On a more serious note

Post number two for today! I was just perusing salon.com, reading an article by a doctor discussing his mother's recent hospital stay and surgery for a swollen intestine. And part of what he wrote choked me up a little bit:

"It's humbling, as a doctor, to be on the other side of things. I'd forgotten what it means to be close to someone very sick -- the intensity, the exhaustion, the uncertainty, the fear of what may come. We wanted to be smart, informed patients. We asked questions, sought answers and talked to other doctors. But clarity is a myth, and all we ended up doing was getting overwhelmed with opinions and second-guessing everything. We just had to do the best we could with what we thought we knew.
My mother consented to have surgery, a fairly routine one by many standards, and she recovered from it nicely. But I won't forget the look of horror and powerlessness on my father's face when he said goodbye to her as they wheeled her off to the operating room. How can anybody sane allow this?"

It's amazing how sometimes hearing your feelings in somebody else's words can make you feel better. We are trying to do our best with what we think we know. And we're not the only ones. Yeah.