God of surprises and missed expectations, you are good.
Always good.
I had the opportunity to work in a hospital this last month which was really exciting for me because I’m interested in entering the medical field when I’m off the race and done with school. A teammate and I were looking for some kind of door to open so we could fully utilize ourselves with our passion for healthcare here on the field, and then the craziest opportunity landed at our feet–the physiotherapy department (physical therapy) gave us the chance to shadow some of the physiotherapists at the hospital and see what their job looks like firsthand.
Of course, like anyone would do, I put their job in this tiny, Americanized box, expecting physiotherapy to look the way it does in the States: overflowing with staff and resources. Needless to say, I was incredibly mistaken.
Physical therapy in the states consists mostly of creating an exercise plan for patients & then helping them to do those exercises. I actually got to witness the PT do this with a patient here at the hospital. He had to passively exercise her leg because she just had a stroke with limited her movement & mobility on the left side of her body. It was awesome getting to sit and pray for her while she was doing her exercises since I wasn’t actually able to touch her. Made me realize how limited we can be physically but we’re never limited in the spiritual realm and I like to think we made a difference praying for her.
Since the staff at the hospital is pretty limited, the physiotherapist that I shadowed had to take on his job + the job of other medical professionals. As one of the only staff thoroughly knowledgeable of the musculoskeletal system, the hospital had him step into roles that he wasn’t necessarily qualified to step into.
The first day I shadowed him, I was told I would be observing him while he works with patients who have come to the hospital with broken bones and needed to get casted. I’m not entirely sure what I expected when I heard this, but I know it wasn’t what was about to come.
For roughly 2 hours I observed the physiotherapist setting and resetting the bones of patients. To my horror, there were no pain killers that they could receive in order to make the process easier for them—they had to fully and completely endure it. I’m by no means squeamish, so it wasn’t the act of setting the bones itself that affected me so deeply. It was the fact that it wasn’t done with excellence and it wasn’t done with privacy that protected the patients.
The first patient we saw was a man, probably mid 20’s, who had completely snapped his Tibia in half from a moto accident. Here I was, a young, white woman who sat there and observed as he screamed out in sheer agony while the physiotherapist was doing a less-than-perfect job at setting his bone back in place. It almost felt inappropriate for me to be there in the room.
Another patient we saw a little girl, no older than 8 years old, who broke her radius right where it meets the wrist bones. It was the hardest thing I’ve had to watch. As she had to get her bone set in place I turned to Moriah who I could tell was praying so hard for her. I almost felt helpless because there was nothing we could do physically to take away her pain, but we were fighting and fighting hard in the spiritual realm. They casted her up and sent her to the X-ray to see if the bone was set right. I was heartbroken when the staff came back and said the bone wasn’t set properly.
They cut her cast off and brought in a different physiotherapist (I think that’s what he was?) to fix the imperfect job that the other physiotherapist did. The process was a lot longer and harder to watch than the first time. More screaming. More prayers. They casted her back up again and sent her to the x-ray.
I’d never be able to accurately put words to the pain I felt in my chest when the staff came back and said the bone was set imperfectly again. ‘Heartbreak’ barely scratches the surface.
The point of this blog is not highlight my own struggles or look down on medical care here in Cambodia. At the end of the day the hospital is doing its best—the Khmer people lost an entire generation of people during the Khmer Rouge, so not very many doctors and healthcare professionals were left to train the next generation.
I guess what I’m getting at is that we have to learn to find peace and rest knowing that some things are too big for our hands to fix. Sometimes the Lord gives us the opportunity to experience things not because we have the power to do anything about it, but because he wants to show us that he has the power to do something about it.
Sometimes the only freedom we have is the Lord’s eyes to see, The Lord’s heart to feel, and the Holy Spirit’s words to pray.
And I shouldn’t be using the word ‘only’, because all of these things are gifts we can use to work alongside God. They’re infinite and available to us at any given time—even when we feel powerless.
For everyone reading this, your prayers are needed! How cool would it be if we could all be fighting for the Khmer people through prayer together—near and far. It all matters.
