Doctor doesn’t always know best

04/20/10 · Filed in Personal

My 86-year-old grandmother is having surgery today. Her heart doctor more or less insisted on giving her a pacemaker for her weakening heart. I wish she would’ve told them no.

That sounds horrible, doesn’t it?

A few days ago, she called me up to tell me about the situation. During her last visit to her ‘heart doctor’ (as she calls him), he noticed that her heart beat was irregular and skipped every now and then. His solution was to put her under the knife and insert a pacemaker immediately.

“But Kristie,” she told me on the phone, “I just don’t think I want it. I’m old. This is what happens when you get old. Things wear out and stop working. I’ve already had a heart attack and open heart surgery. I can’t live forever.”

I was both saddened and impressed by her courage. Most people would scramble to have modern medicine cure them of all their illnesses and use such technology for as long as their bodies could handle it. And although I pray that it doesn’t happen any time soon, when it’s time for her to pass away, she wants to bow out gracefully. She’s scared of having another surgery at her age. She’s afraid she won’t wake up again. I can’t really say that I blame her. She wants God to be in charge of her fate, not artificial medical devices.

Over the past several decades, she’s witnessed every one of her 8 siblings either die suddenly (from stroke or heart attack) or waste away in nursing homes. She’s always told me that she doesn’t want to live long enough to experience either. I don’t want her to die, I would be devastated, but I know that dying is a part of life and a very real possibility for her each day that passes. She has the right to choose how she lives out the rest of her life. Wouldn’t it be selfish of me, our family, and especially the medical professionals if we tried to convince her of anything else?

It would be, so I didn’t. Before hanging up with her I let her know that I understood and would support her if she officially decided not to have the surgery.

Yesterday evening she called again to let me know about her doctor insisting on the surgery. It’s probably going on right now as I type this.

I’m angry about it. Leave it to a doctor to insist on something without getting to know the person and asking what they think or feel about the situation. Seriously? This doctor who has supposedly ‘known her for years’ scheduled this surgery without even asking her if she wants it. He insisted all of this knowing (or maybe not knowing) that my grandmother came from a time when women only spoke when spoken to and blindly followed the men in their lives on every decision they made. Of course she isn’t going to object, no matter how much she disagrees with it!

All I can do now is pray that she makes it through. Though I’m still angry about the fact that she’s just another weak, old person to him – another time slot filled, another name on the dotted line, another body on the operating table…what’s done is done. I hope the pacemaker serves her well and that she learns to accept and live with it.

What a lot of doctors possess in knowledge, ability, and efficiency, they lack in personality, patience, and compassion.

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