Hospital Experience #20: Gifts from the Hospital

This is the twentieth and final (for the time being) in a series of posts on a recent experience at Ochsner Hospital - having a cardiac catheter ablation procedure to correct a heart arrhythmia. These posts describe and reflect on various aspects of the hospital experience. This twentieth post will reflect on the gifts I have received from the entire experience. Rather than go into close detail with every gift I received, I will look at five broad and rich areas.

COMPASSION. Living through and writing about this hospital experience has helped me grow in compassion. I was easily able to have compassion for myself and for my doctor and medical team as we all struggled through my panic in the procedure room. I was able to reach the beginnings of compassion for Nurse Dreadful by writing about our encounter from her perspective. I even found that I was able to take an infant step in compassion for people who hurt or kill others in rage, by writing about the similarities between rage and panic and using my panic to help me stand in the shoes of someone in a rage.

Here is what I intend:

• To use writing to build compassion for myself and others
• To follow through with compassion in my thoughts, words, and actions

AUTHENTICITY. Living through and writing about this hospital experience has shown me the importance of being authentic with myself and with others: taking responsibility for my thoughts, feelings, attitudes, behaviors, needs, and desires, and being honest about them with myself and with others as appropriate. My writing has also shown me concrete ways to do this, particularly in working through my panic in the procedure room, my encounter with Nurse Dreadful, and my own responsibility for the behaviors that have led to my weight gain and high blood pressure. Through writing, I have experienced the relief and joy of simply telling the truth as well as of seeing how to recognize and express my needs and desires in a straightforward and respectful way.

Here is what I intend:

• To use writing to build authenticity
• To follow through with authenticity in my thoughts, words and actions

JOY IN FRIENDS. Living through and writing about this hospital experience has given me a far deeper appreciation of, love for, and joy in my friends. I examined the ins and outs of every large and small instance of support and found that each gift of support meant a great deal to me: phone calls, emails, prayers, thoughts, information, visits, offers of assistance, rendering of assistance, vigil keeping, readiness for an unlikely but potential emergency.

Friends, family members, church members, and acquaintances came through for me in all those ways. I deeply appreciate each one. Every expression of support meant so much.

Here is what I intend:

• To let my friends know how much I appreciate them
• To reach out to my friends and acquaintances with support in times of their sorrows and joys, now that I have so recently experienced how much this means
• To become more connected and involved at church, which I am motivated to do because the church was there for me

JOY IN LIFE. Living through and writing about this hospital experience has increased my appreciation of, love for, and joy in life. I have glimpsed the possibility of turning away from a stance of "Life is not worth it: it is not worth the overwhelming pain one must endure to get to the snippets of joy" to a stance of "Life IS worth it: although life will be both painful and joyful, life will ultimately absorb pain into joy." By freezing up inside, resisting the pain, and growing bitter about hurts from my past, I have allowed the pain to absorb any joy in life. Writing about my hospital experience has revealed a new approach of opening up inside, accepting the pain, working through it in writing, and experiencing the joy of growth and insight - a joy that absorbs the pain.

Here is what I intend:

• To work toward and reach a point where I can say that my life has been worth it, that joy absorbs the pain of the emotional abuse I suffered during childhood and adolescence with a rageful father, an alcoholic mother, and a Catholic Church that terrified me with a wrathful God and the fires of hell. It occurs to me that I can accept that joy in potential now, even though I may not yet feel it.
• To find ways to enjoy life - daily

JOY IN WRITING. Living through and writing about this hospital experience has increased my appreciation of, love for, and joy in writing - for all the above reasons and more. Writing is a natural way of expression and growth for me. It is a large part of my life purpose - that is why it gives me such joy.

Here is what I intend:

• To keep on writing, to keep on blogging

Hospital Experience #19: Riches of Writing

This is the nineteenth in a series of posts on a recent experience at Ochsner Hospital - having a cardiac catheter ablation procedure to correct a heart arrhythmia. These posts describe and reflect on various aspects of the hospital experience. This nineteenth post will reflect on the riches I have received through writing about this hospital experience.

I have already written about the ways that writing enriches my life in my post of December 23, 2009, titled "Frank Schaeffer's Patience With God: More Thoughts on Writing and Words." After reading Frank Schaeffer's book Patience With God, particularly what Frank says therein about writing and words, I felt inspired me to make my own list of the many ways that writing enriches me, and I did so in that earlier post. In this current post, I will use that list to examine how the same riches of writing apply to my blogging about my recent hospital experience.

KEEPING MEMORIES. These blog posts hold my memories about the hospital experience. I can return to these posts time and time again to remember.

Writing often also helps me access memories. In other words, if I start writing about something I remember vaguely, I often find that the act of writing brings up more and more detail. Writing also brings to mind entire memories that I had forgotten. I did not experience this in blogging about my hospital experience, probably because the memories are still so fresh, but I want to mention it.

LIVING MY LIFE TWICE. This is a wonderful benefit of writing. I can live my life twice. I live it first as lived experience. Then I live it again by writing about it. The writing causes me to delve deeply into my experience, to mine its richness, to live my life more fully.

This is certainly true of my hospital experience. I lived through it as the events unfolded in the hospital. Then I lived it a second time, far more deeply, through my writing.

CLARIFYING MY THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS. If I want to know what I think or feel about something, a sure way to find out is to write about it. The very act of writing freely about a subject pulls up my thoughts and feelings and spills them onto the page or screen.

With my hospital experience, I took the time to articulate my thoughts and feelings and to organize them into a coherent piece of writing. Working with this inner material clarifies it.

In addition, my thoughts and feelings are no long roiling about vaguely and namelessly inside me. I have named them and placed them outside myself - on a page or screen - where I can stand back and look at them. This also makes my thoughts and feelings clearer to me.

I am aware, too, that any piece of writing is a snapshot of my thoughts and feelings at a particular moment in time, so I need to hold them loosely, realizing that my thoughts and feelings may evolve and that I can clarify that evolution with additional writing. If I look back on my hospital experience a year from now, five years from now, ten years from now, I may be writing about different thoughts and feelings.

PUTTING MY EXPERIENCE OUTSIDE MYSELF. Writing takes my experience outside of myself and puts it onto the page or screen, where I can look at it more objectively. I can "see" my experience more clearly on the page or screen than I can when it remains locked within me.

This allows me to be calmer about troubling aspects of my experience. Just the fact that I can look at the experience in written form, outside myself, makes any inner turmoil far less intense, including how I now view my panic in the procedure room, my encounter with Nurse Dreadful, and the post-procedure bleeding incident.

MAKING MY EXPERIENCE REAL TO ME. To name and articulate something, to put it into words, makes it real. Unnamed experience is often vague.

For example, as a result of writing, my panic in the procedure room is much more real to me. It is not some vague and nameless terror. I see the physiological manifestations of the panic and the inner feeling state that went with them. I have named all this, making the experience real and concrete. As a result, I am better prepared to speak about my panic potential with my doctor and to let my doctor know what I'll need in any future such situations.

Likewise, having written about my clash with Nurse Dreadful, the dynamics of the clash are real to me. What happened is not some vague unpleasantness but a specific interaction with distinct moves of words, facial expression, and body language. Here, too, as a result, I am better prepared to handle such potential clashes very differently in the future.

The many ways I was supported by my friends are more real to me through my writing. I haven't just vaguely received lots of great support, but the specific gifts of each friend are distinct and real to me.

ENTERING MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES. Writing opens a kaleidoscope of perspectives. I can explore how a situation appears to someone very different from myself by putting myself into his or her mind, so to speak, and writing from that place.

Among these blog posts are two where I look at the encounter with Nurse Dreadful from Nurse Dreadful's point of view, giving me a far broader perspective on what happened. This nurse came across to me as Nurse Dreadful - but is it not possible that I came across to her as Patient Dreadful? Writing from someone else's point of view is a wonderful way to stand in someone else's shoes and to build compassion.

PULLING UP INSIGHTS. Writing is a way to access my unconscious, to know consciously things that I didn't know I knew. As I write, I sometimes find myself pouring insights onto the page or screen, insights that I would not have accessed otherwise.

This is most evident in my two posts on Yvonne's gift of healing music, particularly the first of the two. I reached an amazing insight at the end of that post - an insight that came through writing. When I began writing that post, I had no idea that my writing would take me to this insight. The insight was present within me all along - but I was not conscious of it. The act of writing pulled that insight up into my awareness.

FINDING SOLUTIONS. If I write about a problem, I often find myself writing through to possible solutions. Those solutions come to me through the act of writing. In other words, I start writing without knowing how to solve the problem, and the writing itself pulls possible solutions up into my awareness.

With my hospital experience, I would say that writing has given me solutions to similar future situations. I now see better ways to be authentic, especially in stating my needs to my doctor concerning potential panic and in relating to a person who comes across unpleasantly.

HEALING. Writing heals. Because writing clarifies my thoughts and feelings, puts my experience outside of myself, makes my experience real to me, allows me to view an experience from multiple perspectives, pulls up insights, and finds solutions - because writing accomplishes all these things - writing heals.

Here are four specific ways that I have experienced healing through writing about my hospital experience:

• Taking baby steps in compassion
• Opening myself to receive love from others
• Glimpsing that life is worth it
• Becoming more authentic by telling the truth

BONDING WITH OTHERS. Naming and articulating my experience connects me with others. When a writer shares his or her writing, readers connect with the writer's experience and even connect more deeply with their own experience. Frank Schaeffer, the catalyst for my earlier post on the ways that writing enriches my life, is one of many writers who connect me to my own experience and help me to understand myself more deeply.

In blogging about my hospital experience, I have made my writing available to anyone who wants to read it on the Internet. I connect with people who read about my hospital experience - people I know and people I don't know - who will never tell me that they have read my posts. The connection is nonetheless made, even though I don't know about it. I also connect with people who read about my hospital experience and let me know that they have done so. In these cases, I am aware that a connection has been made. Most wonderful are those people who read about my hospital experience and respond with their own thoughts and feelings about my experience and/or with experiences of their own. They do this through the blog's comment function, through some other online channel such as email or a Facebook comment or message, by phone, or in person. I find this incredibly enriching.

These connections also help me to tell the truth. In blogging about my hospital experience, I tell the truth to myself, to those who read my blog posts anonymously, and to those who read my blog posts and respond. By connecting with others through blogging, my truth is told, heard, and even valued.

CREATING. In writing, I create. I produce a piece of written work. Creating is deeply satisfying and increases my joy.

Indeed, I do take joy in these hospital experience blog posts.

ENERGIZING. Writing energizes me. Sometimes when I write, I feel actual currents of energy flowing through my body.

I have often felt this excitement and energy upon sitting down to write these hospital experience blog posts.

FALLING IN LOVE WITH THE WORLD. The act of writing causes me to study my subject closely. I look deeply into the person, place, object, experience, or idea that I am writing about. This close study opens my subject to me in greater fullness and glory and increases my appreciation for my subject. The more subjects I write about, the more I fall in love with my world.

In writing these hospital experience blog posts, I have fallen in love with the whole hospital experience, with my friends, with life's ability to absorb pain into joy, and even with the physiological and emotional state of panic and with Nurse Dreadful. I didn't enjoy the panic, but I have enjoyed analyzing it through writing and gaining an understanding of its different components. I didn't enjoy the encounter with Nurse Dreadful, but I have enjoyed examining the encounter from her perspective and analyzing the dynamics of our interaction through writing.

I would say that my blogging about my hospital experience has caused me to fall in love more deeply with more of my world.

Hospital Experience #18: Karen Armstrong - Compassion and Pain

This is the eighteenth in a series of posts on a recent experience at Ochsner Hospital - having a cardiac catheter ablation procedure to correct a heart arrhythmia. These posts describe and reflect on various aspects of the hospital experience. This eighteenth post will reflect on my hospital experience in relation to what Karen Armstrong says about compassion and pain in her memoir The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness, in which she describes her adjustment to life in the world after seven years as a Catholic nun.

In her study of world religions, Karen Armstrong finds that compassion is at the heart of all. Compassionate behavior is expressed in the Golden Rule: Do not do to others what you would not want others to do to you. Karen prefers this ancient Jewish expression of the Golden Rule, asking us to refrain from what would cause others pain or discomfort.

How do we know what may cause pain or discomfort to another? Karen Armstrong says that we learn this by observing what causes pain or discomfort to us. Compassion means feeling with another, standing in another's shoes and feeling what it is like to be that person. Karen says that nothing teaches us better how another may feel than our own pain. When something happens that causes us pain, it is well to take careful note and to resolve never to cause such pain to another. This, Karen says, is how pain can be redeemed - by using it to build compassion. Otherwise, pain is wasted.

I found that, in the hospital, I wanted to be treated in a kind, caring, professional, and dignified manner. I experienced pain when Nurse Dreadful did not treat me in these ways. I experienced comfort when other nurses did. I am not a medical professional, so it is not likely that I will be called upon to treat hospital patients in kind, caring, professional, and dignified ways. However, I am a teacher - and my students would certainly appreciate being treated in kind, caring, professional, and dignified ways. They would appreciate seeing that I welcome them, that I am happy to see them, that I have the skills to teach them well, that I take their concerns and questions seriously, that I evaluate their work fairly, that I have time for them, that I am available to them, that I respect them and deeply value their contributions to the class.

I think that it is extremely helpful for professionals of all kinds to be in the position of those they serve - for medical professionals to be patients, for example, and for teachers to be students. This builds compassion. Medical professionals need to know what it feels like to be handled by strangers, and teachers need to know what it feels like to struggle with an unfamiliar subject. Language teachers need to know what it feels like to be confronted with a new language and culture, and writing teachers need to know what it feels like to be confronted with a writing assignment, a deadline, and a blank sheet of paper or computer screen.

These are important lessons from the hospital and from Karen Armstrong - use pain to build compassion, and put yourself in the shoes of those you serve.

Hospital Experience #17: Telling the Truth

This is the seventeenth in a series of posts on a recent experience at Ochsner Hospital - having a cardiac catheter ablation procedure to correct a heart arrhythmia. These posts describe and reflect on various aspects of the hospital experience. This seventeenth post will reflect on a special gift I have received from blogging about this hospital experience: the joy of telling the truth.

This post also connects with my posts on Frank Schaeffer, an author whom I would characterize as a courageous truth-teller. This post connects particularly with my post of August 27, 2009, titled "Frank Schaeffer's Memoir: Self-Disclosure," and with my post of December 26, 2009, titled "Frank Schaeffer's Patience With God: Problems of Integrity with Fundamentalism," especially the final paragraph. In these earlier posts, I marvel at some of the unflattering things Frank discloses about himself in his books and reflect on what might have motivated him to make these self-disclosures.

In this present post, I will examine my own self-disclosures in my hospital experience posts and reflect on how these self-disclosures have benefited me. I will use my above-mentioned earlier posts about Frank Schaeffer for deeper understanding about self-disclosure and truth-telling. It is not necessary to have read my earlier posts on Frank Schaeffer to understand this one.

FRANK SCHAEFFER'S TRUTH TELLING

Here is what I understand about Frank Schaeffer and his passion for truth telling. Frank grew up in a family who ran a fundamentalist Christian mission in Switzerland. Because his parents (Francis and Edith Schaeffer) were esteemed Christian teachers, anything that did not fit with their image as upright Christians had to be kept as a strict family secret, including Francis Schaeffer's depressions and rages and his verbal and physical abuse of Edith. The truth could not be told - it would harm the ministry.

As a young adult, Frank continued in his parents' footsteps and made a good living writing Christian fundamentalist books and speaking on the Christian fundamentalist circuit. As time went on, Frank became more and more uncomfortable with the message he was preaching - it just didn't mesh with reality. Yet Frank was unwilling to give up his comfortable living, and he feared that he didn't know how to support his family in any other way. This inner conflict made him irritable, and he took out his irritation on his wife and children. Eventually, Frank did leave Christian fundamentalism, joined the Greek Orthodox Church, and now makes his living as a secular writer. He has published eleven books (three of them co-authored), and a twelfth book is scheduled to come out in the spring of 2011.

In his memoir, Crazy For God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back, Frank makes some very unflattering self-disclosures. Specifically, he speaks of how he stayed on the Christian fundamentalist circuit for so long simply because of the good money, and he reveals details of his unloving behavior to his family, especially how he sometimes hit his daughter, Jessica, and pulled her hair in anger. At first, it was hard for me to understand how Frank could reveal such things about himself, things that now cause him shame and that he deeply regrets.

I began to understand Frank's self-disclosures better when I read his next book, Patience With God: Faith For People Who Don't Like Religion (or Atheism), where Frank specifically describes his spiritual evolution. In Patience With God, Frank describes the great inner tension produced by feeling trapped into having to proclaim publicly what his heart no longer believed - and his HUGE RELIEF when at last he stepped away from Christian fundamentalism and could finally TELL THE TRUTH. What a sheer, sheer relief it was - after so many years of keeping secrets - to simply tell the truth.

MY SECRETS

Like Frank, I grew up in a family with secrets. The biggest secret was that my mother was an alcoholic. Apparently, the sky would fall if anyone ever found out about this. It was a very strict secret. So secret was it, in fact, that my two youngest sisters, Maria and Janet, never did know about our mother's drinking problem until our other sister, Sandra, decided that she should tell them - when we were all well into adulthood. (Our mother had stopped drinking when I was sixteen, Sandra was twelve, Maria was eight, and Janet was seven. Our brothers, Michael and Danny, were fourteen and ten, respectively. Only the four eldest - myself, Michael, Sandra, and Danny - were old enough to understand what had been going on, although Danny later forgot that he had known this. After our mother stopped drinking, we never talked about it again - until many years later, as adults.)

So - secrets were the norm in my family. My father didn't even like us to have friends to spend the night. We did sometimes have friends to spend the night, but my father didn't much care for this. He didn't want anyone to know our family business. He once told me that he felt he couldn't run his home the way he wanted to when we had guests over. (My father wanted to run the home with tight control - we were all scared of him, including my mother. I am convinced that this is why she drank.)

One characteristic of adult children of alcoholics is that they have trouble telling the truth. While I don't think of myself as a liar, I do see situations where I find telling the truth difficult, situations where I feel tempted to beat around the bush or to project a better image of myself than is true - even though telling the truth would actually simplify things in many of these situations.

MY TRUTH TELLING

One area where I have had trouble telling the truth has been my over-indulgence in fatty and sugary foods over the last several years. I have tried to hide this, eating healthy foods and moderate amounts when with other people, but eating fatty and sugary foods and large amounts when alone. As a result, I gained a lot of weight, and I now have high blood pressure. The first step in confronting the problem has been to tell the truth - I have chosen to eat poorly and not to exercise, and this has led to weight gain and high blood pressure. Now I need to choose new eating and exercise behavior.

Somehow, it is a great relief to actually say this - to tell the truth. I have felt the joy of this relief in writing my hospital experience posts, especially "Hospital Experience #8: Personal Responsibility and Honesty." It feels good to spell out the truth about what has been going on with my eating and lack of exercise.

I think that tension is produced in our bodies when we don't tell the truth. We may not be conscious of this tension, but it is there, affecting our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. When we tell the truth, we release the tension and experience the joy of being able to relax more deeply than perhaps we ever have. I believe that this is what happened to Frank Schaeffer, and it is one reason that, as he says, he began to treat his family far better when he started to tell the truth. Telling the truth allowed Frank to relax, and a relaxed husband and father is a kinder husband and father.

Also, we expend energy to hide the truth, and this is tiring - even though we may not be conscious of the toll this is taking on us. When we tell the truth at last, all that energy is freed for creative purposes. Frank Schaeffer experienced a great burst of creativity when he began to tell the truth. He took up again the painting that he had loved but abandoned as a young man, and he started writing novels.

Writing these blog posts on my hospital experience and delving into the truth has given me an inkling of the relaxation, energy release, and joy of truth telling. This blog allows me to tell the truth to myself as well as to anyone who reads the blog - the blog is, after all, available to everyone on the Internet! I especially thank those who have read the blog, particularly those who have told me that they have read it. This lets me know that my truth-telling has been heard. Thank you! Some have even responded with comments through the blog's comment function, by email, by phone, or in person - sometimes sharing experiences of their own. This lets me know that my truth-telling has been heard and valued. Thank you!

I want to end with a word of caution, mostly to myself. I do know that truth-telling can be over-done. The truth-telling in this blog gives me joy, which indicates to me that I am ready to make these particular self-disclosures. There are other self-disclosures that I am not ready to make - these should stay in my personal journal, not for sharing. I may never be ready to make certain self-disclosures to anyone but myself. Even Frank Schaeffer, courageous truth-teller that he is, says that there are some things about himself that he chooses not to disclose. This is as it should be.

I also feel quite sure that there are some self-disclosures that I am not ready to make even to myself. Of course, I don't know what these are, since I haven't yet disclosed them to myself.

What I want to do is to continue telling the truth to myself and, as appropriate, to others. (Certainly, truth telling should never be used as a club to hurt someone else - most of the time, we don't need to tell others the truth about themselves but the truth about our own selves.) I also want to encourage others in their own truth telling through supportive listening, as others have done for me. Truth telling can be a great joy. It is even more joyful to share that joy!

Hospital Experience # 16: Trust

This is the sixteenth in a series of posts on a recent experience at Ochsner Hospital - having a cardiac catheter ablation procedure to correct a heart arrhythmia. These posts describe and reflect on various aspects of the hospital experience. This sixteenth post will examine my difficulty in trusting doctors.

A patient has symptoms and goes to the doctor. The doctor examines the patient, diagnoses the problem, prescribes treatment, instructs the patient in how to follow the treatment, and sends the patient on his or her way - hoping that the patient will follow through.

The thing is - this doesn't happen in a vacuum. The doctor's voice is not the only voice that the patient hears - not at all. The patient goes home and talks with his or her friends about their experience with similar conditions, with doctors, with medication, with hospitals. The patient looks up his or her condition and the doctor's prescribed treatment on the Internet and reads all the side effects of the prescribed medication that the doctor failed to mention. The patient reads articles and books with titles like these:

• How to Survive Your Hospital Stay
• How to Manage Your Managed Care Plan - Don't Let It Manage You
• How Hospitals Are Dangerous to Your Health
• How Doctors May Not Have Your Best Interests at Heart
• How Big Pharmaceutical Companies Are Poisoning You
• How Some Primary Care Physicians Are Secretly Demons with Invisible Horns and a Tail - Is Yours?

In other words, patients hear and read lots of information that inspires distrust of doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical drugs, and the whole medical system. I have certainly taken in my share of this, and it has made me doctor-averse, hospital-averse, and medication-averse. It is difficult for me to trust doctors.

Here are some friends' and acquaintances' experiences.

• A friend's twenty-year-old daughter broke her leg, had it set and placed in a cast, and wore the cast for the required number of weeks. While simply having the cast removed, the daughter died because of complications with her asthma.
• A friend had surgery to remove a bunion and wound up with a pulmonary embolism and a week in Intensive Care.
• A friend's father got a terrible staph infection during surgery as a result of the surgeon's carelessness.
• A friend of my father's came out of surgery with a terrible burn on her chest because a member of the surgical team had laid a scalding instrument upon her - mistaking her, I suppose, for a table.
• A friend was told that she HAD to have a test with a minimum amount of a substance that she is allergic to because, the hospital insisted, there is no possible other way to perform this test. What the hospital meant is that there is no possible other way to perform this test AT THAT HOSPITAL. Other ways are available elsewhere, but the hospital was not going to tell my friend that.
• An acquaintance's husband committed suicide immediately after a hospital stay as a result of being administered a drug that caused serious depression.

In addition to the above, I know that the following things happen in hospitals.

• Surgical implements are left inside patients' bodies when the patient is sewn up.
• Patients are left with varying degrees of paralysis as a result of surgical slips.
• Patients experience anaesthesia awareness, even to the degree of the anaesthesia not working at all, causing the patient to feel the excruciating pain of the entire surgery. Since surgical patients are administered a paralyzing agent, they are unable to signal in any way that they are aware and experiencing unbearable pain.
• Patients are given the wrong medication or the wrong dose of the correct medication.
• The anaesthesia has unexpected effects, including brain damage, unbearably loud tinnitus (ringing, or should I say roaring, in the ear), horrible rash, excruciating headache, loss of proprioception (one's sense of being in one's body), loss of sense of balance.
• Patients continue to experience inexplicable post-surgical pain for several years after surgery. I read about this in an article on organ donors - the healthy patients who are donating an organ to save someone's life - the patients who are supposed to recuperate smoothly and quickly.
• Patients are accidentally operated on with non-sterile surgical implements.

As I think about the above occurrences, I realize that they are rare. The trouble is - they do happen. If a particular disaster has .01 percent chance of happening - and you fall into that extremely rare .01 percent - then that particular disaster happens to you 100 percent. You don't get just .01 percent of the effect - you get 100 percent of the effect. If the surgeon slips while operating on your body, the rest of your life is 100 percent affected by paralysis. There is no .01 percent effect.

In addition to the incidents and occurrences mentioned above, I have read articles, newsletters, and books that lay out thoughtful reasons not to trust the medical field. For example, I receive Dr. Julian Whitaker's monthly Health and Healing newsletter. Dr. Whitaker is a medical doctor who practices what he calls wellness medicine, using both traditional and alternative treatments. Dr. Whitaker warns against many practices of traditional medicine, including treating high blood pressure with medication.

But sometimes I don't know any viable options, such as when I felt my heart beating in my throat in March. As far as I could see, the option available to me - besides doing nothing - was to go to the emergency room. I did. And then followed doctor appointments, heart monitoring, a diagnosis of high blood pressure, prescription of a blood-pressure-lowering diuretic, a diagnosis of supraventricular tachycardia, the cardiac catheter ablation procedure which in the end could not ablate the arrhythmia, prescription of a low-dose heartbeat-regulating medication. Clearly, I have decided to go with a medical regimen in addition to my own new health habits.

The problem has been that I have sought medical help while holding a distrust of doctors and medicine and even feeling angry that I need help and don't seem to have any other place to turn that feels trustworthy. So I have been communicating to doctors this message: "Please help me - I don't trust you."

Doctors, of course, sense this distrust. I'll have to say that the doctors I am currently seeing have been wonderful about this unspoken undercurrent in my attitude. They treat me pleasantly and provide serious explanations of why they recommend what they do.

I think that I need to decide to cooperate with them - to be open, to express my concerns, to ask my questions, to know that I have every right to make my own decisions about what treatment to follow, and to communicate without an underlying distrust and hostility but with amiability and courtesy.

Hospital Experience #15: Janet and Richard - Preparedness

This is the fifteenth in a series of posts on a recent experience at Ochsner Hospital - having a cardiac catheter ablation procedure to correct a heart arrhythmia. These posts describe and reflect on various aspects of the hospital experience. This fifteenth post will reflect on the willingness of my sister Janet and her husband, Richard, to handle my affairs in case of my death or incapacitation.

One wonderful thing that came out of this hospital experience for me is that I now have a will, a living will, a medical power of attorney document, and a personal statement of my wishes on life and death issues. The reason I can have these documents is that generous people have agreed to take on responsible roles in the case of my death or incapacitation. My sister Janet and her husband, Richard, are co-executors of my will, and Richard is my medical power of attorney person. It gives me wonderful peace of mind to know that this has been taken care of.

These are serious responsibilities, and I thank Janet and Richard for accepting them. Janet and Richard have also kept me in their thoughts and prayers, encouraged me up to and through hospital day, and listened deeply to me.

Hospital Experience #14: David - Intention

This is the fourteenth in a series of posts on a recent experience at Ochsner Hospital - having a cardiac catheter ablation procedure to correct a heart arrhythmia. These posts describe and reflect on various aspects of the hospital experience. This fourteenth post will reflect on David's generous helpfulness.

David was especially helpful to me in these areas. He kept me in his thoughts and prayers. He offered me encouragement all the way up through hospital day. He listened deeply to me. He maintained a very positive attitude. He set aside an entire day and night to pick me up from the hospital on the day after the procedure and to keep an eye on me during my first day and night back home. As things fell out, this last wasn't needed because the ablation part of the procedure was not performed - the source of my arrhythmia turned out to be located in a place that made it non-ablatable. Since the ablation was not performed, I didn't need to stay overnight in the hospital for monitoring but was taken home the same day by Merry and was fine on my own.

Although David did not go through the physical actions of picking me up from the hospital or staying with me for a day and a night, I still consider this to be something that he did for me - because of his intention. David fully intended to do those things and had set aside an entire day and night to do them. As far as intention is concerned, David DID those things for me. None of us ever considered that there would be an unexpected change in plan at the last minute when my arrhythmia turned out to be non-ablatable.

This makes me think of a story that I've heard a number of times in different contexts, so it's likely to be an urban legend - nonetheless, it does make an important point. The story (or urban legend) opens with a little boy whose blood is a perfect match for his sister, who needs a blood transfusion to save her life. When asked if he is willing to give blood for his sister, the little boy remains silent for a time and then nods. Accordingly, blood is taken from him, after which he seems unusually withdrawn. When asked how he is doing, the little boy replies that he is wondering when he will start to die.

It turns out that the little boy thought that removing his blood to give to his sister meant that he would lose all his blood and die. When asked to give blood, the little boy thought of his love for his sister and decided that, yes, he was willing to die for her to live. In intention, this little boy had not just given blood - he had given his life for his sister.

When a person fully intends to do something for a friend, makes all the preparations for doing it, and sets aside the time to do it - but then is prevented at the last minute from doing it - I would say that this person has DONE the planned helpful action for the friend.

Not only did David provide this practical assistance in intention, but it was also clear that he was looking forward to doing so. David let me know that he was actually anticipating the pleasure of picking me up at the hospital and then spending twenty-four hours with me. He was enjoying the thought of talking with me, preparing food for me, or working quietly on his own projects at my place while I slept or rested - whatever was needed. This was an important part of David's gift - knowing that he would enjoy the giving.

In addition, David was especially helpful with his positive attitude. He kept reminding me that a good way to approach hospital day was to relax, think of the wealth of knowledge and skill of my doctor and medical team, and put myself into their competent hands, realizing that they know what they are doing and will take care of me. In this way, David helped me to remain calm in the weeks and days leading up to hospital day.

Besides this, David's depth of listening and sharing has been immeasurably helpful to me in processing thoughts, feelings, and insights about the hospital experience.

Hospital Experience #13: Donna Glee - Perspective

This is the thirteenth in a series of posts on a recent experience at Ochsner Hospital - having a cardiac catheter ablation procedure to correct a heart arrhythmia. These posts describe and reflect on various aspects of the hospital experience. This thirteenth post will examine the differences in perspective between patients and medical professionals.

The thoughts expressed here draw on conversations with Donna Glee, a life-long friend and a registered nurse who lives in North Carolina. Donna Glee supported me generously throughout my hospital experience. Specifically, she offered to come all the way to New Orleans to accompany me throughout hospital day, she listened deeply to me, and she provided extremely helpful and reassuring information as well as useful tips that made the experience more comfortable. One aspect of the experience that I reflected on with Donna Glee is the difference between the patient's perspective and the medical professional's perspective.

First of all, as Donna Glee explained to me, what is normal and routine to the medical professional is not the least bit normal to the patient. For the patient, a "routine" procedure may be alienating, bizarre, painful, uncomfortable, frightening, embarrassing, or humiliating. The medical professional is functioning in hospital reality, while the patient is still functioning in non-hospital reality.

We can see the clash of these two realities in my post-procedure bleeding incident. This occurred the first time I attempted to get up after the cardiac catheter ablation procedure. I had been required to remain lying down without bending at the hip or raising my head (beyond a slight elevation provided by the hospital bed) for several hours after the procedure, after which time I was allowed to get up. I needed to urinate, so I went into the bathroom and locked the door. As soon as I started to urinate, one of the groin insertion points started to bleed - a lot. Blood was flowing down my leg and onto the floor, and I was trying to mop it up with toilet paper. I kept bleeding.

Finally, I called out, "Merry, I think I'm having a problem." Merry asked, "What's wrong?" I answered, "I'm bleeding." The doctor, accompanied by a nurse, had just come into my hospital room to see me, so Merry, the doctor, and the nurse all approached the bathroom and called out, "Open the door."

Unbelievably, I answered, "No. I'm bleeding and I'm trying to clean it up." I then heard, "OPEN THE DOOR!" I thought I'd better open the door, whereupon the doctor and nurse helped me to the bed and instructed, "Lie down."

Again, unbelievably, I said, "No, I'll get blood on the bed." I heard, "LIE DOWN! WE'LL FIX IT AFTER." So I thought I'd better lie down. Then the doctor and nurse put pressure on my groin, stopped the bleeding, talked encouragingly to me (I was upset), and instructed me to stay in bed for another hour - after which I was fine.

Donna Glee says that this often happens in the hospital. The medical professionals find it normal to come into the bathroom to help a bleeding patient and to clean beds with blood. The patient doesn't find this normal at all. The patient finds it normal to clean up a bathroom before letting others in and to avoid getting blood on a bed.

Donna Glee also told me about accompanying a relative during a hospital stay and seeing that the relative felt embarrassed at spilling some urine on the bathroom floor - I think the relative had been required to urinate into a container. Donna Glee's nursing self saw nothing to be embarrassed about - that's why you put tile floors in hospital bathrooms and hire a housekeeping staff to deal with such normal things as urine spills. At the same time, Donna Glee recognized that her relative was not operating in hospital reality, but in non-hospital reality, where spilling one's urine is an embarrassing event.

Before hospital day, Donna Glee had explained to me the importance of being well hydrated. I had said that I planned to stop drinking water early on the afternoon before the procedure. Donna Glee advised against this. I explained that I was worried about the long period of time when I would be unable to use the bathroom - all during the procedure and for several hours afterwards. Donna Glee explained that I could use a bedpan if I needed one. I replied, "I don't want to do those embarrassing things." Donna Glee explained that I felt that way now because I was fully clothed, sitting at a table in my apartment, talking with her on the telephone - but that then I would be in a different reality and would view things with a different perspective - and it wouldn't seem so embarrassing within hospital reality.

Besides the things that are done in hospitals, an additional problem can be the topics that patients are asked to talk about. Although this is not so much a problem for me, I know that some patients feel embarrassed to be asked questions about their bodily functions. In hospital reality, it is normal to talk about bowel, bladder, menstrual, and sexual functions. In non-hospital reality, these topics are avoided.

I think it is important for medical professionals to recognize the difference in perspective between themselves and their patients. The patient is functioning in non-hospital reality and will not find "routine" hospital procedures to be routine at all. What is a logical way of proceeding in the hospital is not logical at all to the patient. It is good for medical professionals to be sensitive to the fact that, for the patient, "normal" hospital occurrences may be uncomfortable, embarrassing, or humiliating.

Actually, I find that most medical professionals are sensitive to these matters. It happened that I did need to use the bedpan during the post-procedure lying down period, and the nurse who assisted me made the process as emotionally comfortable as she could.

I will end this post with a big thank-you to Donna Glee for many conversations before and after hospital day and for extremely helpful and reassuring information. Donna Glee gave me information about heart arrhythmia, cardiac catheter ablation, medications, sedation, blood pressure, healthy practices, hospital policies. Knowing all this helped immeasurably to calm me.

Donna Glee absolutely loves to be helpful. It gives her great joy to know that she has provided tangible help for someone. This hospital experience is just one of many times throughout my life that Donna Glee has provided valuable help for me - and has let me know that she enjoyed doing so.

Hospital Experience #12: Yvonne - Healing Music Part 2

This is the twelfth in a series of posts on a recent experience at Ochsner Hospital - having a cardiac catheter ablation procedure to correct a heart arrhythmia. These posts describe and reflect on various aspects of the hospital experience. This twelfth post is the second of two posts reflecting on Yvonne's gift of healing music.

For greater understanding of this post, it will help to have read my previous post, "Hospital Experience #11: Yvonne - Healing Music Part 1," which describes healing music as played and sung by Yvonne and reflects on the aspects of comfort, presence, and healing in Yvonne's gift. This post, "Hospital Experience #12: Yvonne - Healing Music Part 2," will reflect on further aspects of this gift.

VIBRATION. Music is a powerful healing medium. I believe that this is because vibration is at the center of the universe. At the core of the universe, there is a pulse. At the core of every human being, there is a pulse - our heartbeat. Our core organ, the heart, embodies a life-giving vibration, pulse, beat, rhythm.

Rhythm is primary in music - enhanced by melody, harmony, timbre, and dynamics. In playing and singing for me, Yvonne was connecting with me at a very deep and primal level. Through music, she was speaking to me at my core. It is also worth noting that my medical issue was a heart arrhythmia, and Yvonne was sending healing music to me, healing rhythm.

BEAUTY. Beauty enhances any healing medium. If a patient needs bed rest, if is well to surround the patient with beautiful sights, sounds, textures, and scents. If a patient needs special baths, it is well to include candles and music. If a patient needs to be kept in traction, it is well to hang colorful mobiles from the bars. If a patient needs a special diet, it is well to add flowers to the meal tray. Beauty will heal because it touches the soul. The healing music played and sung by Yvonne took me into a world of intense beauty. Yvonne was bathing me in beautiful music.

SACREDNESS. Music is Yvonne's soul language. In playing and singing for me, Yvonne was taking me into the depths of her heart and holding me safely there. She was giving to me from her most sacred inner place. She was giving me the gift that is uniquely hers to give, the gift that gives her the most joy to give.

ART. Art heals - and with my previous blog post and this one, I see two art forms combining to effect a healing that my soul needs. These are music and writing. Writing is my art medium. Music is Yvonne's. Yvonne and I also share each other's media in that Yvonne also writes and I have also played, sung, and even composed music. But I would say that writing is more natural to me, as music is more natural to Yvonne. Also, Yvonne has gone far more deeply into her medium than I have into mine. Nonetheless, Yvonne's gift to me of music and my working with this gift through writing has effected and is effecting a profound healing.

INEXHAUSTIBLENESS. I believe that healing music opens channels that continue to effect healing. I can never say that I have received everything there is to be gleaned from this hospital experience and from Yvonne's gift. The healing will continue to unfold.

ENRICHMENT TO THE GIVER. Yvonne's gift included letting me know how giving to me had enriched her. Yvonne does not see herself as solely giving and me as solely receiving. In her view, my willingness to receive her gift was something that I gave to her, and this allowed her to give her gift and to receive what that experience held for her. I understand that the experience of giving her healing music to me held at least four gifts for Yvonne.

First, it allowed her to experience herself as overflowing. Erich Fromm in The Art of Loving describes three types of givers. The first type sees giving as depletion: such people experience giving as having less for themselves, so every act of giving becomes an act of diminishing their own supply. The second type sees giving as marketing: such people like to give only as part of an even exchange, so that every act of giving is matched by receiving something of equal value. The third type sees giving as indicative of abundance: such people experience joy in giving because their ability to give reminds them of how much they have and allows them to experience themselves as wealthy, even though, in an objective sense, they may be poor. Yvonne is the third type of giver. Giving to me afforded her the joy of experiencing herself as rich, abundant, overflowing, and generous.

Second, a crucial part of Yvonne's life purpose is developing and sharing her gift of music. Giving to me allowed her the soul satisfaction of fulfilling her purpose.

Third, Yvonne shared with me that giving to me of her music for four hours straight showed her that she has reserves of strength that she wasn't sure she had. This is because Yvonne had a stroke in the fall of 2009 and still has some limitations of movement on her left side. She also needs to expend more energy in performing tasks that were once automatic, which is tiring. Yvonne is still recovering from her stroke in a very real sense. After playing and singing for me all morning, Yvonne had the joy of realizing, "Wow! I do have the reserves of strength to play and sing healing music for someone for an extended period of time."

Fourth, Yvonne also shared with me that this post-stroke experience of giving has encouraged her to branch out and begin again to offer her healing music more widely in hospitals and clinics where she lives in Colorado. It deepens her knowing: "After the stroke, I still have an important musical gift to give. I have the stamina to do so. I can fulfill my life purpose. I can experience the joy of giving."

Hospital Experience #11: Yvonne - Healing Music Part 1

This is the eleventh in a series of posts on a recent experience at Ochsner Hospital - having a cardiac catheter ablation procedure to correct a heart arrhythmia. These posts describe and reflect on various aspects of the hospital experience. This eleventh post is the first of two posts in which I will reflect on the gift given me by Yvonne, a life-long friend and a pianist living in Colorado.

Throughout this hospital experience, Yvonne has supported me in many ways, including thinking of me and praying for me, contacting me before the procedure to express her love and concern, listening deeply to me, and most especially keeping vigil during the procedure. Yvonne kept vigil for me in a unique way: throughout the entire morning of my procedure, she played and sang healing music for me.

Yvonne has done this healing music for many people. She has done it for people who simply wanted the experience, for people undergoing illness or surgery or grief or trauma, and for people in the process of dying. She has done it for those who are physically present in the room with her and for those who are physically elsewhere.

Here is my understanding of the healing music Yvonne does. What I understand is that Yvonne sits at the piano and quiets her spirit, sets her intention to connect deeply with the spirit of the one for whom she is playing and singing, and begins to play. As she plays, early on, she feels herself slip into a place of connectedness. She then allows herself to be led to the pieces and songs she is to play and sing.

Yvonne says that, when she plays and sings in this way, she is very aware that something is being done through her rather than that she is doing something. She experiences herself as a channel through which gifts of the spirit world flow to others. These gifts do not originate with her. In fact, Yvonne is often in awe of what a healing music session evokes for those for whom she plays and sings. People often share this with Yvonne in the days or weeks after a session, but Yvonne herself leaves it entirely up to them whether or not to share, as they wish.

Some years ago, I experienced this healing music with Yvonne in person - that is, while physically present in the room with her. When I experienced this in person, the music had a deeply calming effect. It was in the evening at my home, so I went to bed right after the healing music session and slept very soundly. The calming effect lasted noticeably into the next day.

On the morning of my cardiac catheter ablation, Yvonne again did this healing music for me. Yvonne is not a morning person and she lives in the Mountain Time Zone (an hour earlier than the Central Time Zone where I am located in New Orleans), but she got up early enough to begin playing and singing at 7 a.m. MDT, and she did not stop until approximately 11 a.m. MDT when she received the phone call that the procedure was over and I was fine. Yvonne was with me in this special way the whole time.

POSTSCRIPT: I am writing this postscript after completing this post. I originally intended to write one post on Yvonne's gift of healing music. That was before I realized where this writing would take me. The writing has taken me to such a surprising insight that I have decided to end this post with that important insight. This post, then, will reflect on the gifts of comfort, presence, and healing that I received through Yvonne's playing and singing for me. My next post will continue my reflections on Yvonne's gift.

Here are some of the benefits I received from Yvonne's gift of healing music during my hospital experience.

COMFORT. This comfort was tangible for me. I truly felt comfort in knowing that my friend was with me throughout the time of my medical procedure. Yvonne devoted the entire morning to me in an intense and concentrated way. She wasn't thinking of me while also going about her daily tasks. She wasn't waiting to hear news of how the procedure went while reading a book. She concentrated her whole attention exclusively on me for four hours. This is hugely comforting.

PRESENCE. Yvonne was present with me. Although she was physically in Colorado while I was physically in New Orleans, she was more present than she would have been if she had been sitting physically right outside the procedure room waiting for news of the outcome while reading the newspaper, chatting on a cell phone, or eating a snack. In fact, the ONLY way in which Yvonne was not present was physically. She was present with me mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

We get so caught up in the physical that, if someone isn't physically in the same location as we are, we experience them as not there, as absent. Yet physical presence is the most shallow way of being present. Unless other ways of being present are also involved, physical presence alone is useless. To use a drastic example, if an individual is physically having sex with his or her spouse while mentally and emotionally doing so with someone else, many people would consider this an act of infidelity even though the individual may never have approached that other person physically at all.

Mental presence, emotional presence, and spiritual presence are REAL ways of being present. I know that this is true, even though if remains intangible for me. That is, I didn't actually feel Yvonne's presence as she was playing and singing healing music for me. I simply knew that she was doing this, that she was truly present with me in this deep way - and this knowledge comforted me.

Yvonne does have a more tangible sense of non-physical presence. She told me that, as soon as she sat down at the piano to play and sing for me on the morning of my medical procedure, she could feel my presence right there beside her. She said, "It was as though you were right there in the room with me." I would say that it was more than that. I was right there in the Colorado piano room with Yvonne, and Yvonne was right there in the New Orleans procedure room with me - or perhaps we were right there with each other in a way that has nothing to do with space.

HEALING. The healing music played and sung by Yvonne healed me at a deep level, whether or not I am conscious of it. Actually, I am not conscious of the healing that went on and probably continues to go on as a result of Yvonne's gift. But I know that healing happened and is probably still happening - I know this because it is clear to me that concentrated energy has an effect. Yvonne was intensely concentrating her energy upon me for four hours. Something happened as a result, whether on not I am aware of it.

I might wonder - since Yvonne was playing and singing healing music for me - why I clashed with Nurse Dreadful and why I panicked in the procedure room. Shouldn't the healing music have produced calm? Not necessarily. I can think of at least two reasons why not.

First, I realize now that there is something I could have done and didn't do. In the weeks and days leading up to my procedure, I thought about the gift Yvonne was going to give me and felt comforted. However, on the morning of the procedure itself, I was so focused on getting through the procedure intact that I did not take time to align myself consciously with the healing music, to open myself consciously to receive this gift. I think I could have received more if I had done this.

Second, while feeling calm throughout hospital day would have been a gift that I would love to have received, I believe that the gift I actually needed to receive was far different. It is the gift of insight. The Nurse Dreadful clash and the procedure room panic have led to very useful insights about myself, as my blog posts show.

Also - and I am realizing this with amazement just this moment - I value the insights more than I value calmness. To find myself saying that I value insights more than calmness is HUGE! My life stance thus far has been very different. I have often expressed it like this: "I don't want to grow and become a better person - I just want to avoid pain and discomfort," and "I'd rather not learn the lessons life teaches because they are too painful - it's not worth it." But now, in this hospital experience, I am able to see that it IS worth it. Somehow, I am able to say, "It is worth it to have clashed with Nurse Dreadful and to have panicked in the procedure room because of the insights I have gained from those uncomfortable experiences."

Come to think of it, I don't think I have ever said this about any uncomfortable experience before! Before, I would have said: "No, it was too painful to reach those insights - it wasn't worth it." But this time, it IS worth it.

As I write this, I am becoming aware of just how great a shift this is in my thinking. My writing is also solidifying the shift, making it more concrete and real to me, so that I can choose to work with it in the future and make it a conscious part of my life.

I am also noticing something else about this. It is not quite true to say, "The discomfort of the clash and the panic is worth it because the discomfort is outweighed by the valuable insights." It is more than that. It is that the joy of the insights retro-actively infuses the clash and the panic. The pain of then is absorbed into the joy of now. It is not a question of weighing painful incidents against valuable insights and finding that the insights have greater weight. No. It is that the painful incidents get absorbed into the joy and value of the insights. I mean - the pain is transformed. The pain doesn't cause suffering any more - it causes joy.

I have NEVER experienced this before. All the pain in my life has caused me suffering. I have weighed the pain against the joy and decided that the small amount of joy simply isn't worth enduring the large amount of pain. Conclusion: Life isn't worth it. Resultant life stance: My life goal has been to get from here to the grave as safely and painlessly as possible. I have often said, "If it is true that we actually choose to come to earth, I must have chosen to do so in a moment of utter cosmic insanity." I have often imagined the day when a doctor will tell me, "You have just x amount of time to live," and with what relief I will exclaim, "Finally, finally, I am getting out of here - it will be over!"

But now I have had an experience that opens a whole new way to approach life. I have actually experienced being able to say, "This painful event is worth it because of the insights I have gained. Indeed, the value of the insights infuses the pain. The pain has lost its quality of suffering and has become part of the joy."

I would like to reach a place where I can also say, "This entire life is worth it," and "The pain of this life no longer causes me suffering but joy." For the first time, I glimpse this as a very real possibility.

I began this section saying that I knew that Yvonne's playing and singing had effected and was effecting healing in me even though I was not consciously aware of the healing. I am ending this section aware of a tremendous area of healing.

THIS is the healing I have received from Yvonne's gift of music - to have actually experienced the fact that pain can be transformed from suffering to joy and to know that life can truly be worth it.