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musings on
synchronicity
and the value of
paying attention

Lorenzo's Oil is the true story of a five-year-old child with a rare and usually fatal wasting illness similar to multiple sclerosis, adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD), and the lengths to which his parents go to find treatment. It's a heart-tugging story played out with the drama and style of a Hollywood production. Susan Sarandon, Nick Nolte, and Peter Ustinov, as well as the child actor Zack O'Malley Greenburg, make us care about these people and their struggle.

The Barbarian Invasions follows a middle-aged man with a terminal illness as he reaches out to estranged family members and reunites with many people from his past while making peace with his condition and what the next steps might be. It's an independent film from Quebec, Canada, released in the United States with English subtitles, and it's full of the talking heads and layered dialogue one might expect from an examination of a life lived fully if not always well. For viewers who are not fluent speakers of French and who must read the subtitles to get a sense of what's happening, there's an emotional distance from the characters — but then, that feeling might also come from the nature of the subject and the self-absorbed esoteric philosophical ramblings of the main character. You decide....

As for points of connection between the films, they fall into two categories. First is the way that lay people are forced to interact with the medical establishment — and the critical issue of money to the whole enterprise. Second is the incredible importance of communication as it plays out between and among various factions. I also found a form of truth in both films that has been a part of my own life — how the main characters and/or their families must become 'medical experts' themselves in order to interact more effectively with those in the profession. Talk about an issue of communication!

In Lorenzo's Oil, the parents mortgage their house and continually search for additional sources of funding to support their efforts at finding answers. They do their own medical research at the National Institutes of Health so they are more able to communicate with the medical professionals and scientists who might open doors. They contact obscure research scientists who might be studying or practicing in areas that could provide therapeutic help, and they fight to get their findings recognized by the medical and scientific establishment — all while their son's health deteriorates before their eyes. (A note in the 2004 DVD of the film indicates that Lorenzo is now 26, and that although the research and therapy shown in the film improved his condition enough to maintain his life, he still waits for the medical breakthrough that might restore function to his limbs.)

In The Barbarian Invasions, the well-to-do estranged son of the main character is able to take extended time away from his job — and bring his financial resources to bear — to bypass the Canadian system of national health care, where patients on gurneys are stacked in hallways while a complete hospital wing is closed to save money, and bribe various members of the hospital staff to make his father comfortable in his final days. The son is also able to buy the costly, and often illegal, drugs his father needs to fight the pain of his terminal cancer. While all that is noble, and allows the father to leave this world on his own terms, it points out how far we have yet to go as a society and as a medical establishment to provide humane and affordable end-of-life care.

Films such as these are not always easy to watch (Lorenzo's Oil being more accessible for a number of reasons), but the subjects of medicine, health care, and good communication are important enough to give them a try.

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