was destined to be interwoven into mine. It is because his cerebrovascular accident happened while he was watching my daughter and her band's concert. Kukie - my daughter, was also the first one at the scene of his fall.

This scene was just a few moments after Tim lapsed into a coma.
At this point Kukie was having quite a difficult time getting into the groove of her gig after witnessing Tim's fall.

Tim, we'll see you again in God's own time and make sure you cook us a kettle full of your famous chili con carne!