The Road to Victory

The year was 1997.  I was the intern (first year resident) on the surgical service, taking calls from the Emergency Department and admitting patients through the night in downtown Dayton, Ohio.

It was a busy night.  Sometime, around 2 am, I got called to admit another patient for an oral surgeon we worked with.

The patient was an African American lying on a gurney, under the bright fluorescent lights of the ER.  His face was swollen and disfigured.  Every so often a faint moan escaped his lips.

From what I had been told by the ER doctor, he had been beaten up by someone using a forty ounce beer bottle (empty), when he was caught breaking into a garage.  He had several facial fractures and in the morning would get his jaw wired shut to allow healing.

At this moment, though, I had to get enough information from him to  dictate a History and Physical and get him up to the floor.

"So what brings you in tonight?"  I asked him pleasantly.  Kind of an obvious question, but at two a.m., you tend to fall back on the things your usually say.

"Mmmmph..." he told me and pointed at his face.

"OK," I said, jotting down: 'Presents with facial pain,' on a sheet of paper.  "What happened?"

"Mmmmmmmmmmmph," he said.  He could talk, but the sounds weren't clear enough for me to catch distinct words.

I tried again.  Again, I couldn't understand what he was saying.  At this point, an older nurse who was flushing an IV line looked over at me.  "He says he guesses he was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

I suppose he was right, although put that way, it sounds more like missing a bus, or a connecting flight, than breaking and entering.

Over the years, I have taken care of many people who I have 'caught' in wrong doing.  Most often, it is with them using street drugs.

Unfortunately, most, when they are confronted, try to minimize their problem or excuse it.  They don't really have a problem. 

And what I want to hear them say is:  "Dr. Waldron, I am struggling.  I am not in control.  I need your help."

That is definitely what God wants to hear from us.

Jesus told the Pharisees that he had come to heal the sick, because the well didn't need a physician.  It wasn't that the Pharisees didn't need help -- they needed healing just as much as everyone else in the crowd -- it was that they didn't think they needed help.

It is only those who do not believe they need help who are truly beyond help.

As we confess our sins and our weaknesses and seek the help of others, we can and will gain victory.  It may seem easier to deny wrong doing, but the road to victory begins with an honest confession.