Feeling the Lord near is something very difficult to explain. He accompanies us in our good, regular and bad moments. However, He never leaves us alone. This strength and feeling is what helps many of the sick people admitted to the oncology wards of hospitals around the world. Some of them, when they are about to die, because they have not responded to treatment or the complications are incurable, They assure that they will leave in peace, with confidence. They have faith in Him.
The same thing happens with the doctors who work in the Oncology ward, this is the case of Dr. Rafael Nunez Martin, oncologist at the Getafe University Hospital, who confesses to El Debate that the patients he helps to move forward are like a kind of school for him to learn to love.
–How does illness reach patients who have faith?
–We, as in all centers, have, on the one hand, patients who have faith and those who do not believe in something transcendent, in what we would call salvation, as we Christians believe.
I wouldn’t dare to make comparisons, because for that we would have to do studies and it is true that in this sense we scientists are very careful when it comes to saying that the person or patient who has faith lives better than the one who doesn’t. But I would tell you that in my experience, people who have a living faith, that is, those who don’t take it as a cultural issue like my grandmother went to mass and so I have that Christian culture, but those who live their faith with roots, go to the Eucharist, live in prayer, help others and try to be a person who reflects Christ. If this happens, it is perfectly noticeable that the illness is carried in a milder form.
–Have you had any cases you can tell us about?
–I remember a case from two weeks ago of a 66-year-old man. This patient had a rare tumor called a neuroendocrine tumor, a tumor of glands in the body. In this case, the patient had cancer cells located in the pancreas with metastasis in the liver and had already undergone four lines of treatment, four different chemotherapy treatments and was admitted to the ward for liver failure. There was not much more that could be done for him.
I have always said that being an oncologist is a privilege because you are in contact with the truth.
This man was admitted to hospital by a colleague of mine at the Getafe University Hospital. One day I decided to go and see him because my colleague wasn’t there and I had a very curious moment. On the back of his wife’s mobile phone I saw Santa Maravillas. I asked them about their faith and they said yes, they had faith. After telling me that he already had his confessor, I asked him how they were, since it was a very difficult time. However, his answer was amazing. Then he said to me: ‘Well, look, Rafael (he didn’t know me, but you can see the closeness of believers) we know that we are dying. I know that I am dying, that there are probably no more treatments and what I would like is to die at home, close to my family.’ He told me this with incredible serenity.
After he opened his heart, I saw a person in the room crying. We learned that he does not believe in God, but these words were a very clear mirror for him regarding his own experience. I loved it and enjoyed it very much. The next day, when I saw the patient again, I saw this person again talking to him about the same subject: death. After this, my feeling is that the authenticity of an encounter with death as it should be, as God commands, overwhelmed him.
–Rafa, as a doctor, how do you live this faith with your patients? How does it influence you?
–For me, patients are a school of life. I have always said that being an oncologist is a privilege because you are in contact with the truth, because most patients throughout their illness, especially patients who are close to death or whose illness they know will not be cured, begin to get rid of superficial things that no longer serve them to live. Little by little they are left with those things that are important to them in order to live. For me, they are like a kind of school to learn to live. I always say that it is a school to learn to love, because in the end learning to live is learning to love.
We are made to love. We see this clearly when we perceive that patients are in their final moments. At this moment, no one regrets not having set up three companies or not having put in three more hours at work each day. Most patients regret not having spent more time with their son, not having taken more care of their wife, not having divorced their wife, not having taken more care of their parents.
At this moment we see that human beings are really made to love each other and that is a school. If you keep your eyes open, you will learn many lessons.
