Saturday, March 03, 2012

i know life's unfair but then.....

it's was one of those difficult on-calls but definitely a poignant one.

11-month-old child with brain tumour which suddenly bled & required surgery. results are not promising & he had to be transferred to a university hospital for further treatment.

70-yr-old man scheduled for neck surgery. on the night before surgery, he slipped & fell in the bathroom, causing a bleed in the brain & requiring emergency surgery. the bleeding had caused too much damage to the brain &, in all probability, he will not survive.

young mother into 8th month of pregnancy. the placenta separated prematurely from the uterine wall causing bleeding. the emergency C-section saved the mother but the baby suffered asphyxiation ( medic-speak for suffocation from lack of oxygen) & died the next day in ICU.

81-yr-old man with bowel cancer scheduled for surgery. 15 years ago, he had cancer in another part of the large bowel which was successfully removed. fortunately for him, the tumour this time was again completely excised.

often i wondered to myself why sometimes innocent people suffer while others who do evil flourish? there's no way we could predict what's going to happen tomorrow. how do you explain to the parents that their 11-mth child will not see teen years, or the expectant mother that her newborn has passed on? what do you tell the children that their father, just 6 hours before a routine surgery has sustained a fatal fall instead, or a man who has developed cancer twice?

yeah, bummer, isn't it? but i suppose if you believe in a Higher Being or a Divine Power, then you'll surrender your life to the fate you've been destined with. life just goes on thereafter.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Isa 55:8, 9

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hard to accept sometimes why life can be so unfair esp for young patients who have their whole life ahead of them.

Yvonne Foong said...

I like to think that every life, no matter long or short, fortunate or misfortunate, have a purpose and reason. We may not know why, but there is a reason. Only God knows. We just do our best.

fibrate said...

Or the father who drove against traffic to rush his ill daughter to the hospital only to get involved in a car accident and succumb to his injuries? Life is not fair

doc said...

Cara,

life IS often unfair, but that's because we don't know how these events fit into the greater scheme of things.

**sigh**

doc said...

Yvonne,

that is if you believe God is at the centre of our lives, in which case, we can't avoid dealing with issues like faith, grace, redemption & unconditional love.

doc said...

Fibrate,

i believe that's a different issue. he went consciously went against the flow of traffic & risk the lives of all in the car. he committed an offence to begin with. he might have got away with it but he didn't.

i posted about patients whose conditions out of their own control.

wenn said...

we can't predict our life. we can just live it.

doc said...

Wenn,

well said. we need to live it well.

Reanaclaire said...

This morning my pastor was telling us .. that going to heaven is also healing.. no more pain, no more tears...

doc said...

Claire,

that should be our ultimate destination.

Unicorn Girl said...

it's hard being a doctor isn't it ? It a vocation after all as God works through your hands.

doc said...

UG,

not all hard; i've had my fair share of happy moments as well.