Test of Faith The accidents of life separate us from our dearest friends, but let us not despair.

God is like a looking glass in which souls see each other. The more we are united to Him by love, the nearer we are to those who belong to Him. St. Elizebeth Ann Seton

A man came in my office with his wife. The couple showed me a CT scan of his abdomen. He was a well-built man but I knew outright that he was a very apprehensive person. He frequently had bouts of abdominal pain and occasionally would feel bloated and nauseated. These attacks became more pronounced in the span of a little over a week. What I saw truly startled me! His intestines were coiling around a narrow root of mesentery (the attachment of the intestines to the inner abdominal cavity containing its blood supply called the Superior Mesenteric Vessels). This is a congenital condition known as Malrotation. What astounded me is that the man reached his forties never having a fatal intra-abdominal accident that might have caused gangrene of maybe >80% of his intestines. I carefully explained that he needed an operation and that we would never know exactly when an intra-abdominal vascular accident would happen. He vehemently refused! His wife told me that he would not even subject himself to any form of injection, much more a major abdominal operation. I did not force the issue so I left them to decide. After all, this indeed was a very difficult case. The procedure would involve a very extensive dissection to fan out the mesentery so that its base would not narrow and twist. As a result the small intestine would run down on his right side of the abdomen and zigzagging up to the large intestine, which would ultimately end up on the left side of the abdomen. The wife called me one morning saying that her husband finally consented to the operation. So we prepared him for surgery. We did what was described in the textbooks and prayed for the best. He stayed in the hospital for five days more and was able to eat. However, three days after coming home, he felt bloated. He could not tolerate taking in solids. The following day, he could not even take in milk. So I asked them to come so I can see him at the clinic. I told them that what I feared most did happen a possible recurrence of the problem. This is when the mans faith was truly tested. He was even more anxious now than the first time. He said, Doc, why is this happening to me? Am I going to die? Why me when I am so cowardly and afraid of needles? I asked him to please be patient and simply trust in God for all that may happen from this day henceforth. The night of the first day he was admitted after a nasogastric tube was inserted, the wife called me on the cell phone sobbing. She was being scolded by her husband and demanded that the tube be removed. So I immediately went to the hospital to talk to him. With a firm but gentle tone, I asked him to be patient. I explained further that he has to go beyond his single-mindedness and lack of faith and rise above the current crisis so that we would not be rushing into decisions that might jeopardize our chances of solving this predicament. I explained, Maybe, Our Lord is testing your faith. He is actually calling on you for complete surrender. You are trusting too much on yourself to solve difficult problems. I think I struck the nail right on its head. The wife agreed with me. She explained that he is just as I described him: He is no doubt a good husband; however, he thinks that for as long as he is doing good, minding his own business, he is already ok in life. Conversely, whenever the family prays the rosary, it is already understood that he would not partake at all. He does not need to pray at all because he is, after all, doing ok already. A decision to operate was made after I asked the opinion of a close friend and more senior surgeon. He was crushed but somehow this paradoxically increased his faith. This time, he was the one asking his daughter to come over the to the hospital so they could pray as a family. He never realized that her very young

daughter could lead in praying the rosary every day and recite the different mysteries including the Mysteries of the Light! He was wheeled in the OR for the operation and I with my colleague did a bypass so that food could pass through and beyond the duodenum. There was no twisting of the mesentery but the duodenum was so zigzagged because of scarring that to straighten it would jeopardize the blood supply of the rest of the intestine. Days passed after the second operation. The NGT output every day was >2,000 cc. Day 3 passed, still >2,000 cc. I was beginning to be worried. I prayed hard, Lord, please heal this man so he may see your loving kindness and mercy! I didnt want that him to be crushed once more by news of a third operation. Certainly, he would loose all faith in the Lord. So I asked for an X-ray of the stomach with a contrast dye to be infused into his NGT to visualize the possibility of food going thru the stomach and duodenum and into our newly created conduit to the rest of the bowels. I asked him to please have faith and plead the Lord that the final test result might prove favorable. Maybe I underestimated his faith. That Sunday morning, all of a sudden his NGT output dropped to almost none even after checking if it was at all clogged. He now did not feel bloated. He definitely did not look anxious and was now all smiles. The following day, a week after the operation, the X-ray of the abdomen was done. To my relief the dye passed through from his stomach to the rest of the bowel with ease! Alleluia! My heart leaped with relief and great joy! I couldnt wait to tell him the good news and remove the miserable tube from his nose! He is now eating well and is definitely a changed Christian!