37 Crying for help

Hercules and the Waggoner: A wagonerdrove a loaded wagon when its wheels sank into the muddy road. His horses could not pull it out of the mire. He wrung his hands helplessly and wailed aloud requesting Hercules to help him. After a while, Hercules himself appeared and said, "Put your shoulder to the wheel and goad your horses. Then you may seek help. If you will not lift a little finger to help yourself, you can't expect God or anyone else to come to your rescue."

Mohan, a 35-year old businessman, developed multiple sclerosis - a chronic disease of the nervous system with an unpredictable course of recoveries and relapses. On realising the nature of the disease, he was devastated. His initial attack was mild and resulted only in a partial paralysis of the legs from which he could have made quick recovery. The physician told him, "Mohan, try hard and you will be back on your feet in four weeks.” The physiotherapist tried to motivate him to perform exercises. But he pleaded helplessness and made no real effort to move his legs.

When Mohan asked his physician, "Doctor, when would I recover and go home?", he replied in an exasperated tone, "My dear young man! I have to ask you that question. When would you try to recover and go home? Simply lying down pleading to be powerless won't get you anywhere. When you decide to take charge of your recovery, we probably can help you, but not until then."

Comments

The ability to recover from a setback and bounce back to full life varies from person

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to person. It has been called the spiritual factor or Factor-Xin healing (DB Bisht, 1985). Persons with poor factor-X recover poorly and slowly after any illness. Faith in oneself, in a guruor in God seems to be necessary to get the power of factor-X.

I have collected the case details of quite a few persons with low factor-X. They are well educated, cynical, pessimistic and unable to have faith in themselves or anyone else. I vividly remember a health professional who could not recover from her symptoms even after a successful heart surgery. No amount of explaining, counselling or placebo therapy helped her to resume normal activity. Finally, I had to coax the priest from her church to visit her and try to prop up her spirits. The priest had to work very hard in her case to achieve a measure of success and she could walk home on her own after a few weeks.

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