WRITTEN BY Shmuel T. Adler:

Though the title of this article suggests that the following idea is not part of bitachon this is not the intent of the title. The title is intended only to bring out the point of the article. This will become clear later on.  

 

When one hears bad news such as a bad diagnosis about themselves or a family member one tries to work on their faith. They try to strengthen their belief of knowing that G-d could do anything and that He will help them or the family member survive. Too often we assume that the bad prognosis of whatever the situation is, is true– and then we have faith that we will survive. There is a step which seemingly comes even before one working on their faith that they will survive the bad news. This is that the bad news may not even be true to begin with! The whole thing may be a mistake. One naturally gets all worried and scared how they will survive; but one must try to remember that they may not even have to survive the bad prognosis, because it may not exist in the first place! Meaning the whole cause for worry and concern just doesn’t exist.

This idea has the potential to be a huge life-support in times of difficulty. It can make it so much easier to deal with a bad diagnosis’ or other bad news.

We naturally get locked into assuming that a bad prognosis automatically has total credence. And then it becomes extremely difficult to stay strong with the belief that one will survive. If the doctor says that a person is very sick and only has a short amount of time to live then it is extremely hard to believe that the person will live a long time. However if one realizes that there is always the possibility that the person doesn’t have the major sickness which was diagnosed and the doctor is wrong; it can make it so much easier to feel that everything may turn out well. Doctors are only human beings and they can make mistakes;  and then the chances of the person “surviving” is so much greater. He doesn’t even have to survive; he never had the sickness in the first place!

Denise* brought her baby to the doctor for a regular check up. After examining the baby the doctor told Denise that her baby’s tongue was not growing in properly. If it continued growing this way it threatened to eventually effect the baby’s breathing. The baby would need to have surgery to cut off part of the tongue. Of course Denise was devastated and very scared. The day of the surgery came closer and Denise’s fear grew. She prayed and prayed. On the day surgery was scheduled a frightened Denise arrived at the doctor’s office with her baby. The doctor told her that before he performs the surgery he wants to check the baby one more time to make certain the baby truly needs the surgery. A few minutes later the doctor returned with the baby and a huge smile on his face! The mother did not know what happened. The doctor told her that he saw that the baby’s tongue moved back to its proper place. It must have originally been out of place due to the babysitter feeding the baby too fast or some other reason! The baby did not need the surgery! Denise was dancing in the doctor’s office, telling everyone there what had just transpired! As it turned out, the doctor’s prognosis was wrong!

This could be helpful for day to day worries as well.

Zevy* got caught up with something important and this caused him to be almost an hour late to work. He had just started a new job a few months before and he had never come this late. Though his boss was a fair and understanding man, Zevy’s immediate supervisor got upset easily. Zevy had butterflies in his stomach imagining the greeting he was going to get upon his late arrival. The whole drive to work he was nervous about what his supervisor would say. He arrived at work, and to his relief he saw that his supervisor was had not shown up that day! The whole cause for his worries did not exist.

It goes even more than just realizing that the bad prognosis may not be true.

 In general, when one is confronted with bad news it is very difficult to retain control and keep thinking logically. So often our imagination brings us to assume the worst, almost as if it already happened! Our mind totally loses focus and threatens to force us to give up because we feel all is lost. We panic, and then we are unable to think straight. Our brain adds untrue facts to the story and blows the actual true facts up bigger than what they really are. This makes it very difficult to see the whole picture objectively which makes it much harder to deal with properly and in a controlled, thought through manner.

The following story is a perfect example of the idea which we are talking about.

The Zaller’s* had a child, Riva*, who was in the hospital with several serious health issues for a long period of time. Finally, after months of waiting, the magical words were heard. The doctor said that Riva should be ready to go home in a few weeks. Mr. and Mrs. Zaller were overjoyed. The words they were so, so longing to hear had been spoken.

Unfortunately the excitement was short lived. A few days later the Zallers received a phone call from the hospital telling them that Riva’s situation had changed for the worst. The Zallers rushed to the hospital. They found a team of doctors and nurses surrounding their dear child. They tried to find out exactly what happened but the medical team was too busy focusing on Riva to answer their questions. Finally the team began to slowly leave Riva’s room and then one of the doctors was able to answer the worried parent’s questions. The good news was that Riva’s situation was stable. However her breathing had worsened considerably. Additionally, the girth of her stomach was larger than it should be, and was slowly growing larger. The medical team was at a loss to explain the source for these issues.

To make a long story short; over the next few days Riva’s situation continued to worsen. Her respiratory status gradually declined. And her midsection continued slowly growing.

 The team finally concluded that her midsection was filling with fluid. Yet they still had no idea what the fluid was and where it was coming from. After taking many x-ray’s they saw that besides for Riva’s abdomen filling with fluid, her chest was filling with fluid as well. The situation went from being very serious to being – very very serious!  Finally the team decided, as risky as it was, they had no choice but to insert 2 tubes, one into Riva’s chest and one into her abdomen to try to drain the fluid out. So now they had the fluid draining out but still no idea what it was coming from.

The medical team spoke to more doctors and still they could not come up with an idea of what this fluid was. Finally, after researching, they found one possible option of what the fluid was. They were still not sure, but this was the best idea they were able to come up with.

The Zaller parents were told that there was really only one option left to deal with this fluid. The doctors told them that the fluid was leaking from part of the body which was near Riva’s vital organs. In order to stop the fluids, surgery would need to be done in which the surgeon would need to clamp down whatever was leaking. But the surgeon wasn’t even sure the exact place he needed to clamp down. He would have to find it during the surgery. The distraught Zallers were told that the risk of this surgery was similar to that of brain surgery and that for a healthy child the success rate was 50%. But for their child it was even less, being that she was already in a life threatening state. Meanwhile, Riva’s breathing was worsening and her girth continued to grow.

Mr. and Mrs. Zaller had to make a decision. They decided they would tell the surgeon not to perform the surgery until he felt he absolutely had to. The surgeon agreed that they could wait another 3 days. This gave the Zallers three days to come up with their decision.

The Zallers had been through so much with their dear child Riva. And she finally seemed to be on her way out and then this came crashing down in their faces. They were almost totally overwhelmed. As described before, their minds flew almost entirely out of their control. What was going to be?! After everything they had already experienced, this threatened to force them to just give up hope.

Struggling to maintain a slight ray of hope they consulted in more specialists and also Rabbonim to help them decide what to do. Mr. Zaller attempted to fortify himself and tell himself that there was always the %50 chance that Riva would survive the procedure. G-d could do anything. But after the siege of attacks which Mr. Zallers support-tower had been hit with, his resolve was weakening. He thought to himself, G-d has gotten us through so many other predicaments. He will get us through this as well. But then another voice crept in to his head telling him that this time the chances of hope were too slim. At the end the voices in Mr. Zallers head left him struggling to grab onto the hope that Riva would indeed survive. However previous times Mr. Zaller believed in it strongly, as he had reasons to support his belief that there were considerable chances that all would be well. But this time he struggled to fully believe it with all his heart. The procedure was so incredibly risky. And it seemed that there was no way to avoid the procedure. Mr. Zaller told himself that he knew that G-d got him out of trouble before; but how would He get them out this time!!?

Then G-d decided to plant an idea into one of the surgeons’ heads. One of the surgeons decided to do one last test to see if their conclusion of what the fluid was, was correct. They had actually already previously performed this test and results showed that their diagnosis was correct; the source for the fluid was as they thought and that they had no choice but to go through with the surgery. But the surgeon “decided” to re-do the test again.

His idea was that Riva was getting nutrients and vitamins through an IV tube. Maybe the tube had a leak and the same fluids that they were pouring into the IV tube were the fluids which were filling up her body!

The Zallers could not wait to hear what the findings were about these tests. The head doctors and the surgeon called the Zallers to a meeting. They described the test which they had performed on the IV tube. They checked the amount and type of the fluids which they were putting in to the IV tube, and the same amount and type of fluids which were draining out of the tube into Riva’s body corresponded to what they were putting in! This showed that the fluids were actually coming from the IV tube itself. Those same fluids which they put in to the tube were coming out into Riva’s body! They said that they needed to do more testing, however it seemed quite clear that the fluid was not what they originally thought it was, requiring the risky, life-threatening surgery, rather the fluids in fact were leaking from a faulty IV tube!!! If this was the case, the whole surgery would be completely unnecessary!!

The doctors did further follow up testing and they concluded that the new theory was correct! The fluids were from the IV tube! They didn’t need to perform surgery. The Zallers felt as if they had gone through techiyas hameisim! Riva and her parents were given a new lease on life! She didn’t need the terrible, risky, life-threatening surgery! Finally the Zallers were able to breathe a bit once again.

And this was G-d’s answer to Mr. Zaller! The whole prognosis which the doctors were saying was totally and utterly wrong! Riva didn’t need the surgery! The fluid was not coming from a leak in Riva’s body near her vital organs, the leak was coming from the IV line!! G-d had no problem finding a solution!

* names changed for privacy

L’zchus Refua Sheleima Yehoshua Ben Nechama Aliza; L’iluy Nishmas Chaim Pinchos ben Yaakov Yitzchok