> SB> I'm glad they stood up to the medical profession too.  It helped that
  > SB> they had the strong support of several friends.  I think it must be
  > SB> much rougher for folks to stand up against the medical establishment 
if
  > SB> they are feeling isolated.  Doctors can be an overbearing lot.
RA>Yes, they can, and people encourage this by looking up to doctors,
  >respecting them, and believing that every doctor knows everything there
  >is to know about medicine.
I think part of that stems from the fact that when people are seriously
ill, or their loved ones are seriously ill, they are afraid; and the
doctor probably does know more about this specific illness than they do.
I say probably, because sometimes lay people know more about their own
illnesses than doctors do.  Because they are ill and weak and scared,
they turn power over to the doctor.
RA>I get the feeling that your friend had as much influence on this man as
  >he had on her.  It sounds like he woke up and realized that what for him
  >and the other men who visited your friend's mother had no meaning beyond
  >relieving sexual desires was having a destructive impact on an innocent
  >child.  He must have been a decent man at heart, and I suspect your
  >friend never saw him again because he never came back--he seems to have
  >had a greater sense of decency and responsibility than your friend's
  >mother.
I think you are probably right about that.  In any case, in the end, she
turned out to be a wonderful and very loving adult.
                        Sondra
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 þ SLMR 2.1a þ I write to discover what I think. -- Daniel Boorstein
--- Opus-CBCS 1.7x via O_QWKer 1.1
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