Selected Scriptures

June 6 2021

Evening Service

Sean Higgins

Or, A Kuyperian Hot Take on Western Medicine

Series: Centers and Circumferences #17

Introduction

This is a very important message and, if the Lord does not return soon, containing much possible application for when I’m dead. I pray that many who hear it would sense a calling to the many ministry opportunities that the medical field allows, and that all who hear it would be thankful for God’s good gifts to us in Western medicine.

What’s to come in this message is some testimony, some principles, and some prescriptions.

This is personal.

I’ve torn ligaments in my knee, and another time had an avulsion fracture of the tibial tuberosity (the bump some people get below their kneecap) where the tendon ripped off and the bone broke, which is an extreme case of Osgood–Schlatter disease. I’ve had my tonsils out twice, sort of, once to cut out the tonsils and then again to get the blood clot that was so big in my throat that it was blocking my breathing. I’ve fractured vertebrae, had bone chipped from my hip to fuse two vertebrae (L2-3) together that are held in place with four large screws and two rods that connect the sets of screws. Because I have metal in my back, I had to have a Myelogram CT scan, which included a shot of contrast die into my spinal cord, but the needle hole didn’t clot, leaking spinal fluid and making it so that my brain was resting on my skull, that required a blood patch about seven excruciating days later, and in between I was taking 8, 800mg tablets of ibuprofen a day, or, the equivalent of 32 Advil. I’ve had the top third of my stomach wrapped around my lower esophageal sphincter because of crazy acid reflux (Nissen fundoplication). I’ve had neck surgery to drill a hole (between C6-7) for a crushed nerve that caused permanent damage to one of the nerves running down into my right hand. I’ve broken my ring finger twice (ask Jonathan). I’ve had another back surgery to take out a piece of disk that was broken and pushing into my spine. I had a golf ball-ish sized cyst cut out of my chest in the doctor’s office, that turned out to be a rare kind of cancer, which required an actual surgery to remove larger margins of tissue, which resulted in fluid accumulation in my left pec, which required my doctor’s use of a large needle to suck the fluid out approximately half a dozen times. I lost half of my blood from an internal bleed, spending parts of five days in the hospital, and taking at least six months to recover from the anemia, for a bleed they never determined the cause of, and two pill cams died trying to take pictures of my digestive track. I’ve been in the emergency room with Costochondritis (inflammation of the cartilage near the breastbone that mimics a heart attack), twice with kidney stones, multiple times for spinal pain, and as recently as last Christmas day with chest pain. I have Spondylolisthesis (displacement rather than alignment of vertebra) at L4-5, and Gastroparesis (where things get stuck in my stomach too long). Ironically my only known allergy is to penicillin. And I am probably even a COVID survivor.

I can’t remember the last day I wasn’t in some sort of pain, and I have it way better than Mo.

And both of us would be dead were it not for Western medicine.

It wasn’t too long into our marriage when I realized that maybe I should have been a pharmacist, or at least studied that first. There are so many health, body, medical problems that we’ve had to deal with, let alone conversations with family and church family and friends with hurts, diagnosed and undiagnosed, that I wish I had knew a lot more about it. I’d have to be a pharmacist, though, not a doctor or nurse, because I get sick looking (and smelling) blood.

Many of you also have many bodily ailments, and so the subject of medicine is to the point.

Good Health Is Good

God did not make [...]