REFLECTION PAPER
Submitted by: Joseph George Tamayo
The defining moment in my life started with an incidental finding of a brain tumor that was noted in my cranial CT scan. I never thought it would grow in my cerebral cortex, not in my lifetime. As a doctor my life depended on my brain, the other parts of the body are just secondary. Looking out the window of my clinic, I was watching the night crawling into my office as if bad things are starting to happen. Will I be broke? I mean , can't pay my outstanding loans, so your mortgaged properties will be foreclosed. I mean worrying about how to buy food for your children or who would finance their tuition fees. What would happen to my family?
Have you ever been broken? I mean, you set out to live your dream by studying and training hard to be a doctor, a cardiologist and for a while everything goes great, then that tumor in your brain starts to developed, then things may start to happen. Bad things may start to happen. I knew it for I am a doctor and I am familiar and studied the course of such disease. I know how brain tumors affect your life. It is disastrous. And financially you would be put into drain.
No matter how hard you work or how smart you are, the dream turns into a nightmare. You invest every ounce of who you emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, financially and physically into your dream and it still hits the wall and disintegrates. Obviously, I don't have the courage and the heart to accept it. I am became weak.
Have you experienced that brokenness in your life like that? I did. Over twenty years ago, after finishing medicine in University of Santo Tomas. I set to live the dream of becoming a successful cardiologist and operating my own business. As a young twenty something doctor, I trained hard to be an internist, then as a cardiologist and an intensivist(critical care medicine). Years of sleepless night studying and taking care of patients, it paid off, I got the highest grade in the specialty examination in internal medicine. Besting my colleagues in this part of the world. I started from nothing and by the time I was thirty seven years old with the support of my wife , my career as a cardiologist was a phenomenon. Patients are overwhelming and sometimes I finished my clinic at two in the morning. I started to owned and managed some rental units and we want it to grow into an own little empire. However the growth of my little empire was stunned by the new growth in my brain. For the next two years I tried to put my diseased brain into oblivion, as if I have a normal cerebral cortex. Hoping it would disintegrate. Be vanished forever. Reality set in, it did not happen it even grew bigger. And something has to be done.
And after looking at my situation, I made the fateful decision to limit the risks of my new brain growth. I told my wife about my brain tumor. I have been married for many years to a wonderful woman. To my shame I must admit that at times I have forgotten her. Right on that time , I knew it was my duty to tell her. I was so scared and so scarred that I surrendered. Completely. I can no longer do it on my own, with my big ego. It was right on time, doing the right thing. My wife is a Christian whose faith is very deep, showed me that you should run every area of your life consistently with the Bible. Remember to bear in mind there has been only one Person who has ever lived who did all things well. That Person, of course , was Jesus.
Faith brought us to Cardinal Santos where I had a brain surgery using the gamma knife technology. Looking back at that defining moment of your life when you were alone and helpless. With no one to held on to. And my only hope was to be with Christ, completely relax in the arms of Jesus and let Him live His life through me. No amount of sweat and strength can accomplished it. No amount of self effort can resolved it. Only "through Jesus Christ" can this be obtained. With His guidance the procedure went well, I decided not to be admitted in the hospital. On that very same day I already resumed my duties and responsibilities as a doctor, as a father and as a student.
I am not the author of my life, it is GOD. He who is the Author of our faith waits to take over our frustrations and failures and turn them into joyful accomplishments that bring glory to the Lord. The One who still does all things well waiting to make you perfect in every good work… working in you that is well pleasing to God. 3
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