Friday, July 16, 2004
The Power of Medical Experts
An expert is a person who can talk you into something that otherwise, in your right mind, you’d never ever consider doing. I came up with this definition not long ago in my doctor’s office. The doctor had just described a little procedure he wanted to run. I said, “You want me to drink what? And then you’re going to do what?” But, hey, he’s the expert. Pour me another round! Bottoms up!
Medical experts have an amazing amount of control over our lives. My mild-mannered doctor kept to himself the name of the disease he was investigating on my behalf, and I didn’t get to meet the specialist who performed the alarming procedure until about three minutes before he opened the valve that sent the anaesthetic into my veins. I certainly didn’t feel very powerful during this process.
Then there’s the fear of illness itself. In the specialist’s waiting room some medical pamphlets about the diagnostic procedure clearly linked it to the particular grave disease I thought my doctor had in mind. We patients were a somber bunch out there, propped up by the professionalism of the staff and by the steady and caring presence of family members and friends. It’s best not to think about disease, or see an expert, alone.
Soon enough I was in a robe on a gurney beside a bank of instruments. The nurse and specialist introduced themselves. They asked if I had any questions, and we had a brief moment of small talk. I guessed that the anaesthetic was kicking in. When the doctor asked me to roll over onto my left side, I wasn’t sure I could remember which side that was.
When I opened my eyes, I was in the recovery room. As my wife waited for me there, I suspect she had worried in her heart over the deep challenge of the wedding vows: In sickness and in health, till death do us part. Yet she betrayed no doubts or weakness, and so when I saw her face there and heard her steady voice, I felt safe enough to close my eyes again.
Somewhere along the way, the specialist brought in the good news. That little bit of blood my doctor was trying to account for came not from the grave disease mentioned so coolly in the pamphlet but from a common, old-fashioned, harmless complaint. I had the reprieve we all hope for, the one we struggle to admit is only temporary.
On the way home, and later that day, the news continued to sink in. In the front yard, under a big blue and white sky, beside the perennial beds where the bees were fumbling with the flowers, I sang a little song in praise of mild symptoms and the experts who know what they mean. Then I went inside and hugged my kids and kissed my wife. She and I talked for hours that night. We told stories about ourselves we had never told before.
The medical experts will be back someday. We can’t perform the tests, so we trust them to do their work properly. Powerless as we are during certain passages of our lives, we can still choose to master those most difficult lines in the wedding vows. As we age, in sickness and in health, we can become expert in the deepest obligations of friendship and family allegiance. Heaven knows the day will come.