 What is Health?
by Vicki Rackner MD
My son, my first child, was born when I was forty. During pregnancy, I declined amniocenteses. I knew that, no matter what the results, I would not terminate the pregnancy. I would love whomever I got.
I had a great pregnancy and maintained a busy schedule as a surgeon. I performed a bi-lateral mastectomy four days before I gave birth.
He was a delightful baby, intensely interested in the world. He could amuse himself for long periods of time. But it did not take long to realize that my son was “different.” The “Mommy-and-Me” classes with other parents and babies were the source of pain and confusion. My son was not doing what other kids his age could do. We mothers seemed to be in a race. The winners were the kids who did things first, and my sweet boy was pulling up the rear.
By his first birthday, he was not talking, not even making the small sounds that are the building blocks of language. I had his hearing tested. His hearing was fine. My pediatrician did a full evaluation, and my son was delayed in every area measured. The doctor suggested admission in a special state-funded school for children with developmental problems.
Walking into this school for the first time was like entering a horror house. Every child in the school had profound physical and cognitive problems. Most had Down's syndrome. I saw children in wheelchairs, others wearing coke-bottle glasses, and others who wore bibs to catch steady streams of saliva.
When my son went to this school, I understood in a way I never could have imagined what it means to have a child who is not “normal.”
I believed that I might have unwittingly injured my son during my pregnancy. During the nine months I was carrying him, I removed a number of gallbladders. These operations necessitated a definition of the bile ducts by taking x-ray pictures. Of course, I wore a lead apron, but who knows how much radiation the fetus was exposed to? Now I had to face the reality that my firstborn and only child might not ever be able to care for himself, to hold a job or to live independently.
I cried myself to sleep at night wondering what would happen to him when I was not on this earth anymore.
Now What?
I told myself the same thing I told patients. Self-blame and “what if's” would not move my son closer to the life I hoped he would have. Nor would these thoughts move me closer to my mission as a parent. I would fulfill my promise I made to my son as he was growing in my womb to love him unconditionally.
I decided to buck up. Okay, I thought, this is the hand I have been dealt, and I am going to play it. I had a wonderful child whom I loved dearly—a fact that sometimes got lost in my late-night worry. I would do everything I could to make sure that he lived in joy and love, to make sure that many paths were open to him. He was going to live the fullest life that he could.
When I shifted my viewpoint, an interesting thing happened. My son's special school, the house of horrors, became instead a home of hope and optimism. I looked past the drooling child and saw in him a bubbly boy with a quick wit. The girl with the coke-bottle glasses had a gift of drawing. The children who first frightened me because of their limitations now became my teachers. Each one had a special spark. What united all these children with different challenges and gifts was how freely they offered their love. The school was now a treasure chest of resources, a joyful place to be. It was a place that helped children express the fullness of who they are.
This story has a happy ending. At age seven, my son has the same cognitive and physical resources that “normal” kids have. In fact, he is the smartest member of our family. All of the doors of possibility are open to him. He is just developing on his own timetable.
These dark days brought with them many blessings. I learned that my arms could reach beyond that for which I longed and embrace that which was before me. Did I want or ask for this health challenge? Absolutely not. If I could re-write history would I write my son's story differently? Absolutely not. This first chapter in my parenting story was painful. It was also a gift. Early on, I “got” what it means to be a parent. Being a parent is not making my son into who I want him to be; my job as a parent is love him and to help him flourish into who he is.
This episode also changed the course of my doctoring. I understood health in a new way. I now see health as being most fully who you are.
The winds of health
Good health is like the wind. If you are in the wind, you feel it on your face, on your skin. Or, you can look out the window and see leaves waving on the trees. When a tree falls on a power line and you have a home-camping adventure, you know the wind has been there. Sometimes the wind is subdued. You would not notice it unless you looked for subtle clues, like dandelion parachutes strewn on the lawn.
The word patient comes from the Latin root pati, which means “to suffer.” Patients bring suffering to their doctors for healing. Health is more than the absence of suffering. It is an attitude, a quality of life.
Bill, one of my patients, has had rheumatoid arthritis since he was a child. From an early age, he was determined to do everything the other kids could do. Bill loves the outdoors. When his degenerating hip joints prevented him from going on a hiking trip, he went kayaking. He has a full life, complete with meaningful work, a loving family and active participation in his spiritual community.
Bill and his rheumatologist confer on a regular basis to assure that he is taking the proper medications. Bill has pain ever day of his life. Sometimes he talks with great sadness about his limitations. Most days, Bill looks at all of the great things going on.
Nancy, another patient, is regularly overwhelmed with fear that she has some life-threatening disorder in spite of her young, fit body. She was one of the first to sign up for a whole-body scan when they were made available to public. Nancy lives in isolation. She is not much fun to be around, and has lost contact with most of her friends.
Bill has a chronic disease; Nancy has none. Yet, we could say that Bill is healthier, in the full sense of that word, than Nancy is.
Your day-to-day choices shape your health picture. Your health is also shaped by the way in which you respond to the events in your life.
At home with health
Good health is your home base. Even in sickness, your body is drawn to healing as effortlessly as water runs down hill. After an operation, incisions knit together. You do not have to do anything special to make your cut or scrape get better. You do not have to look at the wound every two hours and say “Heal.”
There are actions you can take to speed up the healing, like keeping the wound clean, eating a nutritious diet and getting rest. There are also actions that retard healing, like smoking cigarettes. But even if you do nothing, the wound will heal.
The evolving field of psycho-neuro-immunology says that your body and your mind and your immune system are all connected. For example, stress can cause headaches or acid reflux, make you snap at your children, and increase your risk of getting a cold. Loneliness and anger are emotions, with some of the same medical consequences as say, smoking.
Even if you do everything right, there are factors you cannot control—genetics, environmental factors and plain old bad luck. Your body is designed to support you as you bounce back to your state of optimal health.
Keeping your body in top condition
A surgeon is like a “body mechanic.” The model that is you is unique, maybe sporty, maybe not, with special features no other person in the world has. Unlike cars, though, there are no trade-ins for your body. Good health means staying in top functioning shape so that, like my son and like Bill, you, too, can be most fully who you are.
Copyright © Vicki Rackner MD, 2005
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