Specialist

Medical specialists are not always within a twenty kilometre driving distance, I've learned here in the Central Interior.

The one I was to see practiced in Kamloops, a three-hour trip to the South.  We left early on Sunday morning, intending to spend the night in a Motel for my appointment on Monday.

Again, I practiced taking photos out of the car window. Sunday morning was particularly cold...the temperatures were hovering near the -30C mark, when we left home. Quite often, steam from the exhausts of trucks and cars made visibility difficult, especially with blowing Snow as well.

I have learned, however, to take the weather in stride.

I don't like seeing doctors, let alone specialists.  I can't express myself, especially in the three second time span most specialists give one to answer a question.  

I prepared myself this time, having written out a list of medications and symptoms...precisely so I could discuss these with the Doctor. 

But she wasn't interested in what I had written...she wanted me to answer her questions.  Off the top.

Oh, oh.

The questioning began. I had only moments to reply. After three or four of those, had she asked me my name, I would have had difficulty answering correctly.

And then, there were the exercises, which were demonstrated with great speed by the Doctor. I was to follow along.  It was laughable.  She went so quickly I was still on the second one when she was finished. And I couldn't remember the rest of the movements.

Suffice it to say, after all was said and done, I came out of the appointment, with a sheaf of tests which required doing. And I hope those tests pinpoint the problem I was in for, since I know a diagnosis could not be made on the strength of any conversation I had with her.


Each appointment with this Doctor runs 45 minutes...no more,no less.  You would think, during this time span, I would be able to demonstrate or enunciate my difficulties with Arthritis.


But no.


My brain freezes up, when I try to explain.  There is nothing there...there are no words which will come out of my mouth. The worst moments are when I go blank and then start to giggle, which sometimes...morphs into deep guffaws! Oh dear!


Some Doctors have become offended, thinking my laughter was directed at them.  It never is; it is only my reaction to being blank-brained.


My favourite kind of medical specialist is the one who, on my arrival, will have the receptionist give me a list of questions to complete. This gives me time to remember my history, check my notes, and sometimes think deeply about some of the answers.

I will be fifty-eight soon, in February.  There is a lifetime of maladies to report, not all of them within easy reach of my middle-aged memory.

So here I am, today, answering all of her questions, in my head.  I am completely understandable, very verbal, with no signs of the nervousness which overtakes me...in my head.


I remember some of the answers I gave, some which were not completely right, when I spoke to the Doctor. And I wish I could answer those questions again, with more lucidity. But it is what it is.


And no amount of self-abuse will change it.


The weekend away was wonderful, even with evil appointments with specialists...well worth it. My perspective changes a little,for the better, when I visit a City I am not familiar with. Struggling with addresses and places unknown humbles me; but finally finding a place is cause for celebration, each time.


And going away...well, it makes coming home that much better!

Loving Myself

If I don't love myself, if I don't experience loving myself unconditionally, then I will not know how to love others. I can't give what I don't have.

After reading Talking To Nightlights post this morning, and taking the subsequent link to Anita's NDE interview, this is what struck me the most. It is an amazing story; you will do yourself a service if you read it.

It is so simple, really. I can't give what I don't have.

I have heard this before, but never with the clarity with which I absorbed it this morning. I can be caring and loving...all the right things...but unless I love myself, the whole of myself...body, mind and Spirit, accepting each and every thing about myself, past and present...unless I experience it towards myself, how can I know what love is?

Having recently moved to a different part of the Province, there are myriad appointments that must be made...with a new Doctor, Dentist, Lawyer, Banker, Massage Therapist...the list goes on. And each of these appointments spawns a whole series of new ones...hospitals, drugstores, and specialists. Then there are all the new services...we have a well and septic system, which requires care; we want to build, which requires new contractors.

And each time I must explain myself and what I require. This is not an easy endeavour for me, at times...it depends upon how I feel about myself, at that particular moment. If I am not feeling loving towards myself, I will project that lovelessness to others, who will feel that negative energy. The whole project, whatever it is, can go sour from that first instant.

I notice, however, if the opposite occurs, if I am feeling good and loving towards myself, I project that same energy to others. Each time, what I give out comes back to me.

Loving myself can change circumstances. It gives self-power. It changes realities.

With arthritis, a disease which can continue to worsen over time, I have accepted the fact it is a part of me...a part of my body, which struggles at times with pain. And I told my doctor ( medical personnel continually want to try a drug or another, to alleviate swelling, etc.) it was not so bad, really...I have grown accustomed to it.

I spoke softly, but with strength, when I gave my new doctor the news that I would continue to monitor pain, use massage therapies and other alternative methods...but I would not try out any more new drugs.

I can still feel the hives from the last experiment.

Had I not read Anita's story, I would have felt apologetic about my body's lack of tolerance...I would have felt sorry for even having arthritis.

Instead, I felt proud and loving of the way my Body, Mind and Spirit had dealt with it. And my new doctor and I have a relationship where we are equal partners.

Once upon a time, I felt loving myself was selfish. And I continued to bash myself, to unequivocally take the blame...for pretty much anything. Even as I write these words, I feel the negativity trying to take hold.

You see, if my belief is that all Beings are One, and if I don't love myself...then I cannot love others, either.

It all goes back to wanting to be able to give what I know I have.

Digging Up the Back Forty

Every once in awhile, the only way I can deal with anxiety is to dig. When I comment that I am going outside to "dig the back forty" people who know me are aware that I am hugely overwhelmed.

I can't dig as well or as long as I used to. Aches and pains get in the way. Besides which, the back lawn, which now takes the place of the "back forty", is covered in six inches of snow at the moment, or it is raining outside or there is a wind chill of many minus degrees. So I pace.

I have worn a path in the floor in the living room from trying to expend excess negative energy that stems from trying to make nurses, careworkers and government officials see united sense about my mother's care.

During these many bouts of pacing, I find once I've found a solution, I can put that particular problem to rest. But during the last while, once one dilemma is solved, another crops up...and then, sometimes there are so many complications, I don't know which one to choose to unravel.

I attempt to still my mind, to find my centre. To take each convoluted thought and painstakingly smooth out its path...

My mother's care is the biggest conundrum. There are so many people involved in her care, each one having a different view of the reality involved.

She can't walk.

She doesn't know how to use her powered wheelchair, with an oxygen tube attached to her nostrils.

She can't stand for long enough to transfer herself from chair to chair.

She is confused, falling further and further into senile dementia.

Any activity of any kind tires her to where she has trouble speaking. She has one infection after another. And yet, she has managed to convince others who have power that she knows of what she speaks...leaving no prisoners in her quest to go home.

So the family begins a kind of dance.

The prognosis by her doctor for my mom to live at home, largely by herself, is not good. Each person, her daughters included, after having spoken with Mom, comes out of her room feeling differently than the other...

All this makes for much discussion amongst the professionals and Mom's family. I think about many different viewpoints, as I pace.

And what is my hope for Mom? I see her, through my admittedly only 55 year old rose- coloured glasses, being cared for, in a room with the morning sun streaming in. I see her sitting in her favourite recliner, in a room where there are many aids to health and help within easy reach. I see her living her remaining time in reflection, without the incessant fear that has plagued her all her life. I see her sitting in her chair, watching the gardens flower...the gardens that surround a care home.

My viewpoint is admittedly selfish. I no longer want to receive telephone calls from my Mom, where she begs me to find help for her. I no longer want to feel so helpless, from those breathless calls. I no longer want my body to tense each time the telephone rings, especially if it is at night. I live at least 3/4 of an hour away from my Mom.

I have no experience with picking up a body that becomes limp and unresponsive. Even if my body allowed me to. When she falls, I have the most horrendously helpless feeling...this is my Mother that is lying at my feet. So I will push my body to its limits, trying to help her up. This has happened to me a couple of times...it has occurred many different times, with others. But Mom expects the help, and always manages to convince the helper to do it.

And Mom expects to go home. She has the right to live at risk, I tell myself. I would leave her be, to do as she likes, if she could only do it. Mom's spirit is willing; her body is failing. And she is afraid of recognizing it, of accepting it, as so many of us are, when we reach the last mile or so on the path of life.

Mom recognizes too, that her memory is failing, that one day is blending into the next. She counts, does my mother. She counts the days on her calendar; she counts the hours on the clock. She asks which day it is, over and over. She struggles to grasp and remember the day and sometimes, she's successful. But, increasingly, she's not.

But she has not forgotten that she wants to go home...she just does not remember the horrible times she had just so very recently, when she was home. And since this memory is not allowed to surface, she chooses, instead, to remember a time when she was able.

This is the memory that urges her to go home.

But the other memory...that is the one that makes me pace.

Weather Sensitive

Sometimes, more and more often lately with the aberrant weather patterns in Qualicum Beach...I wake up with my body aching. I feel swollen, skin hot to the touch, stiff and sore.

This malady has everything to do with what's happening with the weather. For as long as I can remember, I've known the weather is changing by the way my body is reacting.

Many times lately, I will get up out of the warm, soft, absolutely comfortable bed, and try to lessen pain by walking around. But it feels, when I walk, as if I am slogging through an oozing bog. It feels as if there is resistance to movement.

Sometimes, I feel as if I might be on the receiving end of a migraine attack. If Wind is howling, as it has so often lately, asthma and wheezing occur. This is when my chest feels tight, I have trouble finding enough air to breathe...I almost feel as if I were under water. With small, shallow breaths, anxiety occurs...a kind of free- floating form that has no basis in fact. My tissues swell, sometimes. There is a definite feeling of being under a heavy substance, one that is pressing hard on my diaphragm.

Biometeorology is the study of how weather influences people. It is the name given to an ancient science that has become new again, with advanced technology that can evaluate air mass configurations. It is becoming a popular field. But there are naysayers...it will always be thus, of course.

I know many people who know of someone who is weather-sensitive. There are many stories of an elder Uncle or Aunt who could predict weather changes with such accuracy that outdoor events were scheduled according to the pain in her hip. Many stories abound about our forefathers utilizing weather indicators, including intuitive body signs. Still, these are just myths and legends, scientists say...much more data needs to be collected before they will endorse the correlation between weather and man.

However, in Europe, the weather services there use daily public advisories to inform people of more than 40 ailments believed affected by climate activity. Illnesses warned against include allergies, stroke, psychoses, general achiness and malaise, migraines, along with the obvious...heat and cold related illnesses. Much the same information appears on the weather channel I use on the Internet, but it takes a back seat to other information.

My allergies get worse during sudden cold outbreaks, when there are below normal temp- eratures, strong, gusty winds and a rapid rise in air pressure. I have learned to read a barometer very well in preparation for pain.

I find that quickly approaching weather fronts and rapidly departing ones, contribute to a migraine attack. And strokes...French researchers have found there were fewer strokes suffered in warmer months and more strokes where there was a temperature drop five days before. The theory is temperature drops may affect blood clotting, thereby increasing stoke risk. Sudden, extreme winter cold can result in hyperventilation, stroke and heart attack, by making blood 20% thicker than normal.

Chinese Emperor Hwang Ti, in 2650 BC, believed that "hot weather strengthens the heart, while cold weather weakens the lungs." Hippocrates advised his students "Doctors who want to know their patients had better know weather." Dr. Benjamin Rush, an 18th Century Penn- sylvanian physician, stated "Great and sudden (weather) changes may be considered the principle causes of disease in this state".

And Dr. Joseph Hollander, in the 1960's, as an Arthritis specialist, built a two room, airtight chamber, where his patients underwent various degrees of pain, while he adjusted humidity, temperature and barometric pressure. I wonder if Dr. Hollander himself was weather- sensitive. I can't imagine the extreme pain and terrible discomfort his patients felt.

Weather is one of the most basic of daily stresses the human body experiences. Frequent climactic changes bring new situations our bodies must adjust to. Changes in the barometric pressure, Wind direction and velocity, humidity and pollutants all affect our bodies, endocrine systems, nervous systems and cardiovascular systems. It seems to me that how well I feel at different times is directly related to what's happening in the atmosphere.

Both our dogs can forecast the weather. The signs of an incoming Storm will find them both pointing their nose skyward, with definite fearful body signals, such as lowered heads and ears, and tails tucked between their legs. This behavior is noticed long before the Storm actually arrives. Other animals such as Corn Snake or Iguana, if confused by weather signals, will double-clutch, where they will breed twice in a year instead of the normal once.

I don't require corroboration by the scientific community to know what my body endures when the weather patterns change. There are scores of people who, upon entering their middle years, find that what were minor twinges all along, are now not so mild in reaction to weather changes. The human body is a finely tuned instrument...it has much to tell us, if we will only remember and listen. And accept our intuition as truth.

Shamans of old long ago forecast the weather with nothing more than the signals Mother Earth sends, and nothing more than their own bodies as sensors. They were extremely accurate, by all accounts.

There is so much information inside of ourselves, just waiting to be reborn...re-membered. I am learning to find those senses we are all born with, and I am learning to trust those remarkably amazing signals my intuition sends me.

Science and research on weather sensitive people is just telling me what I, and others, have known all along. The scientific community feels it must prove the body is affected by weather patterns, by exhaustive research and collecting of data. It changes nothing; other than making sure I have a healthy diet, use exercise and reduce further stress inducing factors, I will still react to the weather...

And there is not much I can do about aberrant weather.