So last week my doctor told me I needed to get medical testing to find out why I have such extreme pain in my legs. I went in for a referral to a physical therapist, my back is so wretched I was sure that was causing the pain. The doctor was not convinced - back pain isn't generally bi-lateral - and a quick flip through my records reminded him my dad had died of a ruptured aortic aneurism.
So I wandered down to CTMC Tuesday morning, registered, and found out that the CAT scanner had just gone down. Normally this would cause irritation and frustration, but the people I dealt with there were so lovely I walked away with a "Shit happens" feeling, not a "fuck you" resentment.
We rescheduled for early this morning. This time I noticed the sign that said "Sharing the Healing Power of Christ" and had that "Oh Jeebus, no" reaction. It's tragic, but my immediate reaction to "Christian" now is Run For Your Life!
Even though I play the organ at a church, and I love my choir members, the priest, and many of the other congregants, somehow, in my head, they aren't Christians, they're good people trying to build a loving community.
It's tragic that this is my current truth. It should make sane religious people furious that this is what their world has been reduced to for so many of us outside the organized religions.
I wandered in to Admitting, and had another lovely woman finish my admission, a delightful young man drew blood, and another escorted me to Imaging.
While I was waiting the head of the imaging department came in to apologize for my inconvenience on Tuesday and to thank me for troubling to come back. Then the tech came in and did the same and told me it would take about 20 minutes to get the blood test results, please relax, and there's the bathroom.
When I went into the CT room more nice people told me what the dye would feel like when it was injected (hot, maybe dizziness, sometimes nausea). They started the IV, and told me about breathing, not breathing, not moving, trying to relax, and suddenly they were telling me it went fine and helping me sit up. I was apparently aware and able to follow directions, but I missed the entire experience.
When I sat up my blood pressure dropped drastically, I went grey, got dizzy, and couldn't talk. A nurse and a doctor were there within a minute, telling me I was having a vagul reaction to the dye, it would pass, put my head down so they could raise my legs. The drama was over within about 10 minutes, but they kept me there, and kept talking to me, for an hour.
The last time I had a medical experience where I felt cared for and attended to was in the mid-'80's. I avoid doctors as much as possible, although I have a very good one right now. It took an air ambulance to get me inside a hospital the last time I was in one, and had I been fully conscious and aware I'd have fought to stay away. Bleeding into the brain will kick the shit out of your flight or fight capabilities. I spent 5 days in Critical Care, the whole time is completely blank, including the helicopter ride, and no one ever talked to me long enough or often enough to realize I had no idea where I was, why, or for how long. As soon as Medicare stopped authorizing more scans and tests and doctors I was out of there. I knew I'd hurt my collarbone, but had no follow-up instructions.
It took 4 months to get Medical Records to my doctor's office, and there was great concern that this wasn't a cracked bone, it was a crushed one. I was playing the organ for services a week after I was discharged. I lived my normal life, around a significantly painful shoulder. I'm ambidextrous (probably all those years of keyboard playing), so I just let my right arm rest most of the time and ate a shitload of Advil.
I'm a recovering addict, I lie and comply with orders for pain meds, and don't take them.
I had a couple of months of physical therapy - nice guys, but not really attentive.
I was so mad about not knowing what had happened to me for 4 months that I basically quit doctors again after the physical therapy, and didn't go back until someone told me about a very nice, caring new physician in town. I see him if I must. He spends time with me when I'm there, listens carefully, asks intelligent questions, hears my answers. Even that wasn't enough to blow through my basic resistance to the medical profession, but this morning all my hardened attitudes cracked. The people I met, the people who cared for me, were people I'd like to get to know, I'd like to have them as friends. You have no idea how that shocks me. They work in an environment that aroused immediate suspicion and fear in me - Christian Hospital - and I would like to know them better.
I can't quite wrap my head around this, that's why I'm writing about it. I'm working with a spiritual healer on some mental health issues (I'm bi-polar, medicated for many of the last 47 years, and the meds just don't cut it. They never have.) Sufi energy work is the most effective treatment I've ever had. Part of what we talk about is that we're all One - we're all connected, there is no separation between me and you and trees and moths, we all come from the same Source, we're all loved equally, the belief in separation is the lie of the ego. On the edge of things I get that. In a session I get it, in meditation I get it.
On the highway, in the hospital, in the political maelstrom I don't. It seems absurd to think that Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh are part of me, part of all. They appall me. But creeping around the edge of my mind is the awareness that we ARE all one, and that there may even be a way to connect with the spirit inside that human being I reject so totally. I've had experiences of connecting that way with people who seem to believe things I could never embrace, or even tolerate.
I ran across Kos' Meta diary today, and thought about the people who annoy me here, the ones who seem to be so blind and tied up with fear they can't see anything beyond those narrow walls. I used to enjoy pie-fighting with them, now I mostly think "That's sad, to be unable to celebrate small victories and little signs of hope." I can't stay there long if I'm over-exposed, so I try to miss the posts I know will annoy me and revel with my pals in the ones where we can celebrate and share hope.
I can't live in a dystopian world. It's unhealthy for me. I think I'd feel more comfortable if I could blow off those people this morning who fit all the categories I don't trust, but they touched my heart and I can't. I have to spend some more time on this, letting myself open up to new ideas, new ways of seeing people, new ways of welcoming more strangers into my life without slamming up those protective barriers I thought I needed.
It's been a strange and wonderful day. I'll know tomorrow afternoon if I need to have surgery on an aneurism. It doesn't seem so scary right now.