Rhonnie Scheuerman’s Inspiration Station For All In Need This Morning

Author Carol Kuykendndall: A good doctor is often more than a doctor in our lives

At my husband Lynn’s recent regular appointment with his neuro-oncologist  , we talked about quality–of-life issues.  Lynn has been on chemotherapy for more than a year for his recurrent  brain tumor   and when the doctor asked how things were going I confessed that Lynn had been using the word hopeless more often.

The doctor swiveled his  chair and looked directly at Lynn.  ” I treat your cancer, but I also treat you as a person,”he said “and it’s important to feel hopeful about something in life.  In fact, if you reach the end of a day and can’t think of the reasons  you are glad you lived through that day, we need to make some changers.”

He paused and then asked Lynn, “What feels hopeless? “That I will never feel,”better than I do right now”  Lynn answered. So the doctor outlined an option to cut back on some of Lynn’s medications, including his chemotherapy doses.  We really agreed to make those changes. Maybe even more important, we thought, took the doctor’s other suggestion, which had nothing to do with medications but to do with finding hope.  At the end of the day, at dinner or before we fall asleep.  I try to remember to ask Lynn that simple question:  “Why are you glad you lived through this day?

The answers had varied: a grandchild’s birthday celebration, voting the brilliantly changes of colors of the trees, accomplishing a banking task or clearing up an insurance snafu.  But here’s what has been most hopeful: for both of us, that question seems to open our eyes to all the possible answers tucked into each day. Father, may I embrace the grateful-for-life moments. You give me each day….Carol.

I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you….Ephesians 1:18