Tag: mentalhealth

Excerpt II

To  speak of Personal Power. Choice. Self Responsibility — Is not to be overly Idealistic sans an awareness to those in dire circumstances and Beings that actually lack alternatives. It is not to point fingers or claim one Country’s Health System is better than the other. I think Globally, we can learn alot from one another.  One system cannot be had with the other. It’s like our own internal system.  A whole system in which we tend to fragment and leave others to fix, adjust, brainwash – us, back to a supposed state of balance. Balance. Something we are clearly fooling ourselves into being/having, once one part is “fixed.” Do you ever notice how when you fix something, something else falls apart? Especially when it’s done quickly, in fear, or with a bandaid; with virtue signaling, adverts, drugs, drink, sex, etc?  What happens when you run a marathon post knee surgery, before your body, brain spirit has fully recovered? 

Health, I’ve realized, is not so much in saving/fixing – It is in listening. It is in something as disorienting, as a Pandemic, that affected the WHOLE- visibly, to make us question our ways of living. Listening. Being. It has affected us on every level imaginable. And knowable. We have just been asleep. My thoughts and feelings are not to discount the death; the pain, the PTSD nor the Virus. It is actually to lean into it… more. Because I’m afraid we are going to bypass what is essential for recovery – The actual articulation of the experience both personal and from within the hospital corridors. Those that faced something unimaginable/not in the science books. The unbearable pain of witnessing others die alone. The inability to FIX. Cure. Ease the suffering. The desperation. The bureaucracy, to boot.  

One vaccine is not the FIX/Perhaps it’s an adjunct. The question now is – How are we going to be Healthy – individually and as a WHOLE. How are we going to stand up for things we believe in? What will we eat? Who will we convene with? Where will we live — Now and ten years from now? Where do we put our money? Time? Energy? Will we understand that relationship to our neighbors/village/community is essential for our Balance? Will we understand that everyone has a story, a set of values, history? That people will think and feel differently than we do – And that the beauty is in difference and our sameness. When we cut a human open in the OR, we all have a bleeding beating heart. 

My hope is, we don’t lose the heart. 

Peace

h.

Nurse Me

Well here it goes. The Nurse me.  If we want to speak of “battles” then I have a battle wound or two. These wounds are more akin to tears(holes, breaks) in my heart. It’s ironic, as my inner compass showed me Medicine for a reason. But it appeared to me,(through my body/my health)in almost my 20th year of service that the way of the West, the way of New York; powering through, the way of metrics, evaluation, speed, waste, and profits no longer met my inner standards/values of what Medicine means to me. In my heart. 

I worked and pushed through a lot of disempowerment in my hospital days. The only thing bringing me back from these edges was not a boss that says “If people aren’t happy, they can leave.”  It was the immense humility to connect and be present, make more comfortable, to see; to see another through a most vulnerable time. Through the gifts of what medicine, at its roots, also entails. Yet these gifts, and I will name them, are the Femine values and virtues/the intangible/the unmeasurable,unquantifiable parts to the whole, that often go unrecognized.  It is the gift of selflessness; as a human being on their deathbed that says. “Give a piece of me to another, please,” and they donate an organ. It is the Nurse that shows up to work countless hours to send money home to their families. It is the Caretaker that comes to work sick, because there lies in these systems, lots of trickery, guilt and shame. It is a system that, in the current conditions, looks so unified on the outside. But the truth is, it’s broken.  

This is not meant to drag the current resilience, bravery and light by which we view the Health Care system off the stage. I only write this to cast some shade…because there’s always a shadow. I admit, I felt betrayed as I walked out of the locker room after eight years of service to a place I brought heart, soul, light and wisdom to.  But I am also so proud of who I’ve become in the process.  I know that we each are our own Medicine following our own heart’s Lub,Dub. And  I was definitely one, to march to the beat of my own drum, always. I guess I no longer felt part of the beat.  

Are We Really at War?

With much respect for those on the health care lines, always, including the patients, I bow to you. I also want to take a moment and express my concern around the  “war”  language blooming in these deeply strange and ambivalent times. To go to “war” on something that “doesn’t want to fight with you,” is a narrative, after deep thought, that I’d like to see retire. – The Saving lives as a Battle – The War on Drugs – The War on Poverty-  When we use terminology such as battle, fight, kill what are we communicating to the layperson?  To the sick?  To the vulnerable? To ourselves?  Do we call it a “fight,” to perhaps soothe our very own fear of mortality, stroke our egos; ease our pains?

Our health isn’t an absence of illness whether acute or chronic. It’s neither an absence of virus, trauma, tumors, infection or mental affliction. These pieces, either one or/and the other that may visit us one day or already do, are parts of our WHOLE health.  Just as poverty and drug addiction are pieces and reflections of a society and its health at large. We don’t need to battle it. We need to understand it from a holistic lens; to view the bigger canvas. We need to treat a human being undergoing surgery, as a whole being, not as parts to a car. Even treatment from a microscopic realm includes vast geography. These parts of me , you, society are not intentionally trying to battle us.  So why wage a war?  

I ask, “Is there an alternative expression for War?”  I don’t know, but I think it’s time to grow out of hostile acts, upon the Other and most importantly, our Selves.  

Nurses Week

What are my thoughts on this Nurses Week, 8 months after retiring(for now) my mask and OR Bouffant? Welp, I will first say how sad, exhausted, and yet exhilarated I felt, leaving the so called “prestigious” institution I worked with(in hindsight, FOR) for eight years of my journey. I kissed the OR floor on my last day//The amount of humility and grace I experienced in service (side note: I was never a hero and in my humble and honest reflection around heroism– something doesn’t fundamentally sit right about an aim to be another’s hero) to the brave/vulnerable souls that entered our hospital doors in need of medicine, of care and compassion, need of surgery, of recovery, of trust, to have their voices heard; unfortunately the later being Co-Opted with our diverted attention, the fast, faster faster and more, more more movement of Health Care. And what we are witnessing currently among all the bravado and accolades, is not only the stifling of patient voices(as many are too fearful to show up in the hospital now) but those voices of our very own Health Care providers. Yes, it is true, our humans of medicine, especially nurses; speaking up against injustices has its price. (And this is not new)

My second thought around this week is the gut feeling there is so much PTSD about to surface and many inside the sterile walls perhaps already displaying symptoms without realizing it. Our hospital systems, for the most part, are not and have not been designed to be in service to those in the arena of Care, ie counseling, education, mental health and grievance support and as we presently bare witness to–Protection and Safety. Providers, like patients have become another number/another body. And after tagging and bagging those so called bodies, it’s “Back to work.” Even if you’ve just been to you very own family funeral. With so much more to say, I end this piece with my expression of love for all the Medicine Women and Medicine Men I am fortunate to know. Those that show up to work not looking for freebies and thank you’s as much as they are looking to be recognized as HUMAN.

The Salve

Yesterday I felt a grief down in my bones.  A feeling, like something is missing. Something that can’t be reached through a screen. Even beauty or God, for that matter. That feeling; it’s more of a salve than a prescription. It’s a connection. My skin resting in a hug. Hand holding hand. It’s checking vitals. Not with a cold device between your heart and mine. Rather vitals as, “what is vital to you dear human?”  

It is warm sand again, between my toes. Sharing a gin in a small back room where all mouths are poets’ mouths. It is the company of a healer not just my own healing company. The company of little ones, old ones and even homeless ones. There was this one man in silver rings, wearing black, always.  Summer and winter under the scaffolding on Howard Street, our eyes would meet. We would bow our heads in honor. I wonder how he’s doing presently…as he is God too. Also beauty.  

That feeling; that salve I so viscerally want to taste. It is Humanness. The sweet and sacred collective. The community. The planet, yours and theirs. May we be brought home soon dear ones, minus the masks we once(and always) wore.