“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,
and I will give you rest.
surgery—theEveryday I am watching stress, anxiety hit everyone I treat at the hospital. The next week we operate on a sweet little 7 year old with ovarian cancer — it breaks my heart to see her bouncing around the clinic with so much enthusiasm and can see the fear in her parents eyes who are terrified for their baby girl – first chemotherapy, now surgery — the grind never stops!
Some days I watch patients give up—refuse further treatment mostly out of fear and frustration with all the associated pain and stress on family. It hurts us as healthcare workers to watch them struggle, especially when they get news of a genetic mutation and realize how it can affect their kids and how they feel so responsible for a factor that cannot be controlled!
But also I see women who get through it all with the strength and support they have—they do everything they are counselled and more, and it makes me admire their attitude and love them more, and when I open their abdomen on the operating table and see no sign of tumor—it makes me jump with joy, and I have been hugged and kissed by these patients. It’s all the medications, is my response.
I often realise how much every is carrying and how they just break down in our clinic when we tell them about good or bad news — it breaks out heart and we think of it for months and years . Sometimes, I will sit at the traffic signal and think of a random woman who I treated and think how she doing!
a fewLife is not easy for us too – teh constabt stress of making decisions, being prepared for a case , revising operating steps and reading up details about rare cases to discuss at meeting and plan an outcome for the patient – watching patients refuse everything we advise outa ignirance, fear and taking alternative forms of medication — worsening or even operating a patient to see the cancer has progressed and we can’t do anything about it! And we know she will return with a worse case in few months!!!
Life can be tough. That’s when I wake up and listen to the reflections of daily gospel and daily night reflections on my Hallow app and think and pray for all my patients and my own thoughts and issues daily. Sometimes it gets overwhelming, and I need to disassociate from people and be on my own with music and maybe a run or walk so I can realize life isn’t that bad!
Next time you feel burdened, I want you to think of my 7-year-old baby girl on a cold operating table with no idea how we will be cutting through her abdominal layers and removing cancer to help her live a long, healthy life! Prayer for the little one to endure the pain and the parents to have the strength to watch their little baby fight it all. We need help every day as prayers when we scrub into cases!!!
EVERYDAY I dump it all into Jesus’ hands and rest.
AMEN
