the doctor's prediction

My dad is eighty two and has been around the block more than once. Ever since I’ve known him, almost fifty two years now, (so you can assume I knew him before I was born by about twenty years!) he’s been at death’s door, cheating it with fervor. Well, truthfully, since I was nineteen I’ve been aware of his mortality. I recall going to bed concerned he wouldn’t see me finish college after having spent the day with him in ICU after a heart attack. Added to that was my fear I’d have to care for my mother who had never been on her own. She didn’t even know how to write checks! I’m grateful I didn’t develop ulcers from all the futile worrying.

Well, nineteen from fifty two is thirty three years of growing, adjusting, living in faith. Leaving things in God’s masterful hands. My mother in fact died first, at a young sixty six of breast cancer, surprising us all, as her health, we thought, was better than dad’s whose always been on the wobbly side of the coin. I truly feared dad would terminate himself on her death bed. I’d never heard a wail so horrifying when he witnessed her taking her last breath on this earth. I braced myself to be his buttress careful to not let him grieve himself to death, placing my anguish down good and deep.

But I digress, so back to dad. First were his heart issues that he inherited from a father who died at forty nine, then came head and neck cancer which yielded a perpetual feeding tube, congestive heart failure, then prostate difficulties, a broken shoulder, hip, hands, falling spells, from ignoring my nagging about using his walker! But he has miraculously trekked on; God in his infinite wisdom knows I’m not ready to let him go yet. I’m not prepared to be an orphan, not till I’m at least sixty.

Over time as his health concerns mounted I’ve slipped into the role of his principal caregiver, with minimal reliable help from anyone else. It has not been a hardship, but a privilege to repay him for years of fatherly love and care. I’ve kept abreast of current health trends and kept dad on the cutting edge of my learned wisdom. When his congestive heart failure was at its worst I had him hospitalized, treated with diuretics and improved. (at one point the doctor told me if dad continued his downward decline he’s been gone in six months) Through trial and error I discovered that his interests were best served by keeping him dehydrated and exercised. His primary physician and I have worked as a team to enhance dad’s condition so well congestive heart failure is spoken of in the past tense now, and we raised his ejection fraction (an important heart function) to just below normal, up from just above about dead!

So when I missed dad’s last appointment with his cardiologist (check out the word, last!) I was stunned to find dad at the elevators, puffing on his oxygen canulla and pushing his walker, ready to go home on the verge of tears, with the news that he was only given two to three years left to live due to leaky valves(heart structures). We knew he had this problem for years, and we had agreed surgery would not be wise with his other conditions, i.e., lung issues, feeding tube, and inability to lie flat for any procedure, to name a few. But to tell someone in his eighties that he only could look forward to just a scant three years at the most…well I was so infuriated I marched back into the office and demanded of the receptionist to see Dr. Arrogant. Dad came up behind me and tried to stop me, but I brusquely (with the utmost reverence) told him to go sit down, I would take care of this.

Dad tried twice to get me to listen to him, and finally succeeded when he said, “But I didn’t see Dr. Arrogant, I saw someone else.”

With egg on my face I turned to the surprised nurse and pointedly asked, “All right, I want to talk to the doctor who he saw!” pointing my fingers at dad.

“Is there a problem?” she queried. What fantastic observational skills.

I was tempted to respond with, ”No, I just want to see how he’s doing today,” but instead I verbalized, “Yes, there’s a problem!”

“Well, he’s with a patient right now,”

“I don’t care, get him!” Maybe I was sparing some other patient from getting upsetting news.

We were ushered (swiftly) into a private hallway, presumably to prevent panic from erupting in the waiting room, where a young resident extended his hands to me as though this was going to be a cordial get together. To avoid any miscommunication I requested that this young kid, with the confetti from his high school graduation still clinging to his hair, tell me exactly what he told my dad. From the tone of my voice and a long relationship with my temper, dad decided to abscond and let the doctor work out his own survival system.

“Well, he has some leaky valves and I informed him at his age and with his problems he could only expect another two to three years, but I assured him he could beat the odds.”

Enough said, I thought, and launched into the past thirty plus years of health issues, and overcoming odds.Startng with most people with head and neck cancer and feeding tubes rarely live seventeen years extra and ending with, “He’s 82, he doesn’t expect to live forever, he knows he could die tonight, I know that, I’m 52, I could die tonight, but you’re going to die now!” I scanned the area for security cameras after the words slipped past my filter system and floated on the air between us.

Keeping his composure, I’m guessing from confronting lots of angry family members, made outraged from his inexperienced theory on informing the patients of their prognosis’s, he politely explained, “I feel that patients have a right to know what to expect.”

“Well I feel that only God can make those expectations. At eighty two, three years is a life time, and for him it’s three years you robbed of the joy of living!” With that I turned my back and departed, sure that I made no impact on Dr. Inappropriate but feeling the carthartic release of venting.

What followed was days of encouraging dad to look at all the other mis-information people have received, starting with his boyhood friend who had been told he was beyond help and was given a forty ninth wedding anniversary party by his kids because they didn’t expect him to make another year. That was what? Eight years ago. Who was wrong about that? The doctor of course. There was a long list of soothing stories but dad wallowed in self pity none the less. I even revealed to dad that all the doctors I work with contended that Dr. Inappropriate had over stepped his credentials.

It’s taken some time but now dad no longer tells everyone he meets he's dying soon, but I’m not sure how often it encroaches in his thoughts. I have been counter fighting a slowly encroaching inactivity on his part. It's like he's given up and realizes the fight is almost over, This is referred to as a self fulfulling prophesy. The point of this? Doctor’s, no one for that matter, can tell us when we are going to die. Of course there is a certain predictability with some health issues, that is the reason Hospice provides a useful service, but even they miss the mark occasionally, carrying patients for longer than the six month duration, even removing some from their rosters because of failure to die! Let’s not lose hope. Only God knows when he'll call home, and that life expectancy is a lot longer than two to three years.

Duet. 32:39
Eccl. 9:11
James 4:13-14


summary
we rely on doctors for so much, but sometimes they tend to overstep thier wisdom. Doctors are given their wisdom from God but they need a touch of common sense. See how one doctor changed the life of a man and what the consequense were.