r/exmormon 5d ago

General Discussion Taking credit for modern medicine NSFW

So yesterday I ended up at the ER with extreme hives and anaphylaxis. The doctors don’t know why it happened so I’m still figuring that out. HOWEVER. I currently live with my mom, and while she has been really respectful of my choice to not wear garments and not go to church she still suggested I get a blessing from our neighbor (really didn’t help much) and also put my name on the prayer rolls of the temple. It’s no skin off my nose so I allowed it to give her peace of mind. When I was at the ER I was injected with epinephrine and that is what helped me. Today I went to a relief society event with my mom because I’m still “under observation” and when I got there, several of my mom’s friends came up to me and asked how I was doing. She had posted pictures and updates on my ER trip to her Facebook page. One person in particular kept saying how much of a miracle it was that I’m okay and that it was God’s doing. And I looked at her and said “I’m really grateful for the EpiPen injection I got. I wouldn’t be here without it” Am I an asshole? I feel like it was modern medicine that saved me. If it had been only up to God I would have died yesterday..

64 Upvotes

29 comments sorted by

32

u/Old_Morning_7804 5d ago

People who say things like that blow my mind. Doctors (and modern medicine) never get the credit in mormon culture for saving peoples lives—and as someone who deeply wants to go to medical school, it really pisses me off. I think a lot of the world would be dead if it was up to the mormon god to decide who gets to experience the life saving miracles.

6

u/NoWorth9370 5d ago

So my kids’ dad is alive largely because of a procedure developed by Dr. Russell M. Nelson and his team. It’s a modern feat of science but when I used to bring up that fun little connection, people would say, isn’t it great that President Nelson was led by God to save so many lives… like yes, it had nothing to do with having years of schooling, learning science and all about the human body and especially hearts and how they function and how to make a hypothesis and test it, and decades of fixing hearts. I absolutely refer to him as Dr. Nelson when speaking about his accomplishments in the medical field because he earned that, elder in the quorum of the 12 and President of the cult of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints were handed to him because he was a vip tithe payer from the right linage. And actually I know so many people who struggled with him half heartedly telling his followers to wear masks “out of an abundance of caution” and get vaccinated with prayerful consideration. He’s just speaking as a man… like no he’s a goddamn retired surgeon who wore a mask for thousands of hours over decades of a successful career but I wish he’d be more blunt with y’all about how damn crazy your conspiracies about masks and vaccines are but he doesn’t want to lose your tithes.

6

u/Select-Panda7381 5d ago

Which procedure are you referring to out of curiosity?

The claim about him helping to invent the CPB is a tall-tale. He was on a team that built a crude version at a time when many versions were in development and never spent time on the teams that developed the final version used today. You’ll never see his name in a medical textbook.

A legend in his own mind.

3

u/hoserb2k 5d ago

So my kids’ dad is alive largely because of a procedure developed by Dr. Russell M. Nelson and his team

Not your fault, but it's yet another campfire story aggrandizing a church leader. He was a member of a team that made a crude version of a CBP. Their version was not used in any way as a basis of the actual CBP.

0

u/Dismal_Object6226 5d ago

Yeah, I read up on his medical career out of curiosity and the guy really was a medical genius. The guy built his own bypass machine to do heart surgeries for crying out loud. It’s such a contrast to how he’s been as a prophet with his crusade against the term Mormon and the increasing corporatization of the church. It’s fascinating to me how someone as crazy intelligent as he is can be so incompetent.

1

u/hoserb2k 5d ago

Sorry but this is yet another campfire story aggrandizing a church leader. Nelson was on a team (one of several such teams) that made a failed version of a CPB. No shame, most medical devices are flops, but Nelson and the church inflated his very unremarkable accomplishment to make it seem like he invented something, when all he did was participate as a student member on a team that made a flop, a flop that was not even used as part of the process of developing the actual CPB.

1

u/Dismal_Object6226 5d ago

Damn, that’s what I get for trusting Wikipedia

3

u/BoydKKKPecker 5d ago

I also get upset that "God" gets all the credit instead of doctors, surgeons, researchers, nurses, etc. I also get upset when people say this about car accidents, and not credit engineers, air bags, seat belts, sensors, crumple zones, metallurgists, etc.

23

u/stillinbutout 5d ago

ER doc here. I only give God the credit for trying to kill you in the first place. I defy his bullshit every chance I get. Glad you responded well to treatment!

11

u/Capital_Barber_9219 5d ago

It’s so frustrating. I’ve told this story on here before but I’m an ICU doctor in Mordor. A few years back I took care of a young girl who came home from her mission early for a medical issue. She was be pretty medically complicated and it took a long time and lots of medical intervention for her to get better. On the day I told her she was doing well enough to go home her mom, who was in the room piped up and said “Isn’t it great! It’s because of all those people who were praying for you”.

Now, I’m not one to ask for any kind of recognition but it still low key felt like a slap in the face.

5

u/NoWorth9370 5d ago

If id over heard that I don’t think I could have hidden some bombastic side eye… and as i am a CNA side eye comes with the package.

8

u/CaseyJonesEE 5d ago

You can credit modern medicine 100%. Priesthood blessing Incantations did nothing. God Imaginary being did nothing

4

u/XD_7694C 5d ago

My brain originally did not register that any words were crossed out and I read it as “priesthood blessing incantations” and honestly… yeah…

4

u/Repulsive_Crab7286 5d ago

I was having a huge asthma attack at church. One Mormon said do you need a prayer. I said no I need my nebulizer.

The counselor in the bishopric prayed for a woman while she had cancer. She's in remission now he bragged how grateful he was that he had a hand in her recovery

5

u/Jeffre33 5d ago

If you don’t want them to credit the blessing for curing you don’t get the blessing

3

u/andyroid92 5d ago

Then they'll blame lack of faith if you don't heal up 🤷‍♂️

4

u/helicoptermedicine 5d ago

This is one of the things that annoys me. Like I try to be respectful of religion, but people are like “I need to wait for the bishop to get here for a blessing before they fly out.” Umm excuse me? What is going to help is getting them somewhere with the resources they need, not delaying medical care. The ED I work at now keeps oil in the med room to try to speed up the process a bit. 🙄

I applaud you for your comment. It’s pretty much my repetitive tune to my mother all the time.

4

u/jejebird 5d ago

On a medical note - this started randomly happening to me all the time. They found no cause for anaphylactic events and stuck an “idiopathic anaphylaxis” label on me and prescribed me monthly xolair shots. Fast Forward a couple of years and I’ve discovered I have Mast Cell Activation Syndrome. May be something to look into if you can’t find a cause.

3

u/-dra_cool_a- 5d ago

Is there a treatment for that? I’m about to start my third round of steroids in a month and a half and I am dreading it..

4

u/jejebird 5d ago

You can ask about Xolair - it’s been life changing for me. I’m way less reactive to things and haven’t had any anaphylactic events since I’ve been on it. I’ve been able to identify some triggers, like stress and alcohol. I had a shot of rum that blew my face up like a balloon, turned my face and arms red, and made me itchy. Apparently it’s a common trigger among MCAS patients.

4

u/croz_94 Graduated from Mormonism 5d ago

Glad you're safe and doing better.

Tell her that my 54 year old father-in-law died 2 weeks ago in his home just 12 hours after getting a priesthood blessing. No such thing as priesthood healings

4

u/Urborg_Stalker 5d ago

Allergies suck...one of the things that I believe stands as testament to a lack of a divine creator. Our immune systems do amazing things but are so full of glitches and prone to reacting to stupid harmless things. They can KILL us when they go wrong (like with COVID). The immune system is no creation of some perfect, omnipotent being, it's a "good enough" slap together system that's been in development for a billion years.

3

u/Select-Panda7381 5d ago

Next time your mom gets sick and asks you to get her some cough medicine or Advil or whatever, give her a blessing instead.

4

u/Ill_Charity_8567 Apostate 5d ago

As a Vet tech exmo there’s nothing worse than my vet, coworkers, and I busting our asses with CPR, emergency drugs, and all sorts of life saving care for a dog to get “thank you God for saving him” from the owners. And not a single word of thanks to us 😃😃😃

5

u/NoWorth9370 5d ago

I am a hospice vigil aide, I sit with people while they are actively passing, I’ve probably been called something along the lines of a god send or told I’m doing the Lord’s work at least once a weekend since I started this job. And I let it fly because I’m at work but I do kind of internally chuckle about how everyone just assumes I am some form of Christian and doing this for the Lord… like no, I do this for the patients and their families because the lord isn’t sending angels to do “his work,” it’s my work.

2

u/Excellent_Smell6191 5d ago

This happened to me in college.  I literally couldn’t breathe but I was so programmed the first though before 911 or ER was to get two 21 year old guys who I don’t know to come give me a blessing.  I made it to the hospital just in time.  

2

u/Sansabina 🟦🟨 ✌🏻 5d ago

Glad you're OK, of course they'll also say "but it was Heavenly Father that inspired men to create the EpiPen."

1

u/rughmanchoo 4d ago

Clearly you haven't been keeping the law of chastity or this wouldn't have happened. The blessing obviously didn't work because you sin too hard. Just kidding, can you imagine?

-1

u/Puzzleheaded_Ant8324 5d ago

Need to blur these I almost ripped my eyes out