one stubborn bugger

Assalamualaikum

All praises to Allah.and peace be upon His messenger.

Below is a true story that was told by one of the palliative care consultant:

I remember having to deal with a bloke who was suffering from a terrible pain caused by his end stage lung cancer. CT scan revealed spiculated mass sitting in the borders of his lungs. He will get excruciating pain around the area of his lower ribs every time he takes a breath in. His current pain-relief medications did not seem to bring any difference at all. and so I was asked by the nurse to talk to him.

And so I met him, offering to give him a more potent pain-reliever, morphine perhaps.of which he replied:

"No. No. there's no use in that. Nothing will make this pain goes away. I can deal with this myself"

Doctor: "But mate, I believe a stronger meds will definitely help."

Patient: "No I dont think so. You dont have to waste your time doc. It wont work."

Doctor: "I dont mind wasting my time. If morphine doesnt work, we can always try other meds. There's no point of suffering from a pain that we can get rid of".

And the conversation went on and on with the patient keep refusing to take any pain-reliever. So I decided to not give him anything for the moment. 

Not that I was playing nasty with him, you know. After all, you cant prescribe a medications to someone who did not consent for it.

First impression of this guy: "Ah, he's just playing tough. Typical blokes." 

There's indeed some truth in that impression. Most men would tend to have the 'suck it up' attitude, as getting help for their problem/illness would be deemed as a sign of 'weakness'. But that has got a whole different discussion on its own. Now back to the story.

So I came back to see that guy four days later. This time the patient appeared to be a totally different man. It was quite apparent that he could not tolerate the pain any longer. He would just lean on the wall, in silence, with his hand on his lower ribs. There were slight grunting with every breath that he took. You can see that he was a broken man. Both physically and mentally.

Still, he kept refusing to take any medications. But it did not take long before he finally decided to take my advice and hence I started him on a low dose of morphine, just to see how he's going with that.

But I was curious on why did he had furiously rejected the idea of getting his pain relieved by an appropriate pain killer.

After much persuasion, the patient agreed to explain on his behaviour.

"You know doc, I used to do lots of work with concrete. I dealt with heavy machineries and huge materials. But I have been listening to other people too many times. That was my biggest mistake. I lost many of my men because of that. You know doc, my men DIED because I listened to other people!"

It turns out that there was a lot more to his stubborn attitude. He wasnt just simply playing tough.

 Apparently the act of the doctor giving him instruction/suggestion had evoked a strong emotion reaction that somehow is closely associated with a major distressing event in his live.

The much easier way to deal with this would be to just labelled him as a stubborn bugger, and just let him suffer for his stubbornness. But his current attitude was just a reflection of something more intricate. That this situation has a much deeper meaning to him.

I believe this is a lesson we can use to reflect on our own behaviour and our own perception on others. 

For example, in the issue of labeling others as being 'too liberal', or 'too conservative', or when you see someone get inappropriately angry at something that is very insignificant, etc.

Just remember, there's probably more to it than what meets the eye. And maybe we can be more of help if we try to acknowledge those issues first rather than quickly settle on a very simplistic judgment.

Wallahu'alam.