In many of my posts, I compare Western values and medicine to Indian culture, values, and medicine. This time, I found an amazing article that holds many stark similarities between The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down and the article itself. I advise you to read the article(s), linked at the bottom, before reading my post.

Lakshmi was born with an undeveloped fetus attached to her actual body, making her look like she had eight limbs. Basic knowledge about Hinduism would allow someone to see the significance behind her deformity: a multitude of major Hindu deities are often portrayed with multiple arms. In this article, Lakshmi's defect makes her popular, sacred, and special among the culturally aware people; similarly, Lia's defect, while a disability, makes her popular, sacred, and special among the Hmong (seizures are a sign of a future Shaman in the Hmong culture).

What makes both of these girls special is their deformity; however, neither can actually live with her deformity. Lia's parents must have at least some degree of faith in Western medicine (as well as the acceptance that there must be some good in the medicine) that makes them want to continue to bring Lia to the hospital. If they honestly believed that hospitals were only useful when someone was about to die, they probably would have stopped bringing Lia to the hospital after just a few seizures, seeing the pattern that she doesn't seem to die from them. Similarly, Lakshmi's parents realize that her deformity must be treated. They realize that as special and goddess-like her characteristics make her, her parasitic twin had to be removed.

I find the culture of both of these families to be quite similar. Neither of the families is wealthy; both must use donated care. Both families see the child with the deformity as extremely special and hold the child near and dear. However, what is more interesting to me is the variance between these two similar scenarios. In Lakshmi's scenario, her parents believe in surgery while the Hmongs don't. The degree of trust each group puts into medicine is what interests me. Could Lia have had a similar, positive outcome had her parents trusted (or the culture put a greater trust) in Western medicine? According to CNN, the level of trust and care that Lakshmi's parents put into actually going through with the surgery was in contrast to what many of the villagers believed should have been done. ("Many villagers, however, remain opposed to surgery and are planning to erect a temple to Lakshmi, who they still revere as sacred.") Had Lia's parents gone against the culture and administered total and complete treatment for Lia (rather than just drugs that seemed to work), would the outcomes be any different? I'm interested in seeing how Lakshmi's family is viewed in the village after returning from the surgery; will the parents be out-casted for removing the extra limbs of the "Goddess"? Does the fact that the surgeons for Lakshmi were Indian (and most probably Hindu) have any effect on the families decision to go through with the surgery? Had Lia's parents had a Hmong doctor available, would they have had a different level of trust in medicine?




http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=DUEOPR5GO0AO5QFIQMFSFFWAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2007/11/05/wlimbs105.xml

EDIT: The link above doesn't work; go here instead: http://tinyurl.com/26ka7s

Lakshmi's surgery took place earlier this week and was a success.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=491757&in_page_id=1770
http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/11/07/india.girl/index.html?iref=newssearch