One Brave Mama

Recently a fellow mother reached out to me in hopes of spreading her awesome story with more folks. Heather was diagnosed with a rare type of lung cancer when her daughter was still a newborn but now, 7 years later, is alive and cancer-free! Her aim is to turn her pain into purpose and educate people about Mesothelioma. I wanted to share the link to her blog here so you can see for yourself the amazing journey Heather has experienced. Enjoy!

The Election and Abortion

Lots of folks have asked me what I think about the election, specifically the Affordable Care debacle and my honest answer is "I don't know." I have no idea what the plan means and how it will play out in the real world for better or for worse. I haven't the time to read the legislation or even search for an unbiased review of it, so I've just tabled the issue. Kind of irresponsible of me, I know. Many of my patients, however, have been compelled to lay it all out for me. Both staunch republicans and bleeding heart democrats  have "explained" so-called ObamaCare for me and my answer to them is always the same. "I wish it was that simple." Because while I don't know what ObamaCare means, I do know we desperately need change in our healthcare system and I don't know what the right plan looks like.
 
I haven't watched any of the debates or commercials or commentary shows so while the rest of America is so over the campaigns, I haven't the slightest idea what's going on. Hard to believe I was once SO into government and politics that I registered people to vote and sponsored petitions for candidates I believed in (i.e. John McCain). There are a few things I feel sure of. I'm ready to be done with the Middle East, I'm against the death penalty, I do not believe same-sex marriage is a legal issue and thus there should not be laws against it and finally, one of my most passionate beliefs is that something is fundamentally awry with a country that condones routine abortion of unborn babies. 
 
I've been Pro-Life for a long time, but I've seen enough to know its a complicated issue. While I wish it was different, I know there are times when I couldn't look a woman in her eyes and tell her she would be "wrong" to have an abortion. Those situations, however, are few and far between. At least in my little microcosm. Mostly what I see is abortion being used as birth control or as a measure of desperation to atone for poor choices. Seeing a patient with multiple elective terminations in her past breaks my heart. For those babies. And mostly for her.
 
I am guilty of being a judge when I certainly have no business doing so. When I see a patient with multiple abortions in her past, I judge her as harsh and cold and unloving and selfish. I think about my friends who can't get pregnant, who would love to adopt and blame this young and wounded woman--I self righteously think, she didn't want the baby but didn't want anyone else to have the baby either. Then I remember the hurt and confusion she must have felt and is probably still wrestling with. And I try to be gracious and love on her. But the Lord knows I'm a work in progress, a very messy one.
 
I have an amazing memory from residency that makes me tear up just thinking about it. I think I was a 2nd year and one of my patients came in with the devastating (to her) news that she was pregnant. I had seen her with her 2 young boys and she was an incredible mom. Single and struggling and incredible. But this most recent pregnancy was the straw that broke her back and she was already having pain and nausea and just too tired to deal with life. So she had decided to deal with it the best way she knew how. She was planning to electively terminate her pregnancy. Patients would often come to our clinic for their ultrasound to make sure they were less than 12 weeks to know if they could still terminate. So that was why she was there. We talked a lot and I encouraged her, telling her I'd seen her with her boys and knew what a great job she was doing. I could tell she was already emotional about the whole thing...not believing she had made this decision but also having no clue how she could do life with another child. Then we looked at the baby. I spent a lot of time on the ultrasound--the baby was so active! We spent quite a while on little butterbean's heart beat, which was perfect and rhythmic and beautiful. I went over his crown-rump length with agonizing detail and she was really enjoying seeing the baby. After a full exam, I was able to treat the UTI that was causing some of her pain and I asked her to give it a week to see if the pain improved and we could talk about her plans then. Fast forward 9 months...she had a beautiful and healthy baby boy. Her third :)

I was that baby's doctor and she told me how in love with him she was and how thankful she was to have him. It was so good for my soul to have been a part of her life. And that baby was a precious gift!

That story is lovely and heartwarming and I wish they all ended like that. Sadly, life is hard. I think its ignorant to assume all abortion is wrong and even more so to think that anyone who would have an abortion is bad. Above all things, God is love. Love not only for unborn babies, but also for the wounded among us. Because aren't we all wounded somehow?

I'm so thankful to be the hands of Jesus to my patients. I let Him down more often than not but sometimes by His grace, I let Him shine through. What an amazing God we serve!

 

Our God Reigns

Yes, Our God Reigns. 

I know it, but its hard to remember that on Monday morning. When a 14 year old is asking me about condoms and a 33 year old is crying because I just told her she has chlamydia (and unbeknownst to her, I treated her boyfriend for the same last week...). Or the chronic pain patient who just can't get enough oxycodone and is undoubtedly treating more than physical pain, just wanting the pills to make all the other pains go away too. I see this pain and I want to scream, "God, do you really reign? Are you really in control?" People are hurting every day; they've been abandoned, manipulated and they are struggling to pick up the pieces of their lives and lack the skills to do so. So they come see me. And this is where my role is best served, not as a physician, but as a believer, a fellow struggler, parent, daughter, sister...an average sinner.

These struggles, this hardship I see on the faces of so many everyday brings to mind a Bible study we did five years ago when a friend posed a question: why did Jesus have to die on the cross? If God is all powerful, couldn't he have washed our sins away without His Son having to DIE? In such PAIN? Our friend seemed especially perplexed and appeared to doubt God's strength and power because of it.

I was kind of annoyed. I knew our care group leaders could answer this question beautifully without blinking an eye--that's how brilliant and gifted this couple was. But they NEVER offered this explanation--the answer that I now know to be true.  I'm usually a roll-with-it type of gal so I was just rollin' with it. It happened the way it happened just because it did and there's no use asking questions, right? But he continued to question. And I became even more annoyed by his doubt. Each week, in an effort to get him to move on, I offered up some completely inadequate explanation. In the meantime, our group leaders asked questions right along with him, prayed with him, explored parallel ideas, wrestled with him. Over the years, I've continued to grow in my walk and know I still have so far to go but it wasn't until recently that I realized our friend was a lot like Jacob.

Ann Voskamp, master storyteller, relates in her amazing book One Thousand Gifts how she tells her son about Jacob's own wrestle with God-not letting go until God shows his face. These days I'm nearer to God and still too far away and I wrestle with Him, too.

Yes, God, You reign.

But why do you allow so many of your children to suffer?

Why do millions go without water to drink?

Why do children starve to death every day?

Why are children orphaned every day when AIDs rips their parents away--knowing that anti-virals could save their lives--yet such a simple solution is too expensive?

Why are children all over the lowcountry living in homes with drugs and guns and addiction and violence?

Why do lost people walk out of my office everyday with a prescription for medicine but without hearing the gospel? 

I don't know the answer to these questions, but I do know Jesus Christ is the only hope for mankind. And we have been called to right these wrongs in God's name. Every single one of us has a job to do.

Lord, I am convicted. Keep me convicted. Break my heart for what breaks yours and move me to do something about it. Make me move when I feel the Spirit moving me and crush that feeling of anxiety when I fear someone will ask something of me that makes me uncomfortable. Let me be your hands and feet. God has left me here to leave a mark. Let me leave a mark in His Holy Name.