Empathic Exhuastion

I got so tired of reading "Man's Search for Meaning" the other day. It's partially an account of a man's experience in a concentration camp and partially a discussion and explanation of his theory of Logotherapy where he states that in order to live a full life, it must have meaning. He quotes Nietzsche several hundred times, "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how." It's a compelling read and I'm getting a lot out of it, but I couldn't take any more concentration camp tales. My mind cannot, absolutely refuses to understand how such a thing could have taken place in human history and what it must have been like for those who suffered.

So I opened up my laptop to take a break. I was sick of reading about baby related stuff so I opened the NY Times. Not because I have a superiority complex, but because our own local fish wrapper of a paper actually charges you to read their content online whereas the NYTimes doesn't. I was just surfing for something to catch my interest. I couldn't take any more news regarding huricane victims since I've thought about that so much my head hurts. I couldn't take anymore news about the recent earthquake in Pakistan, or the war in Iraq, or gas prices. So I happened upon a story about a doctor in Africa that does a surgery called a Fistula.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/28/international/africa/28africa.html?ex=1129694400&en=8692228c20e723b8&ei=5070

I wanted to stop reading it but I couldn't. I should have, though.

Women in Africa marry and give birth quite young. A 12-year old's body isn't as capable of pushing out a baby as an older woman's body. So the babies of course, get stuck. The moms give birth at home many miles away from any medical help. The babies die. The moms have to somehow be transported to a medical facility (usually this takes at least a day including walking, being carried, on a mule, on a city bus, or all of the above) meanwhile the baby's head is partially hanging out. No drugs, of course.

Well, aside from the trauma of losing their babies, their nether regions are ripped to shreds. They are completely incontinent and cannot control either their urine flow or their bowels so their husbands leave them and they become outcasts. Some women cope by refraining as long as possible from eating or drinking. A fistula is a surgery to repair their bowels and urethra. It only takes 20 minutes and the women are immediately better. Unfortunately, there are very few doctors that can perform this surgery and the numbers of young girls giving birth and experiencing this trauma outpaces the rate at which the doctors can perform the surgery.

After I read the story, I thanked my lucky stars for being born in the Western world, not being in poverty, having two successful c-sections, and then I closed my laptop and watched The Real World. It's tragic that Danny and Melinda can't make their relationship work more smoothely but it's a tragedy I can handle.