Angela walked into the lobby of the confederation hotel today with an absolutely glowing smile. The man at reception told her he was giving her a "very good room." When she asked, "how good?" he said that he would give the room "an eight out of ten." She replied, with a thumbs up and a wink, "I'll give it a ten!"
Having left room number 361 of Kingston General Hospital neurosurgery ward, room number 314 of Confederation Hotel is nothing less than perfect. I cannot describe what a happy afternoon we had. So quiet!
Angela's symptoms are stable. Her pain and weakness are no more or less than yesterday. She is now developing nausea but she "thinks nothing of it." She is awake with a voracious appetite at night, and has welcomed even rice crispies in the morning, but she is happy she can enjoy even cereal.
It is definitely not lost on us what has made this simple hotel room so miraculous. It was less than two weeks ago when we were told by her family doctor that we needed to get to Kingston emergency department urgently. A neurosurgeon in Toronto had viewed Angela's MRI and said that surgery needed to be done within 24 to 48 hours. We packed next to nothing. What a long and terrible drive. It was a different type of quiet. We vowed to each other to be strong. Such a violent and recent shock, it has been hard to accommodate since, even to the many positive "results" that have come up. At that moment, as much as we hoped, we did not dare expect that we would be out of the hospital so soon. Truly the arrival to the hotel, and these hours after, are a triumph.
The afternoon ended with Angela's return to the hospital for her fourth radiation treatment. After the treatment she suffered a brief but very painful spasm in her esophagus. This, however, did not spoil our "celebration." We insist! We enjoyed take out pizza tonight with my father who just arrived. Afterward we watched some tv. Then we wept a little bit. All part of unwinding. Thinking of our drive into the city not two weeks ago, I am very grateful our journey is already longer than we feared. Three steps forward, two steps back is progress! I'll keep you posted.
"Three steps forward, two steps back is progress!" Ab esse ad posse valet, a posse ad esse non valet consequentia.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHUzj0q0b0Y
Merci Colin.
ReplyDeleteOut of concentration camp is good news. More good news to come.
Love and hugs,
Sanda & Carlo
Draga Angela, urmarim cu sufletul la gura fiecare update al lui Colin. Sintem alaturi de tine. Esti prezenta in gandurile noastre in fiecare zi, cu zambetul tau larg si atat de cald. Iti dorim multa putere!
ReplyDeleteCu mult drag,
Dana si Sergiu
Dear Colin, thank you so much for this effort of updating us through these notes. They mean a lot for all of us who are far away but close to you in thought and spirit.
Check the website teach12.com for some ideas. Also, Kabat Zinn's mindfulness program apparently does some good in helping people cope with symptoms caused by cancer treatments. In case you would like to consider some alternative treatments (while continuing with radio and chemo) I dare to suggest some chi kung exercises - you could contact Ms. Jean Lie at qimac@rogers.com for some advice.
Be well!
Dana
Mes chers Angela & Colin,
ReplyDeleteI am heartened to hear that you have found refuge from the inhumanity of the hospital institution. There are indeed small pleasures that make the difficult time endurable - but it takes willingness and work to find them and hold on. You have done that! My prayers go out to the universe regularly for your health and strength. I will add a "thank you" for the gifts you have received - the happiness from delivery pizza (no small thing believe me, I know...), among them. Rocky, Joëlle, Cristian & I look forward to visiting you when you are both up for it.
Dear Angela and Colin,
ReplyDeleteHeidi told me the news this week and sent me the blog address. I wish I were not so far away in Calgary, so I could give you a hug. It's good to know that you have been able to retreat to the pleasant hotel room after so many shocks. My thoughts are with you both and I will send some healing energy towards Kingston in my yoga class this afternoon.
with affection,
Pamela M
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe collective face of the hospital is not designed to be a humane face. Noble intentionalities have always failed to contribute to the effectiveness of the care institution. The hospital worker is first and foremost an employee. Hshe has to foremostly obey rules and regulations created to make the institution render maximum utility for the lowest cost. Like in any bureaucratic hierarchy the command chain is perfected to such a degree that the reaction time is minimized in order to provide maximum efficiency. The time for reflection and deliberation as to consider the variants and variables from case to case has been eliminated and replaced with demonstrable experience. Part of this demonstrable experience is achievable through acting. Nobody is expected to perform perfectly because it would be inefficient. Instead, the medical practitioner and clerk have to be professional and be acting as such.
ReplyDeleteWitnessing repeated trauma desensitizes the observer and as such it is advisable for the medical practitioner to act by way of applied tautology techniques: categorizing and adopting dismissive attitudes. Categorizing allows for automatic response and inevitably for the positive alienation of the medical practitioner and clerk. The increased adoption of dismissive attitudes allows for the hardening or desirable desensitizing of the medical practitioner by recognizing the cases that do not suit the required and/or established routines for suitably efficient response. Any major variance from the scripted or established routines is regarded as a disruptive anomaly. Hence the highly objectifieble patient that presents the challenge of anomaly has to be reclassified as a different or special case and be handled by another team, which hopefully is as efficient as the one that couldn’t handle the initial task.
Both categorizing and adopting dismissive attitudes lead to acquiring the highly rewarded emotional detachment of the medical practitioner. Mimicking emotional detachment effectively also is highly appreciated within the permutational assemblies of team work. The team has to be or at least appear as emotionally solid and cohesive, and act as if being utmost effective and professional in order to build confidence in the enduring efficacy of the team. A successful team also has to actively lower the level of the potential risk of each individual of the team to be held personally responsible for the failure of a procedure which is performed by the team as an ensemble of multi-tasking performers. Shit only happens usually because the health practitioner is often multitasking as to enhance the overall economic performance of the hospital’s employees. The final product of the hospital is the successful avoidance of complaints and lawsuits. The successful eviction of the patient from the legal boundaries of the hospital is only a by-product, which usually is not always appreciated by the society as a whole.
While lawsuits could be handled by way of insurance coverage with outcome dealing with financial aspects of injury, media is less controllable and as such it is highly desirable to have a legal department on staff, not necessarily with the overt task of encountering media-propagated threats or for proactively appeasing potential legal consequences of major fuckups, but rather to reassure insurance companies that the administration of the hospital is alert and responsive from any possible perspective.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, the real and unavoidable challenges are the daily complaints. The neediness of the patient in pain is and should be considered as naturally exaggerated. Patients in pain act like infants because they think that they are in the most suitable place to do so. Some of the patients even believe that they are expected to do so as to convey levels of emergency and special needs of care. Far for being the case, the health practitioner in the hospital has to avoid acknowledging the merit of that sort of behaviour and avoid acting in a motherly soothing manner. Instead, and only when ignoring puerile behaviour seems to be ineffective, veiled sarcasm and other forms of corrective humour could and should be applied as per the consideration that the patient who laughs or get perplexed usually doesn’t continue whining.
Also, ample results from several studies conducted in other hierarchical or corrective institutions support the conclusion that firmness of voice combined with a slightly threatening tone usually discourages infantile behaviour. In fact several other cohorts of studies have shown that fear has a surprising calming effect on patients who otherwise like to complain without realizing how demeaning it actually is for them. Hence it is the duty of the medical practitioner and particularly of the nurse, as hshe is a central figure in the hospital’s complex hierarchic culture, to act as a step-mother who would still fulfill her duties by avoiding superfluous and uncalled for acts of kindness, delivering the ultimate result: strictly needed and effective care for people who, in the great majority of cases, are the victims of their own behaviour or have been inflicted injury upon because they choose to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“The Christian's Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same, but the medical practice changes.”
But does it get worse or better, Mr.Twain?