Getting off the pain train

Leaving the resort of pain

For weeks I had sacrificed my peace at the altar of pain, bringing offerings of agony and lamentations of the unbearable as I worshipped as a subject of things going wrong and circumstances becoming dire.

Along with this comes moments when you begin to lose faith in those around you because their problems, small as they might seem to me are too great for them to see beyond their hills to the valley of distress in which I have wallowed.

Looking for my bedpan friends

You can measure someone’s stress at work with my condition and then say the stress is insignificant; neither can one place the responsibility of visitation on others where they most definitely have their own schedules.

However, in the midst of all that, people have been understanding, selfless, considerate and concerned, one cannot descend in cascade to the depression of the hurt much as all humanly possible criteria are there to justify that feeling.

In the end, in circumstances like this you have friends but the bedpan friends are very few and sometimes very far, one can vindictively prepare for vengeance or love them all the same, I have been loved, that is why I survive, I survive because I have been spared, I am spared because I should rise to a greater calling in my life and make radical change.

Ascend and decline in thought

A hospital bed with its automatic buttons for elevation and decline, allowing for the freedom of mind but the physical restriction of the body tethered to both infirmity and intravenous infusions, a time to reflect and better not on yourself but on others and the gratitude for all that has happened to this point.

I was sorely irritated with the person I shared my ward with, obstinate he was, recalcitrant not by half, stubborn beyond belief and definitely in pain, he had lost his lower leg. He was being considered a nuisance by the nurses and he called all hours, I wonder what jumped on my vocal cords to stop me blurting out a coarse expletive, but I was restrained.

There was a need for him to sit in an adapted wheelchair for up to an hour but that caused such discomfort that he was begging to be put back in bed after 5 minutes but this went on for as long as it was required for him to satisfy that requirement. Naturally, the Dutch would find ways to circumvent the rules but put them against sticklers or enforcers of the rules and the rules win.

Entitlements come with health

Yes, I was cross with him and then he told me he was 81 and suddenly I found a deep respect for him to tolerate his situation but still it is important not to get involved.

It left me to wonder if I could survive wars and whether there were situations where the quality of my character might be diminished for the reason of circumstances in which I find myself. Pause, think and meditate.

At 81, I would have thought one had entitlements but it appears entitlements come with when you are hale and hearty, anything short and your entitlements are subject to other opinions of your circumstances – something to have in mind even if you have many to call on to support you in times of need.

Looking beyond this to times when this would be distant stories with lessons learnt, I thought I took communion this morning but I had the bread and not the wine – an abridged communion despite the concern of spreading germs in a hospital is hardly the whole treatment, I was left wondering what else was a cut down version of what was traditionally quite different.

On the up

Replacing feelings with faith one begins to see how things must change for the better and they would because circumstance that doesn’t kill strengthen you but where was it written that we should be overwhelmed, man has the innate will to overcome, my 81-year-old ward mate is not giving up after what many might called a full life, I have no right by reason of many things including my faith to not see ahead of me the reality of all this being part of my past.