“Rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home.”
Every evening, I, along with my junior resident doctors, round on all my postoperative patients before I leave, and it is about the same time they are allowed visitors in the general ward (common dormitory-style ward). I witnessed family members sitting and chatting, watching how we round, asking questions, and telling us their woes throughout the day. while I ask questions on how they tolerated the diet and how they are holding up with the examination of their vital signs like pulse, blood pressure, chest auscultation, we also give them a good chest physiotherapy, which includes us giving a nice massage on the back to stimulate all the chest secretions to be expelled via coughing so the lungs can expand better and they have better oxygenation and prevent lung atelectasis.
Another aspect I notice especially amongst my patients is the tendency to stay in bed post-surgery—as Indians, we don’t promote physical health as much as the rest of the world, and the love language of family,, once a person is ill or operated on, is to feed and let them rest. Often leading to deep venous thrombosis and deadly pulmonary thrombus. As doctors on rounds, every evening I am constantly reminding each patient about her need to ambulate around the ward, sit outside the bed onto a chair, and even do a chest spirometry exercise to enable the chest / lungs to breathe better, especially after prolonged surgeries. Ambulating, or in simple words, walking, helps with improving blood circulation to lower limbs—decreases deep vein thrombosis, which is clotted blood in deeper veins in our calf muscles, to which cancer patients are prone; improves oxygenation of lungs as the patient is forced to inhale and exhale air more; it also helps with bowel movement and postoperative performance with improvement of mental health, especially with patients with stomas and major life-altering surgical issues.
I am no Jesus, but as a surgeon, postoperative care is a vital part of the success of our treatment and surgery. I have repeatedly said, “Rise and walk” in multiple languages to my operated patients so they will remain active, as I know once they get home—no woman is walking! It is a task to watch these women struggle to take steps post-surgery, and the opposite is seen among Indian male patients (my own dad included) who just wanted to take a stroll the very next day…
As sickness grips us, our response varies as humans—I have seen alcohol addicts’ wives sit by their bedside with Bibles and rosaries, while I am sure the man drank himself to ruin his own liver, and Jesus can’t do much after that! As Christians, when we have any trouble befall us, we start realizing how faith is important, and suddenly everyone is devout, and that all turns tables once it is all well.
Jesus didn’t judge the paralytic but accepted his friends’ urge to push him to Jesus so he could be cured.
Life often throws us situations; we may switch to faith, or we may just ignore it all and have faith in science and medicine, but 4 years in oncology taught me that both go hand in hand. If we rise and walk… we get better at everything—walking away from depression, DVT, or even a sinful situation. Walking towards the Lord and being a better Christian.
Every day let’s rise and walk to Him!
AMEN.
