Tag Archives: Beloved

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trauma bunnies

We can work it out, the song says. But no, maybe not, not always.

Trauma bunnies together. Walking. Why would you walk with me, I am so down? Oh, you are a trauma bunny too. Walking on the beach, slowing down, looking at rocks. The walks get longer and longer. You bring FOOD and tell me I have food insecurity. I laugh. But it is true.

Comparing notes about childhood. You say yours was worse. Yours was terrifying. You ran away over and over and over, but came home. Small children need food and shelter. You get older. A neighbor says if you run away now, you will never stop running. You do not run away permanently. But you still run.

My childhood has no bruises to the skin. But the bruises to the heart are a nightmare. You finally say that I win, my childhood was worse. But I was not trying to win, I want to say. I was just telling you as you’ve told me.

We have both survived damage and coped. I have the resource of a grandmother with money who paid for medical school. I apply without telling my parents, after my mother says, “You don’t want to be a doctor. It’s too much work.” I am a poet, a writer, being a doctor so I can study people and have children and be certain there is food. Job security. And food security, true. With a husband or without.

You fight school all the way, but when you are told that you will be a failure or in jail, you decide that you will prove them wrong. You are still proving it. You won’t tell how you make your money, not to the locals, but the new car every two years tells them you have money. And it’s the wrong kind of car: a liberal car for a professed conservative. It stands out.

We start playing trauma bunnies after six months. You want me to come to dinner and I turn New Yorker and direct: is this a date? You are surprised. I set the boundaries and you think about it. And say yes.

But trauma bunnies is not as much fun as the beach. We get close and intimate and then you run. When you run, I run too: the other way. I don’t chase you. You haven’t experienced that before. You keep coming back. Why aren’t I chasing you? Because I too am a trauma bunny, remember?

Back and forth: close and far, together and apart. All holidays become times when you run, so that I will not be part of the family. I announce that I am now your mistress and you can’t be with my family either. Back and forth. Closer and then you refuse to come to my son’s wedding. Far again.

You say the summer will be very busy. You say your focus is music. You say we can go to one beach. One beach? For the whole summer? I run to europe and you are surprised. I ask, are you too busy to have me around? No, you say. But when I return, you have a friend staying with you. Intimacy disappears.

I am tired of it. My daughter is here.

At last I bring up sex: are we done with that?

No, you say. We have visitors.

Wouldn’t stop me, I say.

You say, sex is still on the table. Then you hem and haw. You say sex is not important, you can take or leave it. The friendship is more important. Well, the friendship is most important, but sex IS important to me and hello, it’s damn insulting of you to say you can take or leave it. Leave. This is all triggered by your yearly family get together. You need me at a distance so you won’t be tempted to invite me. You don’t want me there so I am distanced again.

And I am done, done, done. I dream of a small child, a wild woman, a woman doctor and someone new: a quiet woman. I think about the quiet woman and I ask the other three. Yes, they say.

The quiet woman is the adult. Not the mask of the professional, not the wild defense fighter, not the small child. The small child has healed. She is the connection to the Beloved, to the source of the poems. She blesses the others. The quiet woman takes over.

The quiet woman takes over. She says goodbye, farewell, Beloved keep you and bless you, you may contact me any time.

You are in your cave alone and do not answer.

You may end up there, alone, alone, alone. You want freedom most of all, you say. Another song: freedom is another word.

Yes it is. People can change and grow. But some want to and some don’t and sometimes we don’t grow at the same time.

Yes, says the quiet woman. Sometimes we don’t grow at the same time.

Fade to quiet.

______________________________

I took the photograph from a canoe at Lake Matinenda in Ontario, Canada.

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All of my patients are smart 2

I did a porch call a bit over a year ago. It’s like a house call except on a porch.

A friend/patient asks me to see a long time friend of his. The friend has multiple chemical sensitivities. We meet, the three of us, on his porch.

My friend has had me as a physician but he has not seen me at work with someone else.

I ask a lot of questions and then launch into an explanation of the immune system and how antibodies work.

My friend states, “He can’t understand that.’

I smile at his friend. “Oh yes he can. And you followed what I said, didn’t you?”

His friend grins back and said, “Yes, I did. Most of it. Or enough.”

All of my patients are smart. One day in clinic I think how blessed I am, that ALL of my patients are smart and fascinating people. Then I think, how could that be? And, how lucky am I?

And then I think: everyone is smart.

They are not all educated in the same way I am. They may not be well read. They may not have my science background or my geeky fiction and poetry and song brain. But they ALL are smart.

Some are brilliant at mechanical things. I have a patient who is an expert in restoring church organs and is working 3000 miles away in New York City. “They are driving me crazy.” he says. “You have to have the approval signed off on over 20 groups, historic preservation, the fire fighters, etc, etc, to remove one board from the church. The organ was covered over by bad repairs over the years. We’re trying to get it back. After this I will put in new organs, but this is my last restoration.”

Veterans, teachers, attorneys, physicians, retired computer engineers, car mechanics, marine engineers, parents, grandparents. They are all smart, men and women.

We finish the porch visit with some options and the friend of my friend says he will think about what I said and try some things.

A few days later my friend calls. “I couldn’t believe he was following your science talk, but he was. He got it. He remembers it and understood it.”

“Of course he did,” I say.

“I am actually impressed,” says my friend. “It was really interesting watching you do that.”

That may be one of my weird skills. To be able to listen to the person thoroughly and then respond in language that they understand and a bit more. An assumption, always, that they can follow a complex and intricate idea.

I do not know if they always follow what I say. But they always respond to the assumption that they are smart and that they can understand and that they are an equal. I am explaining from my expertise, but I know they can understand when I explain it correctly.

And I have not seen this in the physicians that I have seen. Out of 22 physicians since 2012, four were excellent and met me and explained as an equal.

The rest did not. They dismiss me. They talk down or avoid me once they realize that they do not understand why I keep getting pneumonia. They are afraid to say “I don’t know.” Four are not afraid and recognize that it’s something weird and say, “We do not understand this and we don’t know how to fix it.”

Four out of 22 have my respect. And that is a sad number. Medical training needs to change and physicians need time to listen and need to learn how to listen.

Meanwhile, all of my patients are smart. And I am so blessed.

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Dead letter

I get a letter for my mother on Saturday, asking for money.

I am answering the request. I write: Helen Ottaway died May 15, 2000. Take her off your mailing list.

I did not sign my name and I do not fill out a return address. Here is a picture of it, before the stamp. Habitat for Humanity, the next county south. They have not endeared themselves to me.

I get mail for the dead. My mother, my father, my sister. It is the colleges and universities that hang on. Princeton and Cornell have not found me, but my father’s preparatory school Williston, knows where I live. They send me reports. My father hated Williston. My sister went to the University of Washington and graduate school at the University of Oregon. I went to the University of Wisconsin and the Medical College of Virginia and residency at OHSU in Portland, Oregon, so I get mail from all of those. I like the science reports from the University of Wisconsin best. My son went to Washington State University, but has escaped their alumni association, who send me mail. My daughter went to Western Washington and has also escaped their clutches.

I get medical mail too. The American Academy of Family Practice Journal. I do not pay for JAMA but it comes anyhow. Various Family Practice journals and then drug company propaganda. Every so often I get a box of samples. Last time it was glucerna. I guess they have noticed I am older. One odd piece of medical mail is Guns and Ammo. The back story is that we ordered Woman’s Day when the clinic opened in 2010. Then we watched who they sold our information to. The scam is that a magazine will arrive for a year and then they will bill for the next year. We got Smithsonian for a while and that creepy right wing paper all about how we’ll all die soon. Smithsonian gave up on us and then it was RV World and Guns and Ammo. We quit putting magazines in the waiting room when Covid-19 hit. People had to bring their own and anyhow, we only had one person out there at a time.

I subscribe to my local weekly paper. I subscribe to one magazine. With all of the college and university stuff, I have a large pile to donate to the library monthly. Right now the AARP is sending two magazines to my house: one for me and one for my closed office.

And I still get weird junk mail from insurance companies saying “We have changed our rules again just like we did last month! Go on line and read the 47 new pages of rules for us and the other 499 health insurance money stealers!” Makes me gloomy about the wisdom of the US populace. When will we be smart enough to vote for medicare for all? How far will the medical system have to break down? People are dying and will die, including lots of medical personnel.

Vote for medicare for all, single payer, single set of rules. It’s not socialized medicine, the only socialized medicine in the US is the Veterans Benefits, and you aren’t going to vote to take them away, are you? Vote, vote, vote.

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For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: envelope.

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gently

I try to be so gentle with you
trauma drama boy

I know just what it’s like
though mine is not the same as yours

you run away, though
again and again

saying that you would never try
to hurt me ever

that is a shut down
really

since you disavow all intention of hurting
you do whatever you want

your attitude is that if I am hurt or sad
it’s my own fault

you take no responsibility for failures
as a friend

trauma drama boy, you run away
once more

and this time
I’ve had enough

This time
I let you go

Beloved bless you and keep you
for the days you have left

sending love
goodbye

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Elephant

My daughter got the elephant in the mail yesterday.

She called me, very happy with it. “It has a TAIL! It matches the pillowcase. I love the fishy fabric.”

The back story is that when she was a baby, her father’s mother made her a pillow. It had two pockets. In the pockets were four small stuffed toys. Her older brother has one too. The toys were not exactly the same. Hers had an elephant.

When she got sick earlier this year, I start sending her care packages. I send the pillow with three of the stuffed toys. However, I don’t find the elephant.

She loves it but asks, “Where’s the elephant?”

“I’m still looking.” The elephant is pink, with fabric ears that are different from the body. I find it! She is coming here for a month, so I don’t mail it. She is very pleased with the elephant.

It goes AWOL before she flies back to work. “Check the tent, mom.” She stayed in the tent in the back yard with two of her friends. I take the tent apart. No elephant. I check the sleeping bags. I sweep under her bed and search the house. As my daughter says, my house has a lot of hiding places and the cats like the elephant too. No elephant.

So for her birthday I make one. I remember how it looks and I make it while watching some continuing medical education. It’s easier to hand stitch than to get out the machine. I have to buy a large bag of stuffing, because the store downtown only has one size. Never mind, maybe I will make more elephants.

I made her a pillowcase last year, with the whale/mermaid fabric and the fish. So the elephant matches.

And she likes it! Hooray!

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My daughter says I can’t make clothes for her, but pillowcases and elephants are great! A breakthrough!

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: breakthrough.

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many colored

The tree colors this year have been amazing! I think it is because the rain started late. I hope all the trees survive. I watered mine and thanked them and said I hoped they would stay. I say “mine” but I just live here. The trees were here before me and I hope after as well.

For Cee’s Flower of the Day.