On being sick, comforted

“When Jesus saw him and knew that he had been lying there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is troubled, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your pallet, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his pallet and walked. (Jn 5:6-9)

In any language, the saddest words are when the doctor says to a patient: “There is nothing more that I can do. All the treatments available have been tried and they have all failed, and there is just nothing more that can be done.”

But Sir William Osier, a great internist, has redefined good medicine as follows: “Good medicine cures sometimes, it palliates often, but it comforts always.” With this definition, no physician should ever say to a patient that there is nothing more that he can do.

While there is nothing more than can be done to cure, there is no limit to what can be done to make the patient as comfortable as possible, and to provide him and the members of his family with the comfort and the support that they need at this stressful time.

In effect, this is what hospice care is. When cure of disease is no longer possible, the focus of treatment should be from curing to caring. The physician can now say to the patient: “I can no longer cure you, but I will continue to care for you.” (Josefina D. Magno, M.D., who pioneered hospice care in the U.S. since 1977, wrote these words for the World Health Organization.)

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Here is a healthy exercise for developing a positive outlook toward our illnesses and trials in life:

*In the list below, write down the major trials and difficulties you had in your life.

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*In the next list below, write down all the major blessings and successes you have had in your life.

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SURPRISE! There are actually more blessings in your life than you can imagine. You simply have to open your eyes and your heart to God’s seen and unseen goodness.