Playing God

“The worst part of being gay in the twentieth century is all that damn disco music to which one has to listen”

-- Quentin Crisp 1908-99: “Manners From Heaven” (1984)

Never fear, Mcgee! You’re not the only one who thinks misfortune might be some form of divine retribution; although the term “might” is a word absent from the vocabulary of self-righteous hypocrites like Pat Robertson. Who needs some stinking seismologist to explain the devastation in Haiti when we all know the cause was simply a display of almighty God’s wrath. I’d like to ask Pat why God chose an earthquake rather than a Tsunami to wash away their sins. The photo above should leave no doubt about the kinds of sinners deserving of punishment.

For Robertson, the Haitians might be compared to those fucking queers who were visited with the A.I.D.S. virus because of their sick and perverted sins. PRAISE GOD!

Kampala, Uganda - Proposed legislation would impose the death penalty for some gay Ugandans, and their family and friends could face up to seven years in jail if they fail to report them to authorities. Even landlords could be imprisoned for renting to homosexuals.

It’s no wonder that these twisted evangelicals who launched a campaign to plant their homophobic seeds in Africa have remained silent as Uganda stands on the verge of legislating the death penalty for homosexuals. Forget allowing them to marry, let’s kill ‘em!

Haven’t been blogging much due to a combination of work and sloth. One of the positives of Mr. Mcgee’s honesty and candor on his Carepages site has been the social networking it’s created in terms of rallying his friends around him, and stimulating an ongoing dialogue between those that leave comments on his blog.

Mr. Stadz from the city by the bay took some thoughtful exception to my comment concerning the idea that doctors sometimes become so focused on curing the disease that they lose sight of the suffering patient. He made the point that…

Let’s quote him: “Randy T sez, ‘Physicians are trained to focus more on the disease than the patient. It’s in their blood,’ but I think they have to focus that tightly to play the game. Think about it: how well would you play poker if all you could think of is how it would affect the other guy to not win the hand?”

The game analogy is wanting. You’re spot on Michael, in suggesting many docs see their work as “playing the game,” which is always a plus when they’re good at what they do. But I doubt people who suffer serious illness perceive themselves as participants in a game. Suppose we do imagine physician and patient as in a game. Who has the most to lose when the chips are down? Remember, too,there's a third party in this game -- Nature. And she ALWAYS wins..

Sherwin Nuland, who teaches surgery and the history of medicine at Yale, in his wonderful book, “How We Die” (1993), writes:

“There is an element [Nuland refers here to doctors’ obsession with solving ‘The Riddle of Disease] these days that often conspires to isolate the mortally ill. I can think of no better word for it than ‘futility.’ Pursuing treatment against great odds may seem like a heroic act to some, but commonly it is a form of unwilling disservice to patients; it blurs the borders of candor and reveals a fundamental schism between the best interests of patients and their families on the one hand and of physicians on the other.”

Nuland’s point is that, what William Bean of the University of Iowa calls “the busy paraphernalia of scientific medicine,” often distracts doctors -- and in a way offers a comfortable form of moral denial that fosters baseless hopes -- from the sobering fact that life is but a “brief candle,” as Macbeth puts it, “That struts and frets his hour upon the stage.” All of the machines, medications, and therapies that modern medicine can muster, only

serve to avert our eyes from nature’s clock.

Here’s a last passage from Nuland before I move on:

“Every medical specialist must admit that he has at times convinced patients to undergo diagnostic or therapeutic measures at a point in illness so far beyond reason that The Riddle might better have remained unsolved. Too often near the end, were the doctor able to see deeply within himself, he might recognize that his decisions and advice are motivated by his inability to give up The Riddle and admit defeat as long as there is any chance of solving it. Though he be kind and considerate of the patient he treats, he allows himself to push his kindness aside because the seduction of The Riddle is so strong and the failure to solve it renders him so weak.”

Hence my meaning when I say, “it’s in their blood.”

And so, I’m moving on!

Peace - Randy