Triumph of the human spirit
DREAMS may or may not come true. What really matters is the strength and the will to dream.
The irrepressibly fond dream of the sisters Laden and Laleh Bijani ended in the death of both. But the unfathomable sadness of the event is relieved by the invaluable contribution made to medical science and the practice of surgery. In medical language, ‘craniotomy’ or opening of skulls, a tested procedure in paediatrics, was for the first time tried in the case of the 29-year-old adults.
Over a score of neurosurgeons, rated as some of the best in their highly complex discipline, failed to save the twins after a marathon two-day fight with death. Fired with their love of life and a craving to live it separately as independent individuals, each in her own way, Laden and Laleh undertook the maximum risk of their own free will. Their last words were that they wanted to achieve ‘their dream of living independent lives’ in full consciousness of the risks involved. “We have different ideas about our lives. Actually we are opposites. If God wants us to live as two separate individuals, we will.”
To the extent that the twins’ heads were surgically separated, the operation could be termed a success despite the death of the two brave girls. It could (and hopefully will) lead to a major breakthrough in neurosurgery. And the Iranian twins’ names would forever be enshrined in medical textbooks. Could today’s open- heart surgery, a routine procedure now, have been at all possible without Dr Christian Bernard’s first heart transplant operation when his gallant patient died within days of surgery? Some of us must be willing to submit to help medicine find the miracle cures it has achieved today.
Singapore Raffles Hospital chairman Dr Loo Choon Yong said: “As doctors, there is only so much we can do as the rest we have to leave to the Almighty.” Dr Yong’s statement mirrors both the triumph of the human will and the tragedy of the will failing to achieve the desired result. What mattered, however, was that both the doctors and their brave patients did not recoil from the challenge. Thus, in the assertion and exercise of will, regardless of the consequences, lies the true triumph of the human spirit. The real tragedy would consist in our failure to dare stretch our mental and physical resources to the maximum.
The death of Laden and Laleh will be gratefully remembered for the twins’ act of ultimate courage in embracing death while dreaming of life as separate individuals, fused in love and yet diffused and alone in life’s stormy and stirring voyage.
The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army.