Dr. Emil Freireich was not the most pleasant person to be around. He had a notorious temper and was highly disagreeable.
This may have stemmed from his upbringing. As a child, his father committed suicide. His mother worked long hours during the Great Depression.
In David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell points to the difficulties faced by Freireich as central to his being able to do work that others could not.
In the middle of the twentieth century, childhood leukemia was a death sentence. The existing chemotherapy drugs resulted in horrendous side effects and were largely ineffective.
Freireich hypothesized that a combination of chemotherapy drugs might work. This meant bringing children to the point of death to kill as many cancer cells as possible.
Other doctors criticized him. Gladwell writes, “People thought he was running some kind of grisly torture chamber."
Still, exactly because he had already overcome so much in his life and did not depend on the approval of others, Freireich persisted.
In 1965, he published the results of a four-drug chemo cocktail — “the beginning of the cure for childhood leukemia.” Childhood leukemia survival rates are now around 90%.
One of the most striking aspects of the Easter season is that the risen Christ still bears the wounds of his crucifixion.
Fr. Kevin O’Brien writes, “This itself is a consoling image. Our hurts and limitations are part of who we are. In death, they are not wiped away but are redeemed. God takes us as we are and makes us whole again. A new creation is at work. God wastes nothing and redeems all.”
The difficulties faced by Emil Freireich forged an iron will that led him to persist in the face of opposition.
What might God be able to do with our own wounds?