Beyond pain and suffering (1)

Karl Gaspar

DAVAO City–Why do human beings suffer?

This must be a question raised individually and collectively by human persons through the course of humanity’s history, ever since an existential consciousness gave rise to a greater acknowledgment of the impact of suffering.

For peoples dominated by a Judaeo-Christian world view – and Filipinos are no exception – another question arises: If God the Creator is the loving Father Who Jesus of Nazareth sought to manifest to his disciples, then why would a loving Father who created the world include suffering as an integral part of life?

These questions may seem rhetorical. But for someone who spent two weeks in the hospital (due to illnesses arising as internal organs collapsed) and continues to go through treatment, these questions are very experiential. On March 7, 2016, I checked into the Brokenshire Hospital in Davao City realizing that I needed medical intervention badly. The following days were days of excruciating pain and miserable suffering. What I experienced throughout this week might as well constituted as a time with the highest level of pain and suffering throughout my 68 years of existence.

Within the first hour of my confinement in the Founcaldian landscape of a hospital, the medical interventions came one after another. This involved all kinds of tests which cannot be done unless needles – of various sizes – inject all kinds of fluids into my sick body. At first I thought it would be a good idea to monitor how often the injections would take place; in three days’ time, I gave up as I continued to hear the mantra of the nurses both as seeking permission but also to warn the patient that pain is forthcoming: “Tusok ko ha!” (I will now inject you!)

I made myself fully conscious of what I was undergoing, given the thought that perhaps this could be one way I could move beyond the denial stage. But that only heightened the impact of suffering. Once the initial tests were out, my attending doctor immediately decided to deal with my kidneys. With all the indicators – high creatinine count, vomiting, nausea, lack of appetite, etc. – the first step was to consider dialysis to provide relief to the kidneys. This decision led to the first stages of intense pain as all kinds of needles got stuck into my veins and a catheter was installed to connect to a main vein of the neck.

Once that immediate action was done, another doctor was called in to look at another angle of my illness, based on what could be gleaned from signs appearing on the ultra-sound screen or discovered through other procedures, some of which can be so utterly embarrassing (which brings in shame). Aside from the kidneys, my prostate was in trouble as it has reached an alarming size. An operation was decided on, but I had to wait four days before the operation could be performed, since the doctor saw how low was my hemoglobin count and feared that I didn’t have enough blood helpful for clotting. There was also the need to stabilize my blood pressure, which naturally in these circumstances was fluctuating at such rise or fall of numbers.

The operation to look into the prostate and delete it from my body – if that was the best way to heal me – took place five days after my confinement. I have never experienced any surgery in my entire life, so the prospect of going under the knife was terrifying as I have seen how family members and friends – who underwent with such invasive form of treatment – suffered through the procedures immensely. The long wait of five days – while relieved temporarily of physical pain – heightened mental suffering; it is this context that gave rise to the first question I raised in this essay.

I pray to God I will never have to undergo any more invasive operation in the future. All of us who have undergone such an experience fully know so well the depths of one’s grief and lamentation while lying down on that bed at the operating room. As one is prepared for the procedure and is wheeled down corridors bringing the patient from his room to the OR, the prospect of facing intense physical pain can be so overwhelming. On my part, it was not the prospect of dying inside the OR that brought fear, but how painful the whole procedure would be. Thankfully, with the blessing of the anesthesia and other painkillers, there was only limited pain throughout the procedure which lasted barely an hour. Even in the post-operation stage, I experienced limited pain.

But physical pain – which can actually be minimized through anesthesia – is only one of the elements that constitute human suffering. While the operation was undergoing, the physical could interface with the mental-emotional suffering; in fact it is the latter that has the greater impact. I guess I am like many other people who would rather not show their private parts to an audience. But inside an OR, one has no choice but strip. The procedure of connecting a catheter to the protruding part of the male body can be so disconcerting. One’s immediate response during this embarrassing moment was to find a way to cover one’s face in shame. Once the catheter is in place – and which needed to get stuck to my body for almost two weeks – there follows extreme discomfort and inconvenience.

However, it could be that the most burdensome suffering that I went through was that connected to the “spiritual crisis” that I underwent. As it happened during the days of the Holy Week in 1983 – when I got abducted, made to disappear and consequently imprisoned – the fear of what eventually could take place made me ask the same question – Why me, Lord? One gets angry at God for allowing this to happen. A sense of despair takes over as one is not sure anymore if God will make an intervention to cure me of my illness as well as minimize my suffering. I was even surprised that on the fifth night at the hospital I could not sleep because I began to lose faith in God’s benevolence. I feared that this could give rise to a doubt of God’s existence.

All these forms of suffering – physical, mental-emotional, spiritual – converged as I lie there in the OR, totally helpless and powerless.

At that moment inside the OR when the convergences created such intense feeling of alienation and despair, I surrendered everything to God’s mercy. And the tears flowed as if my total being was trying its best to purify itself. Indeed, when there is nothing that one’s body can do to cope with the suffering, it finds relief in the flow of uncontrolled tears. (to be continued)

(Redemptorist Brother Karl Gaspar is Academic Dean of the Redemptorists’ St. Alphonsus Theological and Mission Institute in Davao City and a professor of Anthropology at the Ateneo de Davao University. Gaspar is author of several books, including “Desperately Seeking God’s Saving Action: Yolanda Survivors’ Hope Beyond Heartbreaking Lamentations” and two books on Davao history launched in December 2015.)