Chapter 6/2

Forty-some years ago I had a troubling medical problem myself, so I went to one of the most respected doctors in Fort Worth. After examination, he said, “As soon as you can take off work for two weeks, you need surgery.” The problem was that, at the time, I was dealing with the scholarly demands of doctoral studies, working a forty-hour job, and was married, with three teenagers. There was no way I would ever be able to take off two weeks without serious consequences at home, work, and school.

A friend suggested I see the school physician. He was an old elderly gentleman who devoted one day a week, pro bono, to the school. The rest of the time he was a member of the faculty at Baylor Medical in Dallas. After he examined me, he scoffed at the other doctor’s opinion and told me there was no need of surgery at all. He had a few suggestions for self-help and dismissed me. The first doctor’s call for surgery could be seen as the thesis–the starting point–and the school doctor’s opinion as the antithesis. My problem was real. It was aggravating. I wanted help, but I could see no way to take two weeks off. I felt the tension between the two opinions.

I could not trust expert medical opinion to make the decision. The experts disagreed. Which was right? Or was there, perhaps a third option? Two doctors and I were involved in this dilemma. Ultimately I was in the driver’s seat; I was the controlling agent in this DIALECTIC. The road signs pointed in opposite directions. I decided to trust the old physician and at least postpone the idea of the operating table. I learned to live with the problem and now, more than forty years later, although I still sometimes wonder about surgery, I am glad I went for a second opinion.