Wisdom to Know the Difference

Three years ago yesterday Kahlan, my daughter was born. This came in the middle of what seems like the longest months of my life. In late June or early July of 2008, my wife had a car accident. We took her in to the emergency room after. The doctor wanted to do x-rays, and he asked us if there was a chance that she was pregnant. She and I looked at each other and couldn’t give a definite answer, so he had her do a pregnancy test. A short time later he came back to tell us the news: Kathy was in fact pregnant. Kathy was so excited that she nearly forgot why we were there, but I have to admit, the reality didn’t really hit me until later on. I think the doctor was slightly disappointed that I didn’t display much enthusiasm. To be honest, I was more concerned about the result of the car accident than the results of that pregnancy test at that time. She didn’t have any visible signs of injury. She did end up being sore for days later, and did have some back problems related to the accident.

Some of her pains did not go away. Over the next few weeks she began having more problems. Soon, she was unable to work, and she started having more serious back pain. As her condition went downhill, I became more concerned that something besides the pain from the accident was wrong with her. We went to see her OB/GYN and he was convinced that an old problem from her first pregnancy had come back. During her first pregnancy, she had suffered through kidney stones. The doctor sent her for several examinations, and though there was no sign, other than her past history, he was convinced that she was having the same problem again.

Her pain level grew worse, and he ended up putting her on bed rest, which forced her to take a leave of absence from work. She got to the point where she looked ashen all the time, and was only able to lay on the couch all day. During this time, I was commuting an hour to work every day. Every day that I left her, the time away bothered me more. As the days drug on, her mood and attitude degraded. Under a mysterious pain in abdomen and back, with no clear end in sight, it passed from illness into something like torture. We went back to the doctor several times, and he was still convinced that it was kidney stones. My wife, having been through the experience before, insisted that it felt different. He could give us nothing different. The rest of the pregnancy continued, and her body even tried to end the pregnancy. Every day, I feared leaving her. I was afraid that I would come back to find her dead.

February came, and Kahlan was born. The doctor then told us things should get better for Kathy as her hormone levels changed. They did not. Things stayed the same, aside from the new addition in our house, of course. After several more months, we went to our family doctor, after a particularly bad episode. He sent her to a different specialist, and we found that she in fact had gall stones.  A few weeks later she went in for surgery, and had her gall bladder removed. After the surgery, she recovered over the next few weeks.

I was frustrated beyond belief with her OB/GYN.  Despite very little evidence, and even some strong contradictory evidence, he was stuck in a particular frame of mind. He neglected the contradictory evidence, and it in a sense called it a fluke. In the end he was stuck in what is called “paradigm paralysis.” All he saw as important was evidence that supported his original point of view, and he seemed unable to even conceive of alternative points of view. He is a very well educated man, and in fact I am to understand that he taught others within his field as well.

I have been around some very well educated people. I have a great deal of respect for their knowledge and experience. It is frustrating though when this experience develops into a type of orthodoxy. When we have extended beyond the limits of their knowledge, when the environment has radically changed: when the world we formally knew is far away, we should rethink what we do. But because of “paradigm paralysis” we use our old way of thinking and try, often disastrously, to live by the same rules. When things don’t work, we look for blame, despairingly try to make things the way they were, or just plain ignore reality. This isn’t just a problem for the educated; it is part of the way we are made. I pick on this group, myself included, because our education should help us to know better. Perhaps this is where the fourth line of the serenity prayer has more meaning:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

--Reinhold Niebuhr

February 19th then is a day of celebration. We celebrate the birth of our daughter. For my own celebration, I remember that I have them both, and that they were not taken from me.