Patience please...
Thursday, January 8, was the last time I answered any e-mail. The reason is
that I have spent the last week in a hospital bed. My not feeling well on the
Thursday resulted in a fever with various complications, and I ended up in the
hospital. I'm now at home, the fever is gone, and I have reason to take it
easy for a while.
When I attended the RESTORE course Norman Weiss several times compared the
preservation of a building to Doctoring. I am often concerned about the over-
symplification of metaphors. On one hand Doctoring involves a conscious and
sentient subject, a human being, and on the other it is a presumption for
someone to assume they have a special expertise when in fact they do not.
Buildings are not conscious. Many people working on buildings are limited in
their knowledge.
I am really amazed at how many opinions I have received on my condition over
the last week. The Doctor shares information sparingly, remarking that all the
test results are not in yet. My friends line up other Doctors, who are not
party to the test results, and mention scary things that may, or may not, be
in my future. A blood specialist runs into the room and blurts out a few
statements then skitters away. My mother urges me to take care of myself. The
fever makes my thinking on any statement run on and on. I wake up with a
start, a nurse standing at the foot of my bed announces that I am not going to
be fed so that I can go to for ultra-sound, then by lunch time it is evident
that someone has forgotten... and I 'm getting nervous because the nurse gave
me a pill to reduce my blood sugar, but no food to maintain my blood sugar...
and I have a headache, and dreaming last night was laborious, let alone that I
am afraid to fall asleep. The guy in the bed behind the curtain makes a lot of
noise at night. The cleaning lady has an opinion, based on my ability to
smile. My office mails me a section from a family medical book that talks
about the spleen (they are saying mine is slightly enlarged - I over-
contemplate what "slightly" means), and has a longer section on lymphomas,
which is depressing, but set off by the fruit basket. At midnight two men
stand outside the door to our room, at the water cooler, and argue if the ER
should be mopped from north to south, or south to north. Having spent 24 hours
in the ER, waiting for a bed, I can understand the urgency of the arguments, I
just don't understand what they have to do with me (similar to my work
environment). By the time I have the energy to raise my bed and join in the
debate the maintenance guys move on. I keep being asked to sign papers that
say the next procedure may kill me, a 1 in 100,000 chance, but it will only
take seven minutes. Then I am asked, by the echocardiogram technician, to
autograph Ken Follett's, _The Third Twin_. I'm willing, but she will not loan
me a pen. She says she once did Mario Puzzo's heart. As I leave she asks to
see what I am reading, Rabelais, _Gargantua and Pantagruel_ (I had already
finished off Grisham's, _The Client_, several magazines, several newspapers,
several made for television movies, and a biography of Trisha Yearwood). The
technician reads the back cover, (c.1494-1553) Franciscan monk, and returns
the book. I tell her it is humorous, and the Doctor smiles.
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