Sat in the waiting room. Waiting. Looking around. Listening to the conversations. Feeling. Tuning to.
Tuning to frequency of people who suffer pain.
Feeling how patients and their relatives was worried, understanding them.
Listening to people who has undergone experiences as falls, broken bones, mini-strokes, or details of their pains.
Looking around and realizing how pain is reflected in faces of people there. I could see the most vulnerable side of the human beings, this one that equates rich and poor people, literates and illiterates.
Waiting. Waiting for what? Waiting for the x-ray images be made; for the temperature be checked; for pain to go away; for bleeding to stop; for a final diagnosis; for a miracle.
It is said that we must not ask ourself why we suffer illnesses; otherwise what the illness is for, or what is the lesson this illness try to teach me; what I must learn from it. Have you ever think in this way?
Other people say that a disease manifests some conflict. If that we think, feel and do, is not aligned, if they are not congruent, then our bodies send us a message because it is the body that we pay attention to.
Both way of thinking are not contrary to the scientific point of view, nonetheless probably they force us to take the reins of our life and perhaps we are not interested in it because it implies we must change something.
In this context also it is said that good patients are those that allow others to take care of them, on the contrary there are patients who get angry and do not accept the limitations of an illness. What kind of patients do you belong to?
Have you ever had a experience in a waiting room in a hospital that make you think thoroughly about these topics?
Actually the issue of the post for today would have been typical meals during Easter Week, however it become less important for me because all this thoughts were boiling in my head.
This page is also available in:
Espa?ol
Illness, pain, suffer, death always confront us with our limitations and there is no escape. Face the “cruel” reality is the only way and, of course, it forces reflections for it touches us, shake us.
It might be true illness is the result of a lack of congruence in our lives, I do not know.
However, I feel it is consubstantial with life itself: no way to withdraw from it.
No matter how hard we try to avoid to think about it, no matter how many messages we receive about an “extending” youth, a better and longer life. Sooner or later, natural corporal limitations will catch us.
Then, for me, it is always a way to make me stop and reflect, maybe not immediately if I am too overwhelmed or disheartened, but later I will do.
You are right. I agree with you.
Anguish, hope; fear, quietness. Opposed feelings we may have in the waiting room of a hospital or even in one of its wards. The beginning and the end. Illness and healing, anguish and hope. I can recall both sides of life in a hospital, as a patient and as an impatient relative or friend. And I think I’ll have to return to them as something unavoidable.
Well, the last time I was there (only last weekend), things were for the good, as usual. Good.
I hope all of the readers’ hospital stories will have a happy ending.
Only having all kind of experience can we become a more compasive person. I welcome all these situations and share with readers of this blog my thoughts. Thank you, Andres