Balancing faith and actions
Last week, I hit my own personal worst as I took inventory on the current status of my chosen professional path: conventional allopathic medicine. After researching and writing about Adriana Smith's horrific experience in Georgia, I found myself unable to move forward with anything positive to say about any part of our Health care system as it relates to Black women. She was a nurse for god's sake; a pregnant black NURSE wasn't listened to when she went to an emergency room for care. What can I suggest to other Black women? What could have been her strategy for getting care?
For years I have recommended that patients take a buddy with them any time that they're going to have to interact with our overly bureaucratic and deeply broken “healthcare” system. The power dynamics between the patient and managed care system are simply too skewed against the ill individual to try to go it alone.
Even the KARENS have trouble in this system:
I fantasize that ADVOCACY is the only thing that could have saved Adriana Smith's life. I imagine her in that dismissive emergency room visit, accompanied by 5 members of her family. At least three of them would have needed to be strapping big people. Everyone would have had to simply refuse to leave until she got an adequate evaluation. With access to the internet and various AI programs, “civilians” can arrive with a basic idea of what tests should be done:
https://youtube.com/shorts/Gvm12b-ngpc
That is a pretty grim and pessimistic response, coming from a dedicated women's health advocate. I've already described doctors as being as lethal a risk to Black women as the police are to all Black people. Adriana Smith's family camping out in the emergency could have escalated into violence with local police…
But then again, Adriana would have been in the right place at the right time (not in bed with her boyfriend) when her seizures began…
And then maybe she would have been taken seriously.
That fantasy of a large group of Black individuals simply refusing to leave the E.R. was inspired by my trip down another internet rabbit hole. I went on a Spirit-led adventure that took me into the life of a Maori musician and his family.
Stan Walker.
This is where I began:
By chance, I was introduced to this New Zealander in the middle of his story. That video is four years old; I knew nothing about his Australian Idol win in 2009, or about this man's musical, movie, and modeling career. All I knew was I found the song mesmerizing:
“I'm just trying to keep my FAITH
But I'm looking for more
Somewhere I can feel SAFE
And, end my holy war”
Spirit gifted me with Stan Walker. His story from halfway around the world (New Zealand) offered me exactly what I needed to restore my faith that allopathic medicine has ANY redeeming qualities in postpandemic 2025. It is a story that combines all of the issues that I care about with respect to healing.
First issue:
A deeply satisfying story of fame and fortune coming to a member of a community of indigenous people oppressed as much as Black Americans. Stan described his family of origin issues as “straight out of Once Were Warriors”
To learn details of this man's rise to conventional entrepreneurial power, despite not only bad odds, but huge amounts of institutional racism was deeply satisfying. Just for that money part.
Second issue:
At age 27, Stan went through a 9 month ordeal of cancer treatment, with the total removal of his stomach. There were several complications along the journey, including infections, a need for more surgery and a collapsed lung. He made a powerful and honest documentary as he underwent his treatment:
https://youtu.be/yUWX4VkLSG4
Third issue:
This man and his family come from High Trauma load dysfunctionality; as he said, “Once Were Warriors types”. Alcoholism. Drug addiction. Sexual abuse and domestic violence. AND, STILL THEY RISE, and many embraced Christianity (Stan, at age 15). The level of forgiveness I witness in this family across generations is deeply encouraging.
Fourth Issue
This family carried a curse that no one understood; with high cancer rates throughout the last two generations. It was access to the basic science of genetics that allowed scientists to identify the cause of a cluster of aggressive stomach cancers that had killed 25 members. CDH1 was a specific mutation that could be tracked in living members of this family. That is how Stan’s stomach cancer was diagnosed. The total gastrectomy he underwent revealed 17 different areas of cancer within the stomach, all contained within the wall, with no evidence of any metastasis.
Fifth issue
It was two aunties in Stan's family who traced the patterns of cancer deaths and campaigned for testing, not the scientific coming to them. And the Aunties were listened to. And the scientific research was actually DONE.
Sixth issue
The plethora of information on this man and his family show a dramatic and beautiful transformation from pop star to a deeply spiritual artist and representative for Maori culture.
Seventh (and the last) issue:
If “Ultralight Beam”-- the song I first heard– mesmerized me, then “I am” and the images from Ana Duvay’s movie “Origin” video blew me wide open:
https://youtu.be/IK8OOpeYHC4?si=Mt8Smokf0E8ziXmy
“ as far as the eye can see,
everything is change.
tell me, how can we stand by?
I don't want to be the same”
It offers such a powerful opportunity to channel grief at all levels: personal, relational, cultural, and spiritual.
He is a gentle man, from halfway around the world with the name of the daughter he and his then-girlfriend lost, tattooed on his neck.
He is now the 34 year old father of three with a gorgeous Maori wife. His life and his choices offer me hope.