Yesterday morning I arrived at work one hour early. I had been told to be in the surgery center room four by the scheduler while I was on call Friday. I walked into the break room, put my lunch in the fridge, and was unnerved to find Dr. PF, the spine surgeon who my boss had said complained about my 'taking forty five minutes to put in an a-line'. I checked on the chart. It was ten. My boss didn't look. He didn't defend me. Instead he told me I was 'too safe', and that Dr. PF said I wasn't 'able to do big cases'. I've mentioned earlier that the surgeon is one who doesn't like details, just wants to operate, and wants everything to start on time. It doesn't matter about technical matters, safety matters, patient emotional needs or having to pee. Nothing. Even if I am sick, it doesn't matter.
I was surprised I held no anguish in his presence. I know his daughter is the age of my niece, and I shared about visiting the local farm on Sunday. He had thought about going, on Saturday. I said it was a good thing he didn't. He asked, 'was it crowded?' I said no, the trailer got stuck in the mud.
I showed him pictures.
I asked him if he and his wife are thinking about having another? He was surprised I didn't know, he has a boy on the way, due in May. I congratulated him.
During the whole interaction I felt he was unsettled, he was uncomfortable around me, because clearly, he knew I knew my boss had talked to me. And I was friendly? right?
Afterwards, Ross told me to act like Dr. PF if the best friend I ever had. Every time I'm with him.
And I will.
Ross is the expert on how to deal with people, and particularly, how to push a lesson until it achieves its results. In this one, I am both student and teacher. He also wanted me to write this first and foremost, for you.
By the way, I was in the wrong room. I checked on the schedule. I was assigned to the assignment one row below that one. Sigh.
Last night I made meatloaf, something I hardly ever make because Anthony hates it, but I grew up with it, and enjoy it. I also made the fresh broccoli picked yesterday from the farm, and mixed it with a little carrot. For dessert, I was inspired to create something new. I cut up all the old but not yet bad kumquats (one cup), two kind of old bananas, and about one quarter of a rind of a yuzu. I added water to a pot, and all the honey I had left in an old plastic squeeze bear that wouldn't squeeze it out. I guess perhaps one quarter of a cup of honey. I added about a cup of milk. And a dash of cinnamon. I let it simmer for about one hour. When it was ready, it had boiled down to about half the volume. Our reusable whipped cream container always has some left in after it won't spray out. So I fished it out, and mixed it with the dessert after I had taken the immersion blender to the citrus banana pudding. It was so warm, and pleasant a dessert. It felt very healing. I was thankful.
That reminded me of the talk I had with our chef at work. It was probably the best talk I've had in a long time. Both personally, and professionally. He has always had two jobs. Long hours like me. And his son has some mental health diagnosis, his daughter is about my height, and weight twenty five more pounds than me (I am seventy five pounds overweight)...we have shared before about our struggles. But I told him, 'food is the new medicine'....in support because someone high ranking didn't like the chicken marsala he had made for their meeting. He's working on making recipes for low sodium diet for patients that actually taste good. (the common complaint over low sodium is that the food has no flavor--I've heard this one from patients everywhere I've ever worked in my career.) He understood my complaint about how the food at dinner is never fresh, it's been sitting from lunch in the steam tables all day, and everything from the grill tastes Mexican--even if it's not supposed to be. He said he has trouble with the other workers. They don't understand food. And they don't follow his recipes. With the salad bar, they just want to see everything full in the ceramic crocks in the line up. They don't understand the foods they put in, and in most cases, they don't even eat those foods. Chef is big about serving things that you would eat yourself and enjoy. And he's done something amazing in the last year. Taken all food with preservatives and artificial flavors and MSG out of the kitchen. This is all patient food, and all food served to staff and guests. When I told him food is a medicine, I saw a flash of recognition in his eyes...and hope.
His daughter is in her first year of college. He pre-makes all her food to eat for a week at a time. But when she comes home, she eats what she wants, and it's not healthy. He thinks she cheats at school on her meal plans too. When he says to his daughter, 'let's go to the gym', she will give excuses and he will be waiting on her for as long as two hours. So he gave up. But now, she tells him she is sad because the boys look at the other girls but not her. He said, focus on your school, you will have time for boys later. At least now, if you have a boyfriend and a test, you might not have the time to study as much as you need to for the test. But what was unsaid was that his daughter didn't take his help or advice, she didn't listen, and did what she wanted. But now, outside facts are confronting her to change. (this is very typical of third chakra imbalance--Louise Hay and Mona Lisa Shultz have a book with excellent examples)
I told him I'm so tired of every food decision, from age two, has been made with Anthony's health in my heart. And my own. I've done Weight Watchers for a year, I've been able to keep off five pounds, and I've learned my life is so chaotic I can neither plan meals or exercise. And I am sick, sick, sick of only being able to eat zero point foods and a tiny bit of something else. It turns my stomach. I don't feel healthy on just fish and chicken.
It was nice to talk.
In the O.R. I've found a new form of Reiki. It's hard to explain. But when I used it I was like, 'wow!'. Perhaps it's been three days now I've been able to work with it.
I saw Proverbs 19:21 on a license plate. I felt there was a lesson. I didn't know what it was. Anthony helped me to mail the rest of the packages at the post office. We each took a kiosk and split the work. He too mixed up the labels from the cart. Four more might be wrong size to wrong home. Sorry. He was so frustrated he said he is never going to the post office again, and suggests I ship UPS. I agreed with him.
Apparently his white jersey for basketball belonged to a senior. There's little stripes somewhere. But there had been a stain, and I had put stain remover on it, but not yet washed it. He yelled at me. He had been watching his football game, I had been washing dishes. And I told him to pack up for practice early so it wasn't last minute. I had time to wash the jersey by hand in the sink, and put it in the dryer. He apologized for yelling. I understood his frustration. He's never yelled at me before. I told him if he wants results its probably better not to yell at me because I will only go slower...and he understood.
When I went to pick Anthony up from practice, the coach called. He had hurt his knee in practice coming down from a jump. Anthony apologized. And in the car, he was upset. He gets hurt a lot. And we both know it's the weight. It's too much for his frame. He said it was one year to the day we were in New York at the emergency room for his kidney pain. Same football game, same health emergency type thing.
I took him home, gave him ibuprofen, and ice on and off at twenty minute intervals.
Then it all came out, the truth. How he felt about everything. And he was so very, very sad over his sports injury. He already has a broken finger from basketball. He feels like his dad has whittled away his self-confidence, and at the same time, the father's haranguing over the weight has made the son somewhat defiant in the eating department, which is counter-productive but understandable given the situation.
I told him from my heart, that it's the people who don't realize there's something going on, inside, that are hopeless and won't get help. But for those who do, and want to change it, there's always an opportunity as long as we have breath. Always. And realizing change is needed is half the battle, the most important part.
He had woken up at four thirty in the morning to write a paragraph for school. I helped him. He couldn't find the quotes. But he was exhausted and falling asleep with the ice on his knee. So I gave Reiki. I did the full thing, Karuna, and then the new one. Again I was amazed to observe it as this healing has intelligence and I could see it flowing and working. I added in something special Divine Mother had taught me and allows me to use. Then I got the feeling someone was looking at me. I opened my eyes, and Anthony was looking at me with a look of concern and puzzlement. I knew from his look he felt it.
I asked him if he knew I had been working on him and he said yes. It felt like fire and it went to his feet. I could see by his face that this wasn't the Reiki he had been used to. He was glad I was helping him but startled by the strength of the energy.
I gave him a small plate of food, cut small like when he was little, and also a taste of the dessert. He said he liked it, so I gave him one cup of it. He said the warmth of it was the best part...
He struggled up the stairs. Ross told me to give him a cross. I found it, it's a byzantine one, a crucifix, from Jerusalem and made with olive wood. Ross said he would be working with Anthony all night. And as I was drifting off to sleep, Ross smiled and said, 'I gotta go be a dad' and I saw him walking to Anthony's room. In the morning, right before I woke up, Ross told me it was done and it was good. I looked up knee injuries. It's most likely a meniscus or perhaps a ligament. He feels weird if he doesn't put weight on his knee. I know I did the right things to decrease the inflammation. But he's probably going to need to be seen soon. He doesn't want to tell his father, because he's afraid of getting hurt by things his father will say. And I can't make a request on TDWR because the grandmother is in the team, and she tells everything to Jared. I had to cancel plans last week because Anthony was sick--I was to meet for lunch with a mother of a patient who was dear but passed. Today I suspect it's the same thing. I don't want it to be like the finger, broken for three weeks before he gets medical care.
Oh how I miss Khiem!
He was such an angel for this family.
I'm sure he would have seen Anthony today, squeezed him into the schedule.
He was such a kind man. And good friend.
Ross
When faced with assholes, like the unicorn cards say, assholes are teachers who teach us the lessons we don't like. So, to counter this, we do for them as students something that the assholes don't like--we consider them friends, dear friends, in every sense of the word, and we do this with intention.
Second, there is always room for change.
And much like what is happening with our son, for he is my boy in Spirit, I helped for him to arrive--there are many things in the soul which need to come out and be released. This is important and in alignment with the latest message from the Council we had yesterday. Allow...accept and ALLOW this process to happen. What is a few tears compared to an eternity of consolation and health--emotional and mental health? And just like I did for our son, call for me, or any of our team, to assist you.
That is enough for today.
Ah, yes, and what Carla made was an old recipe. A citrus sweet from the old country.... (he winks). She remembered one of our favorites from back in the day. Only then we used etrog and not yuzu.
clap! clap!
Aloha and Mahalos,
Namaste,
Peace,
Ross and Carla
The Twins
