Healing From Loss

This year Imbolc came to me. Imbolc is the symbolic end of winter. We acknowledge it with candles to light the darkness of the night.

It is also known as St Brigid's Day, and Groundhog Day, February 2.

Here is how Spirit worked with me to produce a deep healing, and increase in awareness, of something I had hidden in my heart.

I have a skill set in anesthesia that is unique. As a cardiac fellowship-trained anesthesiologist, I have the skills to help someone who is one their way to death, come back. This is more than inserting a breathing tube in someone who can't breathe and would die. That is bread and butter anesthesia skill. It is the Cardiac Anesthesiologist who is called to help when a colleague has someone trying to die in the O.R. and they want help with the Code Blue.

Yesterday I saw more blood, gore, and death than I care to admit. All I can say is that during the code I was helping in, I saw Our Lady in the corner of the room. She said that she would come back for this person later, but that this patient would survive the code long enough to make it out of the O.R. There is a big difference between a death in the O.R. and death in ICU, by the people who count those things.  And as the pupils grew fixed and dilated, and the v-fib grew coarse, I was inspired to suggest an amp on Sodium Bicarb. It worked! And patient went to ICU. I checked this morning on the computer. Our Lady was correct.

After my twenty-four hour in-house call at the hospital,  it was my turn to see Nana in the nursing home. She said, 'I am hungry' and there was a tray and a chair next to her. I tried to feed her, but it was not at all like feeding my baby seven years ago.  I couldn't navigate the teeth in the barely opened mouth. I managed juice. Everything is thickened, because she can't swallow right. Then the nurses and nurses aides' came. I asked for instruction on how to help her eat. I watched. I learned. I helped.

Nana asked for the wheelchair. I took her around the entire building. She delighted in the beautiful orchid displays by the front.

There was once a time when taking care of the sick was done in the home, and the dead were washed and dressed by women. I felt the Goddess, in all of the suffering that was being treated by the workers, both men and women, but mostly women, at the nursing home.

When I heard the husband of Nana's roommate, who is incommunicative, praying in Samoan, and saw him bow his head and hold her hand, I saw the fruit of a lifetime lived in Love.

In the meantime, I was texting and calling my sister to help decide placement for mother when she leaves the hospital. It is our request to have them be at the same facility, as there is a rehab section that would be nice for mom.

All of this didn't phase me. I just keep going and going. But when my sister said that Target had a clearance sale on the tall seven day Votive candles I had just run out of, I decided to go. I bought every one they had left. There were fifteen in all. A deal at eighty-three cents each. They had the scent in them, and go for over two dollars at the grocery store.

Sicilian Orange. A label on another candle, a soy one, caught my eye and also stabbed my heart. Nana is from Sicily. Her house had just been sold to pay for her long-term care. Lilac & Honeysuckle. Dad. His favorite scents. For years we tried to get a lilac tree to grow in Southern California. It never worked. Our winters were not cold enough. Instead we grew honeysuckle on both fences that surrounded the back yard. The fragrance of honeysuckle in June is one of my favorite memories from childhood. I would pinch the bottom of the blossom, pull back the stamen, and catch a drop of nectar on the tip. I enjoyed many of these. Gardenia  Lily . Fresh gardenias were always in a bowl in my home I grew up in. Memories flooded my mind of my life with my parents. Beach Paradise. The beach is a huge part of where I grew up. It is always within me. Wildflower Meadow. That is my safe place I go to in my mind, when I was seven and walking on fallen logs with a friend at Sequoia. Life was so exciting and beautiful and fresh then. Bali Sunrise. This one I have yet to understand, but was guided to buy it.  Sweet Spun Sugar. I bought a big one, pink, for Erzulie. We go back, and she has always looked out for me. She keeps me always at my best, and I appreciate that a great deal.

I hadn't realized how important it is to accept death, and loss, and suffering, with something to focus  upon; in my case, it is a series of candles I will enjoy in my home over the next weeks.  I can smile because it happened, and look forward because I took the time to acknowledge where I had been in life.

Keep your eyes open for similar help from Spirit on Healing from Loss in your life too.  Happy Imbolc. And Blessed Be.

Namaste,

Reiki Doc

Reiki and Grandmother's New Hospice

I had an assignment today. From Spirit. Mother had asked me to take her to see Grandmother in her new hospice. She has Alzheimers, and needed a higher level of care. When she was admitted three weeks ago, I was heading to Hawaii. Grandmother could not speak, could not eat, and was wasted away to a skeleton. She had been in the care of family, but had gotten harder to keep from wandering in the middle of night. Mom wanted to know if the place was taking good care of Grandmother, or if perhaps they should move her nearby. But Spirit? Spirit wanted me to open a Vortex over the site.

Okay, I said to myself, letting hopes of gardening or taking a ballet class while the kids were at their dad's evaporate. Let's get on with it!

The drive is many hours away. It was a beautiful drive, and time to spend with mother. We arrived around one in the afternoon. It was a beautiful place, high on a hill, with 360 degrees of breathtaking views. It was new, and clean. I felt love the minute I walked in to the place.

We found Grandmother in a wheelchair being pushed by the LVN. She had gained weight, I would say, fifteen pounds. She smiled in recognition of our smiling faces, not making the connection exactly, but talking in Italian a mile a minute.

She was afraid people would take her lunch, so we brought her back to her tray. I gave her ensure, and a bite of mashed potato. She ate her salad with a fork, by herself. And drank a whole glass of cranberry juice when I placed it in her hand.  Mother was tired, and had to rest, so she asked me to take Grandmother on a short walk in her wheelchair. 

We met Judith, a plus-size woman. Grandmother smiled and said in Italian, 'If I remembered my name, I would tell it to you' to Judith. I translated and introduced her by name. Judith said they had met, and mentioned that Grandmother had been talking about owing people money. I understood at once, and explained it was a delicate situation in the family, but for her not to worry. Grandmother said, 'pray! pray for me! and I will pray for you!' in English. Judith smiled and agreed to pray for her back.

We rolled by the woman with the most severe case of lower extremity lymphedema I had seen, slumped in a chair next to the beautiful fish tank that had 'gone bad' and had no fish in it but was still pleasant somehow. I rolled her by the aviary, and delighted to hear a white dove cooing. It didn't appeal to Grandmother much. I showed her a rose through a window, for it was windy outside, with a chill. 

'Bella, eh?' Grandmother said, smiling at the beautiful red roses through the window.

We met Robert and Ed, by the recreation area. They invited Grandmother to play bingo, and asked if she knew how to play. 'There is lots of bingo here. And keno too. You play to win 'fun money' and buy stuff at the 'store' they have here for the residents'. Grandmother smiled and in Italian, invited them over to her house so she could cook them some pasta. 'Mangia! mangia!' Robert said with a smile. Grandmother was pleased. We also met Beth, with a facial tardive dyskinesia of the mouth and tongue, that had a beautiful voice and 'had been there a long time'. I asked her to kindly look after Grandmother. I made her a cup of coffee, with sugar and cream, and rolled her back gently to the room where mother sat.

Sadly, the coffee was too hot, and the little sip Grandmother took scalded her tongue. I got her ice water and profusely apologized both to mother and to her. By this time, Grandmother could not handle the seat belt on her wheelchair any more. 'It's heavy! I don't like this! It hurts!' she said in Italian, over and over. 'Unsnap it' she ordered. So I did. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP! went the alarm. I put it back. 

During this time, Mother started talking with Sarah, the nurse, who had taken roommate Pearl out of the bed, and into a wheelchair. Pearl had been asking all visit, 'Nurse! Nurse! I want to get up!'. Not more than five minutes later, "Nurse! Nurse! Is it time to go back in bed? I want to go back!. Sarah was handling mother and Grandmother AND Pearl with ease.

I had been making the Vortex, silently, as I pushed Grandmother around the facility. It 'took'. I saw Archangel Michael give the sign that it was 'good' and he communicated to me how important it was. I saw a lot of souls that had died there going 'up'.

While Mother was complaining in general to Sarah, and Pearl was asking how much longer she had to sit in her chair, and Mother was upset to have Pearl be so annoying (while Grandmother had no clue!), I saw a giant angel to the left of Pearl's chair. They are with them. All of them here have their Guardian Angels.

Long story short:

• The place was excellent
• The aviary had been donated by an organization that in known to affect ley lines
• I discovered 'this is the place where people go when what we do in the Hospital does not work'
• Reiki is of value--Reiki Opportunity!--in Hospice and Convalescent homes, Skilled nursing facilities, and Assisted Living. The aged are in great need of it.
• Loved ones in rest homes are never alone. Literally. I saw an angel by Pearl's side.
• Spending time with Grandmother was fun, and worth the day trip to the desert
• A by-product of medical training is being really comfortable in an environment like that

Take care and know, no matter where you are, Reiki is with you! And it really helps!

Namaste,

Reiki Doc