Not-so-small wonders

Last night I realized my clothing situation had gone too far. Socks, shirts, jeans, pajama bottoms were all strewn across the floor of my bedroom. I’m supposed to confine my clothing explosions to a chair in the corner (that’s the agreement I made with my co-habiter), but the chair’s so small! How can I be expected to follow that rule?

In order to make the cleaning task less onerous, I turned on the TV and accidentally started watching the new ABC show Miracle Workers. I have a prejudice against anything with “miracle” in the title because, though I believe extraordinary things happen, I don’t believe they happen because God intervenes. I feel like people who use the word “miracle” also believe angels watch over us. It has religious connotations I’m uncomfortable with. (Side note: I once had a guinea pig named Miracle. Her full name was Mandy Miracle Manilow Spikol. I was 8, and in love with Barry Manilow.)

But this TV show is important, I think. It highlights doctors who are able to provide a solution to medical problems previously thought intractable. Last night’s show featured a little boy with severe scoliosis whose spine was so twisted, it threatened to crush his lung. His parents wanted nothing more than to see him stand up straight. After more than five hours of surgery, they got their wish. Their 4-year-old was now able to run and jump and be like all the other kids—with great posture.

The other case was that of Emily (pictured here), a young woman who had severe Tourette’s syndrome for 11 years. Her twitches were violent, and she was unable to drive, go to school, eat out or really live her life beyond suffering through the twitches. She had tried everything, every medication and experimental treatment out there. Miracle Workers offered a surgery that had only been performed on 12 people before Emily. It was a matter of placing an electrode into her brain, and hooking it up to microprocessers in her lower back. After two surgeries, she was twitch-free, able to drive, go to school and start living a life that had been hijacked by illness. It was remarkable. Not a miracle, though. Simply a matter of the right medical treatment.

There are two reasons I think this show is important. The first is that doctors get a bad rap. With mounting malpractice litigation, managed care and pharmaceutical companies behaving badly, people are more wary than ever of doctors and hospitals. I understand that, but I think it’s unfair. Far more people are helped by doctors than aren’t. They are human beings doing their best with the best research they currently have. The expectation shouldn’t be that they know everything or do everything perfectly. For more on this subject, I strongly recommend Dr. Atul Gawande’s book Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science. It’s incredibly moving and revealing.

The second reason I think this TV show is important is because it gives people hope. It’s dangerous to offer false hope, of course. This treatment for Tourette’s, if I understand it correctly, hasn’t even been approved by the FDA. It’s not like you can just go out and get it. But after you’ve tried everything, you lose the will to go on. That’s what happened to me. It took seven years to find the right medication for my bipolar disorder, and believe me, I tried everything I could. When I reached the limit of science, or so I believed, I felt utterly defeated. But science isn’t finite. Every year—every hour—progress is made.

About Miracle Workers
A Network Plays Guardian Angel in the O.R. [New York Times]

liz | 10:25 AM | Uncategorized