In the Dry Season: Am I Getting Softer or Harder?

It’s the dry season here in Kapsowar. The weather is perfect, 70’s during the day, 50’s at night, sunny skies and dry dirt to walk on which makes it considerably easier to make it up to the hospital, compared to the thick mud I often have to trench through during the rainy season. 

Yet, with this season comes an increased number of patients, particularly children with stomach illnesses as clean drinking water becomes more scarce. This, along with a strike by government run hospital workers, has lead to our pediatric wards being packed to the brim. For most of this week I have been rounding on 30-40 patients a day. 

Recently we received a set of twins, both a year old, and both severely malnourished, weighing approximately nine pounds each—which is the weight of some newborn babies. They came in with terrible stomach bugs and both nearly died after their frail and vulnerable bodies developed septic shock. Their bodies, just skin and bones at this point, simply clinging to life, are not prepared for any illness. 

Our nurses have done an amazing job keeping both of them alive, monitoring their nutrition intake, and notifying the right people when they have become ill. Our nutritionist has carefully titrated their feeding regimen which is extremely precise and has to be carefully and artfully pushed forward and pulled back depending on how the infants body’s react to the changes. 

The fact is that these children’s condition carry with it an extremely high risk of death. I can feel my heart shriveling up, praying that I do not have to tell the mother the unthinkable, that both children pass. 

Also arriving at the hospital recently was a nine day old boy. The mother reported he had not been feeding well and that his eyes had turned yellow. She brought him to our hospital seeking help. Immediately, it was clear that he was in critical condition. He was having seizures and his heart, lungs, liver, and kidneys were all failing. Despite all our treatments, the baby was not improving by evening. As I signed out to the covering doctor I explained all that we had done and that the prognosis was grim. When I awoke the next morning, coffee in hand and with hopeful anticipation, I checked my patient list on my computer and saw that he had passed in the night.

For most doctors, having to see upwards of 40 patients a day is overwhelming. It is hard to put in the critical thought that each patient needs and deserves. Yet, it is a space that I and many others continue to willingly step into and feel considerably privileged to enter in. 

When I am able to step out of the chaos and the tremendous need, a question I have reflected on a lot over the past year is: How is this experience changing me? Am I moving towards or away from God?

When I think of this question I am reminded of a moment in medical school in Florida when a friend and I went out kayaking. My friend, a sales representative, was often on the phone with clients answering questions about their product and had this to say:

When I get calls from older individuals I have realized that there are really just two types of older folks. The first type of person doesn’t want to listen to a thing I have to say and are so stuck in their ways. The second type of person is curious and wants to learn everything I can teach them. And what I have learned is that there are two types of people as you age, some that are unwilling to change and hard-set, while others that are soft, moldable, and gentle.

On that boat, as the salty breeze hit my face, I learned that we are all on a path to one of those two types of people. 

Since this experience I have often been asking myself—how do I become softer, more gentle and more loving? Particularly in this season of seeing suffering all around me, which direction am I moving? How can I become more loving and gentle instead of hard-set and cold? 

The answer lies in my willingness and ability to have my heart broken for my patients and their families. I don’t always do that perfectly. Sometimes, if I am honest with myself, I do not feel or respond in the way I desire. And in those moments I try to have grace for myself. But to the extent that I grieve with those around me, see their suffering as my own, do I become softer and more empathetic. 

An important question still remains, how can I do this again and again and not get jaded or more spiritually brittle? The answer to this lies in Jesus and what I believe He did for us. He is not a God that is far off, but a God who became human. He is a God that knows what it is like to suffer and to feel our pain. He makes it possible to go down to the depths of suffering with my patients, because I can look to Him to find a way upwards. I feel King David’s plea in the Psalms “Get down on my level and listen.” (Psalm 31:2) And Jesus answers me as He did Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side.” (John 20:27) 

I can go to Jesus, look into His face, and find the strength I need, knowing that I have a God that fully understands what it is to suffer, who can empathize with my, my patient’s, and my patient’s family’s pain.

Am I willing to go down to the depths with my patients again and again? Am I willing to struggle for the light, to cling to Jesus and His promises when I am there? To this avail, I believe, will be my ability to become softer, gentler, and more loving.