Woke up yesterday with vertigo. Ended up getting a ride to the major hospital to get brain scan, as needed to rule out not my brain bleeds leaking. I never thought that was the case; but a produce table patron called her RN husband to come and advise, as she and another who saw me noticed I was not doing so well--vertigo and spacey feeling in head.
I attributed it all to my spinal column, especially the neck. The shift in weather has thrown a major hindrance into my back and also head injury area. As I consider "leaving pain", all the more there it was and needing to be addressed in a temporal manner.
The EMS guys were wonderful, as they insisted it best to return to the hospital that took the brain scans following the head injury. I had been unable to return due to no means to get there for my follow up brain scan and neurosurgical consult. The EMS guys pointed out if I went to an easier-access hospital for the scan it would need to be compared to the original brain scan.
(I did need, of course, to know the status of the brain bleeds at some point and to be released to take the nsaid prescription medication that has helped my spine for years with inflammation amid the increasing arthritis build-up).
So off we went, and what a day it was in the ER of this huge medical center complex. I'm too fatigued at the moment to write about what I heard and observed all about me, but I knew the Lord had a purpose in this dousing into fact and reality of the big world out there--beyond what I see, filtered, through this little window to the world, my laptop.
Ended up a type of vertigo and was taught via demonstrating with me as the object, means of balancing inner ear, by a doctor and the resident or intern doctors he was instructing in situ. That seems, to me, the minor benefit of spending a long day there, surrounded by drug addicts (one cuffed on two limbs to her ER gurney and a policeman with her at all times) and homeless street persons, also drug addicts.
Only toward evening did my "ER neighbors" switch out to a child with burns and an elderly man with wife accompanying. He had hit his head a couple weeks prior but two days ago lost the ability to formulate words in any logical fashion.
Then while waiting for a taxi to get me as far as possible so a neighbor could pick me up without having to drive into the traffic-laden streets of mind-boggling metropolis, a street man who was hanging around the ER waiting area, was readying to expose himself and do an indecent sex act. I went to the employee at the intake desk, and she said he'd done that the day before and she'd kicked him out.... But she gave him another chance today.
Lord, have mercy. I pointed out there could be children and teen girls in the waiting area (and later, indeed, there were), and shouldn't a sexual predator be arrested and removed? He was stalking me, for pity's sake, following me around, after he had approached with stating his desires and had I not stood up and walked away, was readying himself for indecent exposure.
Obviously, a very disturbed man, maybe or probably mentally ill, but...still...not right or good to be thus in public, among people with their physical ailments coming for help. The employee said the police have worse things to deal with, and she'd call security. I don't know if she did; a couple wandered through an hour or so later (cab was not aware of the FAX sent them by hospital to pick me up until another person waiting called the cab company and let me talk with them, as well).
But the man then was deep into his cell phone. Yes, a cell phone, although a shelter person; and I wondered why they did not check what he had on that phone that was of such interest, since he was known to the employee as having exposed himself and performed sexual act in public just the day prior.
Yet, the reality of so many homeless, mentally ill, drug addicted humanity would be a rather overwhelming task, especially when one officer was for his entire shift, sitting by an addict brought from jail for anxiety issues as she was "drying out" after being arrested. At the end of his shift, a police woman arrived to take over the inmate watch. She had been given various medications to try to calm her, yet all the while she wanted more of what not best to give her.
But they did give enough of various levels of drugs to get the addicts somewhat calmed; one was admitted for hoped for help, and the other was going to be returned to jail upon release. A third was still being treated for gashes and open wounds--some altercation on the streets. He was asked what drugs he was on, and the young man had no qualms in stating, and the doctors took it in as daily matter-of-fact.
Well, it is daily, nightly, and matter-of-fact to the employees and the addicts. A nurse told me this is typical and most of ER dealing with those who come in off the streets with drug needs or drug-related injuries and ailments. Yet there were the few, such as my vertigo and brain bleed concern to be checked, the man with the head injury that evidently did not fare well even though he'd been to a couple other hospitals in the two weeks between his hitting and two days ago losing ability to verbalize in any logical word order. The little girl also, was there with the burns from hot "play dough soup" she was somehow making with the use of a stove or some means powerful enough to pose a burn risk.
In the ER waiting room were a few street people coming in wanting and needing (for addicts go through terrible bodily problems when they do not have their next "fix) drugs but many more were there with other injuries. I was in but one small area of a vast ER, after all. I heard some employee speak of gunshot victim coming in, and there would be the heart attacks, strokes, and car accident patients, the broken legs and arms, the high fevers, the seizures and whatever all else from all manner of the various ailments our human bodies can have.
Even the cab driver was a fascinating man from perhaps Lebanon or Egypt, and we had a marvelous conversation, as did the neighbor woman and I have when she picked me up in another world--quieter area in which to drive.
At least I got the follow up brain scan, needed, and the brain bleeds have gotten "a little bit smaller", the doctor said. I had no idea--thought they'd be gone by now. But no, brain bleeds take quite a long time to heal, to be reabsorbed by the body. Mine was described as going from front to back more along the mid-part of my head, the top but down in more, and not two distinct bleeds but rather more joined along the center between the two larger areas. But I am able to take my anti-inflammatory prescription medicine again, praise God!
Of course, my issue is now all the more minor compared to what I was immersed in and with whom. A couple nurses asked me how I was able to so well manage my pain, as they said these others are in pain of their own, as there are various types of pain for which people medicate with whatever means, or addicted as a form of pain in itself of wrong choices and stuck in a horrific mire. But the nurses speaking to me about it, briefly, mused that I was able to manage my injury pain which worsens with age for physiological reasons, and these others do not.
I am blessed with education and have become rather an individual pain clinic, researching and reading and learning all manner of pain management techniques. I take supplements and vitamins and use diet as means to help in any small way, am certified in clinical hypnotherapy, took doctoral coursework in psychology and most helped by the pharmacology courses, and keep up with what is new but also what is time-tried-and-true in medications.
But I also said, I am a contemplative, and I do my best to unite my sufferings with Christ on His cross. Yet, I admitted that managing my pain is a major effort and life-work. And I do not do that well, actually, and know it is only going to get worse, the pain, and I never know if I will be able to manage it or at some point, not.
I have been considering the thought I wrote previously, of "leaving pain" as an aspect of "leaving everything" to follow Jesus Christ. Yesterday I did not leave pain but rather was immersed in it all the more not only with the added pain of my neck and back and the vertigo, but in being surrounded by magnitudes of human suffering in the ER which was as large in size and scope as are some total hospitals elsewhere.
Today is the day we Catholic Christians celebrate as the birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I'm turning my thoughts to her as best I can, although the unexpected adventure of yesterday and all the nuances of the various persons I encountered, are with me as if floating in and out of the silence of my now lovely and peaceful hermitage.
Need to start unloading mulch from truck and then get to bank. Finances have reached a snafu with a check not arriving in the mail; and the Visa bill is due now. I consider that with the vertigo still not gone fully for now, working in the gardens is close to the earth, and the earth is not going to be a hard-fall but rather soft, giving, and cushioned. God provides!
And the exercise will surely help my body to loosen itself which can only be helpful to the inner ear balancing those little tiny things in it that the doctor described as like grains of sand, that can get out of balance and thus need body-head positioning strategies to get them back in balance.
All is rather amazing, in life, truly.
No comments:
Post a Comment