Notes from the Exam Room

Originally published in the Summer 2006 edition of Healing Waters

By Morgan Wills, MD, FACP

"If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy." (2 Kings 5:3)

A roughly 60-year-old woman—whom we’ll call Betty—came to see me several months ago for the first time with a host of vexing health problems. You could see the desperation in her eyes and hear it in her voice as she feverishly tried to recount all that was ailing her: chronic colitis, back pain, neuropathic leg pains, crippling anxiety, a recently torn rotator cuff, hypertension and more.

Despite the torrent of information coming at me that demanded recording, her spirit seemed to beg even louder for me to put the pen down and just listen. After Betty grimly ran the litany of physical symptoms, the bigger context of her illness emerged. Not only was she having great difficulty even walking down the hall, but she had recently lost both her job and her house. She was living temporarily at the home of one of her estranged children, but felt like “a prisoner in her own room.” The anxiety had intensified her pain, and she had become a recluse, not even leaving to go to the grocery store for over a year. She was infirm, exhausted, miserable, and worst of all—hopeless.

Dr. Morgan Wills

working in the clinic

It was soon clear to me that we could not solve all her problems that day. She needed serious help! That’s when the Siloam team stepped up. We started by praying together for God to guide her journey towards healing. We then framed her problems into broad categories, tackling them one at a time over multiple, sometimes painstaking visits.

In addition to following up with me, she saw an orthopedist, a neurologist and our staff behavioral health consultant. A volunteer filled out forms for her to receive free samples of some of the medications she needed. An off-site specialist helped interpret some studies we ordered at another facility. One night, a volunteer interpreter even gave her some gentle, therapeutic massage! And all her visits ended with her lingering for extra conversation with providers or front office staff—like a thirsty desert nomad lapping up water at an oasis.

In the intervening two months, we noticed a change in Betty. For starters, I began to be greeted with a smile instead of a moan. Although her symptoms are not all gone, they no longer appear to be the defining aspects of her life. She still battles pain, but she recently found herself walking down the street a few houses for the first time since she could remember. And all this before she got her first dose of antidepressant medication. When I asked her how she was doing last month, she gushed “I just love this place! I so feel the presence of God here!”

I must say that I don’t often think about Old Testament prophets when I’m examining patients. Yet I can’t think long about Betty without being reminded of the prophet Elisha and one of his famous “patients,” a man known as Namaan the Syrian. Although known as a valiant warrior, Namaan had leprosy—and all the debilitation and social stigma that went with it. He came to Israel seeking healing from Elisha—and initially balked at the prescription of bathing seven times in the waters of the relatively measly (to a Syrian) River Jordan . Yet by finally humbling himself in this manner, “ his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.”

Like Namaan, Betty felt stigmatized and hopeless. She, too, has required frequent visits and a variety of quite mundane interventions. Until recently a self-sufficient homeowner, she has to humble herself to receive donated samples of even relatively low-cost medicines that she can no longer afford to purchase. And she, too, is in the process of becoming whole. But the aspect of Betty’s situation that really reminds me of Namaan is the ironic vehicle that God used to bring them both to their healers. In 2 Kings 5, we learn that a little child—a Hebrew girl enslaved in a foreign land—was the one who told Namaan of the healing to be found in Israel.

And of all people, it was one of “the least of these”—a Latino immigrant living now in a foreign land—who informed Betty about the ministry of Siloam! “Juan” had developed a warm friendship with Betty while working as a server at her favorite restaurant. After noting her absence over the past year, he and his wife sought out their “American mother” at her new address and pleaded with her to go to Siloam. They knew family and friends who had been cared for well at Siloam and figured we could help Betty, too. Since then, they’ve driven her to each appointment and the wife has also become a patient!

Both of these stories are beautiful in themselves. And yet they both point to a bigger Story with implications for all of us. In both the little Hebrew slave girl and Juan the Mexican restaurant waiter, we catch a glimpse of Jesus. Though fully God, He condescended to the most humble of human circumstances, living and dying as the ultimate alien among foreigners. Thus, God offers us salvation and wholeness where we least expect it!

Now as Juan was to Betty, Betty has been to us; she is not “just” another difficult patient, but an unexpected messenger who points us to our true source of healing.