Sasha’s Hope Archive: How Do We See Pain?
Recently someone was telling me about a medical mission trip to a poor Central American country. The experience had left her with a positive impression and an openness to participating again in such an endeavor. All this was very good.
However, I was stopped short after she said she found it really interesting when a dentist she was assisting said, “These children actually feel very little pain when I work on their teeth.” I asked her to clarify. She said that he had explained they were almost desensitized to the pain.
I quickly corrected her that this dentist was wrong about them not feeling the same pain every child, or adult, would feel during a similar dental procedure. And my mind went back to the adoption of our Sasha…
When we first adopted her and brought her to the United States we spent a good deal of time the first couple of months getting all of her health care needs addressed. One of those needs was dental care. While her front teeth looked healthy enough, when she opened her mouth so we could see all of her teeth we practically gasped. One dentist described it as looking “bombed out.”
We had already been to several doctors before the dental visit arrived and Sasha had gone happily enough to each of those. So that morning, I explained to her she had a visit to the dentist. She didn’t understand so I got our trusty Google translator in Russian, which was essential in those first few months when communication was harder. She still didn’t understand so I looked up a picture of someone in a dentist’s chair getting their teeth checked. She let out a cry, the tears immediately flowed, and she started to make a downward motion with her finger imitating a drill while her whole body trembled. I hugged her and called Larry and told him what was going on and he immediately said he was coming home to take her himself. We both felt her fear. Whatever dental treatment she had been given before, it had deeply traumatized her.
Our dentist, Dr. Sanderson, has been very involved in missionary work and when Larry explained Sasha’s fear he compassionately nodded, “They often drill without any anesthetic.” When the actual time came to treat the damaged teeth she went to Children’s Hospital for general anesthesia while all work was done at once and she felt no pain at all. Seven teeth later…only one of them a permanent tooth…she was on her way to the brilliant smile we all love so much.
The recent story of the American dentist who believed the underprivileged children he was treating felt less pain has stuck with me. I’m sure there was something in his experience that made him think that. Maybe it’s because after people (and animals too) receive bad treatment or suffer for so long, they stop showing the same strong emotions a person would show the first time some bad thing happened to them. It’s not that they don’t feel the pain, it’s that the strong response does nothing to alleviate it and so they may remain stoic or passive to just get through it.
On a recent trip to South America a young woman we’ve met before had just been robbed. It was a violent crime and she had the bruises to show for it. She was also emotionally traumatized. She didn’t feel safe, wasn’t sleeping well, and of course, is feeling the loss of her things that she is not in a financial circumstance to replace. However, because she is a Venezuelan refugee and been “kicked around” quite a bit in her young life, her response had to be extremely tempered. She had to immediately return to work because she needed the money. There definitely is no time for counseling or expression of her feelings. For her, life must go on because her survival, and her family’s, depends upon it. So while it may look like she doesn’t feel the same pain that most would, she definitely does. She’s just adjusted her response to the sad fact that she’s come to expect such things.
So many people in our world live like this. They are used to bad treatment, unfair circumstances, and very few caring even a little bit for their plight. What is a concerned person to do? How does one help with such situations?
I’ve learned a rather surprising lesson over the years after going into many Eastern European orphanages or poor communities around the world. Money is very often only a small part of anything helpful.
I recall one orphanage where we wanted to assist the children who were in dire need of almost everything. The outhouses the children had to use were beyond awful. It stuck in my mind that one of the first things that needed to be done was to build new bathroom facilities for the children and tear down the old one so the caretakers couldn’t simply claim the new one for themselves while the children are forced to continue using the old ones…(it happens too frequently). Over the course of several months that was my goal. Imagine my surprise upon our next visit to this orphanage to discover it had been closed and the children simply left to wander the streets. If we had improved the bathroom situation, it would have been for nothing.
In another orphanage where several churches had made significant improvements to everything from bathrooms, dorm rooms, and classrooms, the corrupt government took note of this very nice facility and removed the children from the orphanage and started to use it for a military dorm. It becomes quite a dilemma. It seems that often the best thing to do is share the love of Christ and meet immediate needs (food, clothes, shelter) where they are lacking.
I’m always inspired to see those people who take the time to see, and open their eyes. A woman in the same South American country I spoke of above, told us of a mission she has started since the pandemic. Many people who were already in poor circumstances lost their income when worldwide quarantines were put in place and she was talking with children who were only being given one small meal a day (mostly a piece of bread). She started providing a meal three times a week along with Bible teaching and singing to meet a real immediate need. And remarkably, this woman is by no means wealthy. She’s simply seen the circumstance and then done all she can to meet both the physical needs, and the needs of the soul. May God bless people like her.
