I had an eight-thirty start. In the car, on the way in, the hands-free caller I.D. flashed--Janet.
It was the receptionist at the O.R.
The surgeon was there and eight, and upset that I was not there earlier. I am due to arrive at eight ten for an eight-thirty start. That means we roll into the O.R. by eight-thirty. I was warned he was going to 'make some noise'. I had also seen her and her daughter at the raw-vegan restaurant last night when I dropped off the springform pan bottom. She was cool. Her daughter is the one that adopted out mama rat and her babies...even my boy recognized her before they recognized me! At eight eleven, I walked into my O.R. I saw my patient. I got ready with all the speed of my training. And at eight-twenty seven, we rolled into the O.R. to start the case.
My surgeon is excellent. I hate to disappoint him. I mention that there might be some confusion, because it sounds like he wants to cut at eight-thirty, when for all the other surgeons, 'start' means to 'come into the room'. I apologized and promised to call him the night before to know what time he actually wants to 'go', since the schedule lists 'when to go into the O.R.' and that is the best I can know.
As they were prepping the patient, something caught my eye. I see a lot of naked people. I don't think anything of it after all these years. But this one was the same size and build as my Twin Flame.
I outweigh him. I have thought a lot about why he is so small in size and yet large in spirit. Part of it is cultural. Tourists at Disneyland of his culture are built similar. A lot of it can be lifestyle. Before me, was exactly what he would appear in the nude--almost cachectic--but this one was also icteric and jaundiced and very ill.
What I didn't understand was the hemodynamic stability intraop. No only was this patient pushing eighty and having a huge surgery, there was no hypertension. Under anesthesia, hypertensives are 'volume contracted' so when the anesthesia takes effect, the blood vessels relax and the blood pressure drops precariously. There is a lot of work to compensate for it.
The other thing was that this patient handled a decent amount of blood loss without any problem, and furthermore took in about three liters of volume without any signs of going into heart failure. Oxygen saturation was excellent throughout. It was like the wear and tear I expected on the body was missing? Or something else that was atypical that I just could not put my finger on was going on?
Spirit is having some 'point' to make about letting me 'see' him naked, I guess...and I left it at that.
My other patient talked to the surgeon for about a half hour in pre-op holding. I waited until the tail end to interrupt their convesation. While I was waiting in Pre-Op Holding, an RN asked me if I knew about my first patient, the one who was yellow? He was vegan. My heart skipped a beat: that explains the mystery of the lack of typical physiologic reaction to anesthesia in spite of advanced age.
The next patient was a talker, very anxious, and typical for the kind of surgery this doc does. He made sure to introduce me and to explain she had a lot of concerns about anesthesia.
She did.
This is where I blow their minds, patients like this. I think they are fascinating! I LISTEN! To me, these are the Nordstrom Preferred Customers.
And sure enough, while sharing her woes, she lifted up her gown and started pointing out all of the scars on her stomach. It was a tangle of scars on top of scars. It was fascinating! There had been a lot of weight loss in the past year. At first she said it was due to nausea and pain. And then the truth came out: she had a passion for rescuing feral cats, and was very active because of it.
I was curious. I asked do you wear gloves to catch one, because they scratch? Actually the go into a trap, that has regular cat food into it. Apparently when they are spayed or neutered, they turn into really good pets. I asked if she had seen 'My Cat from Hell' on T.V? She laughed and said, 'I LOVE Jaxson Galaxy!' I said I think that the little guitar case with cat toys is cool. I meant it!
Reiki lets you step outside the situation and tap in to whatever healing there is available for the patient. It allows me to ignore my life-altering cat allergy and share the enthusiasm of someone who really loves cats. And most important, it allows a patient to forget their past 'anesthesia nightmares' and relax, giving me a chance to show that this one might be a better experience in surgery for them.
As she rolled in to the operating room proper, she complained about a headache. I asked if it was a caffeine withdrawal headache, and if it was, could she wait until recovery to try a coke or coffee after she wakes up instead to trying to treat it with drugs at the moment. She agreed.
I don't know what got me to remember it, but I shared about my last caffeine withdrawal headache that I had at my friend's vegan-raw restaurant. I asked what tea had the most caffeine, to help me feel better. She went in the back. Next I know, my Twin Flame was there with two HUGE bottles of supplements, urging me to take a whole lot of them. I did in one gulp, having no clue what it was. There were seven pills in all. It was ridiculous to think of me taking something I did not even read the label or understand! But, I confided to her, it worked!
She wanted to know where it was, the vegan restaurant? Her mother was vegan. She lived in a nearby town, and wanted all the info about the place. I promised to write it down for her. We both laughed like 'copines'--school friends--as she fell asleep for her surgery.
She woke up and was delighted to learn about the place.
After I dropped her off in recovery room, Janet asked me to step aside for she had something to share:
Her daughter spends every Sunday with her boyfriend. She is never with her mom on Sundays. And their going to the restaurant and running into me and my boy was a total coincidence that had her wondering how that could be? She wanted me to know.
I used to live for bath time. Tonight, with my son in the tub, he asked me to be 'Sugar Ray' the puppet terry cloth mitt dog. As we laughed, and splashed, and enjoyed each other, I realized how very much I need myself to daily let go and have fun. And giggle.
I thanked God for letting me 'wake up' enough from my Twin Flame to realize, all Twin Flameness aside, if it's not fun and Light, it's not right for my long term happiness. It can and must wait until it is right for me, I know in my bones this is Truth.
Sometimes the pull of Spirit is so strong, that I forget about compatibility with just plain old regular 'compatibility'. Both are important. Even for Twin Flames.
Someone wrote and said, 'They are your mirror. Learn from it.' and 'get rid of suffering in your consciousness--just check it off as a lesson learned and go from there'.
Today was a good day. A very good day at that. Spirit is working me, all of it for the better.
Tomorrow is another day.
Namaste,
Reiki Doc
