As requested, last night I informed the hospital chef by text that I would have time to eat lunch in the Doctor's Dining Room today.
I am his guinea pig for RAW vegan and vegan options for the hospital. He is working on recipes!
The phone rang at 11:15 a.m. Come to the doctor's dining room.
Inside a little black styrofoam box was a salad with what looked like chicken but it was fake. It tasted like the real thing! But it wasn't! The salad had apple slices, jicama, good lettuce blend, and vinaigrette dressing.
I was smart.
I made it 'Show and Tell'.
I came to the Doctors Dining room armed with packages of WrawP brand Raw Vegan Flat Bread, Spirulina flavor (six ounce package, four slices, cost about eight dollars), Manitoba Harvest Hemp Hearts brand raw shelled hemp seeds (ten grams of omegas three and six per serving), and Himalania brand antioxidant RAW Goji Berries.
You should have seen chef's face. And my colleague, the Vietnamese (here is her story http://reikidoc.blogspot.com/2013/07/reflections-on-boat-people.html), and the vegetarian who loves animals and won't eat meat but loves the taste of meat Persian Gastroenterologist!
What the heck is THIS?????
It was the delight of pure joy to discover something new to eat.
I offered tastes of the fake chicken and what I brought. The Persian asked politely where he could buy it. (he and his wife eat lots of fake chicken and it 'isn't nearly as good'). It turns out it is restaurant 'special order' only, but chef graciously offered to cook up the other piece he had back in the kitchen.
I sat next to the Persian doctor, and he enjoyed his lunch very much. I sat next to the Vietnamese anesthesiolgist, too. We were across from an Egyptian internist. He tried the fake chicken, and said it wasn't bad! Even HE was happy to have new choices! The Vietnamese says she 'Likes meat!' and I smiled and confided, 'some people NEED it, and that's okay. We just want to have more options for vegan and vegetarian patients, doctors, visitors, and staff. I am the guinea pig, that's all'. The Vietnamese lady anesthesiologist also worked with a doctor in San Diego who wrote the book Super Foods, went on Oprah, and became totally famous! He looked twenty years younger than he was and enjoyed excellent health!
Then who came and sat next to us? The author of Conquering Cancer. Did you know eighty-five percent of all cancers are preventable--they are not 'just genetic'? He says it is due to alcohol, tobacco, obesity, and 'where you live' (environmental factors). Apparently Japanese women have very low rates of breast cancer, but 'bring them here and after five years they get it just like us.' He also shared the mystery over stomach cancer in Japan, but not here. I shared that there are two subtypes of helicobacter pylori, and the Japanese one is more aggressive. The gastroenterologist looked at me--yo, anesthesia! the 'party' doctor LOL--with new respect because I was right. I laughed and said I learned it from someone who says since westerners have 'friendlier' h pylori we should 'kiss a Japanese and save a life' so they get our 'good h pylori' too. He totally cracked up. (Here's the link to the blog post and video on that--http://reikidoc.blogspot.com/2013/10/something-to-add-stomach-cancer.html)
He asked me if I meditate mindfully or mindlessly. I was like, what?! (Apparently mine is mindfully because I do it when I drive. He used to during a long commute as well.) Right then my boss sat at the table. (Blush!). Caught red-handed with my goji berries, hemp seeds AND the raw vegan bread. Yes, Dr. Boss, this one has a 'case' that is WAY worse than not having the steak and fish at the black tie fundraising gala banquet! LOL LOL LOL
Fortunately, he is very financially motivated, and another 'worldy' doc sat down too, and they talked 'business' while the Persian and I quietly discussed meditation. (I noted that Boss and other ate salad--that vortex in the Doctor's Dining Room I put in last year is really WORKING BEAUTIFULLY! LOL)
Here's the scoop--mindless meditation gets you to the 'bliss' the gastroenterologist used to need twenty minutes to 'find' in TWO MINUTES! And instead of fifteen minutes 'result' with mindful meditation, he gets it in 'five'. He suggested this book, which I just bought on Kindle, 'Silence Your Mind' by Dr. Manesh Ranoja. He says it is an Australian doctor who studies meditation quantitatively, like a medication--its effects on Blood Pressure, etc. 'It is Science, not gobble-de-gook' the gastroenterologist said.
He also shared that through Dahn yoga, he was able to heal his right knee that was so bad he almost needed a knee replacement.
I asked him another question--is your wife into meditation too? How does that work?
She is. They 'each do their own thing' and she likes Sahaja yoga for her mindless meditation. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahaja_Yoga)
I laugh now because I shared I do kundalini yoga with Ana Brett and Ravi Singh on amazon prime instant video at home on my computer, and that I love kundalini. No wonder why he said I need to go join his wife!
The end result is that he said, 'This vegetarian project never would have happened without your effort' with gratitude towards me.
And I did not disclose I am in Conquering Cancer with Reiki (just one page!). But I did share about my being a Reiki Master. I got his respect again with that--I saw his whole face change. I mentioned briefly, too, my blogging, the international interest in what I post, and my keeping it on the 'down low'--but that the point is to bring the Spiritual back into medicine, and for the Healers to Unite across all disciplines for the benefit of humanity globally to reduce suffering, illness, and encourage health for all. I sincerely shared with him how our lunch is going to give so many people hope! How so many think we are in medicine for the wrong reasons. He understood. He said, 'Actually, many doctors are the smartest ones--the most educated and the most forward-thinking. Some are clearly in it 'for the money and chasing the money' but others are in it for humanity and 'the money washes over them' because they are helping others to have less suffering.'
His story of how he came to medicine is worth a moment. He was going to be electrical engineer. But in Iran, all the universities closed for two years. The only one to reopen was medicine after that time. He sat for the entrance exam to practice test taking. He scored so well, he got accepted! So her enrolled, thinking he 'could take the general requirements and be six months ahead of the engineering school when it opened and transfer.'. What happened and why is he in the Doctor's Dining Room eating lunch next to me? On the first day of medical school, everyone calls you 'doctor'--your family, the school, people in the community. He said to himself, 'Are you crazy? This is really a good thing!' and he finished his studies to complete his M.D.!
I gave him the biggest hug! All these years we have worked together. I thought he ate meat until about three months ago. And he thought I was just, well, you know... a 'gas passer' (the nickname for anesthesiologists in the hospital LOL).
This is what my Heaven looks like. It is Here and Now, and the Energy and Joy is immense and highly contagious!!!!
Aloha and Mahalos,
Namaste,
Reiki Doc
P.S. This gastroenterologist is the same one Spirit guided me to ask about High Colonic Hydrotherapy in this blog--funny how Spirit 'knows' when we 'don't', isn't it? http://reikidoc.blogspot.com/2013/10/something-to-add-swollen-colon.html