Heal Thyself - or rather, Just Let Thyself Heal

The human body has amazing powers of self restoration.

I have known that for years.  Little cuts don't bother me, I don't think every little cut needs a bandage.  (My kids on the other hand do.  Thus the rule fun band-aid if it is bleeding, plain brown band-aid if there is no blood.)  I'm not bothered when my kids eat stuff off the floor.  Or occasionally out of the trash can.  Coughs, colds - no big deal.  I have even refused to pick up a child from school who had fallen and bumped her head.  She sounded fine, I told the nurse to send her back to class.  More often than you realize your body has prevented horrible disaster through the efforts of the many healing substances in your blood.  And don't get me started on how much DNA your body repairs due to sun damage.

This is not at all to say I am opposed to modern medicine.  I am a physician, and I also marvel at what we can do.  Being a pediatrician, immunizations stand squarely above everything else as the most amazing medical advance.  They have saved millions of lives through preventive medicine - the best kind of medicine there is!  People don't even realize their life was saved because they never got sick in the first place.  Preventing infection through immunization is something that we take for granted these days, but something our grandparents marvel at, and something our great-grandparents would have begged to have the privilege of doing for their children.  But I digress.  I started this to talk about what the body can do for itself.

As part of my husband's cancer treatment he had bone, muscle and skin from his leg removed to rebuild the site where the tumor was removed.  It was painful.  I mean, really painful.  He was on large doses of pain medications and would cry in pain if they were allowed to wear off.  After a few weeks of this I became concerned.  Why is he not healing?  Why is this taking so long?  And why are his doctors not worried, just tell me to keep giving pain meds?  We could get the pain under control with large amounts of medication. (I always teased him they were Elvis amounts, but not up to Michael Jackson amounts of pain medication.  Sorry if I offended anyone but when you are at the pharmacy every few days picking up more opiates you have to take a step back and laugh a little.)  The doctors just said, "It takes time.  Sometimes months."  So just when I resigned myself to months of heavy duty painkillers and the long wean that would follow, the pain improved.  I'm not saying we could suddenly stop all medications.  I'm saying his pain could be controlled with long acting medication alone and didn't need break through medications.

Where a large piece of bone, muscle and skin were missing, healing was happening.  Whatever had been so irritated or swollen and painful before was quieted, returned to a more normal state.  He started to be able to walk, even walk faster than me, though off balance and needing a walker.  Skin grew over the large surgical site.  Red, bumpy skin, but none the less an effective barrier to keep out contamination and keep in moisture.  Even more amazing, the site where the bone, muscle and skin were grafter healed beautifully.  It was never really painful as the nerves to the area were severed in the surgery.  But the skin grew pink and healthy, well perfused.  It is amazing to see how the surgeons know how to connect things, then stand back and let the body heal.

It helps me remember that as a physician I can't heal anyone.  I can prescribe an antibiotic but the body still has to return the site of infection back to normal, removing dead tissue and rebuilding.  I can set a broken bone but the body has to reconnect and realign the pieces of bone.  All of my interventions are mere tinkering, pushing things in ways that allows the body to heal itself.

That low back pain, that cold that is 5 days along, even that little pus pocket you drained yourself - most of the time these will get better on their own.  So next time your physician tells you "This one just takes time to get better, there is nothing more we need to do", what she is really saying is, "All things are in alignment for your body to heal itself.  Just give it time."

Gifts Freely Given

Cast your bread upon the waters.  Then don't look back.


How many times have I heard one child yelling at another, "But you gave that to me, it was a gift!"  And the other yells back, "You don't play with it so I'm taking it back!"  Kids like to give old toys to each other, but rarely does it seem like a gift freely given.

In watching how people around me give of themselves, either through tangible or intangible means, I thought about the scripture that says "Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days."  (Ecclesiastes 11:1)  Throwing bread out on the water makes me think of feeding ducks.  You just throw the bread and they eat.  You don't row out onto the pond, discuss with the ducks how much effort you put into making the bread and how you bought special flour just for them.  You don't come back the next day and ask if they liked the bread.  And you don't get angry if they left the bread to rot on the edge of the pond or let the geese eat instead of them.  You just throw the bread out for the joy of knowing that maybe the ducks will like it.  And then you let it go.


Many people have a hard time letting go when they give a gift.  They give more for the feeling of being appreciated than for the joy of giving.  How many of us have things we received that we feel we must display so that the giver knows we appreciate them?  How many have looked around the house of someone to whom we have gifted to see if what we gave is out for all to see?  I am guilting of looking through relatives' Christmas pictures to see if the gifts I sent made the grade of being included in pictures.  And opening up the mailbox, wondering if a thank-you note was sent.  (I'm much more guilty of being the one who didn't send the thank-you note.)


So I try to teach my children that the real joy of giving is just feeling good inside about giving a thoughtful gift.  Kids will break the birthday party gifts you give.  I won't even buy birthday cards for kid parties any more because those just end up right in the trash - I make my kids draw a card for the birthday child.  Adults will re-gift or exchange gifts.  If you give them money to pay a bill, they use it to buy designer sneakers.  It's OK.  You were generous and gave out of the goodness of your heart.  Let it go and start noticing the many gifts that people give you you.


Because the bread that comes back to you after you cast yours on the water was thrown by someone else.


ALB

The Third Chair - life on the other side of the stethescope

My husband was diagnosed with cancer 4 months ago.  With apologies to the Grateful Dead, what a long, strange trip it's been.

Since he is still in the throes of treatment I am not yet ready to process this experience into a thoughtful analysis.  Instead I will share with you a jumble of my impressions of life as the physician spouse of someone dealing with the medical system.  And just my impressions of life caring for someone with cancer.

• I felt guilty when the doctor said, "It looks like cancer" - did I miss something?  How could I have not caught this earlier?  I do feel that I pushed when I felt things were not being followed up when I thought they should.  In retrospect the diagnosis to surgery time was pretty fast, though it felt agonizingly slow when going through it.
• When we interact with health care personnel I feel a need to tell the history, even though I know I should let my husband speak.  He frequently defers to me when I do sit back and try to shut up -- but have I just trained him to do that by my eagerness to speak?
• I feel a little guilty when we are treated very nicely by the hospital staff, like getting a private room.  Part of me wonders if they are just doing that because I am a doctor, part of me knows I wouldn't refuse even if that was the reason we got the good treatment.  I do feel better when I look around and notice other people being treated as well.
• I can't stop being a doctor and just be a spouse.  I make recommendations for treatments - please put dextrose in the IV fluids, please give Reglan.  I question treatment options, especially if it seems no different than what we've already tried.
• And then when I reach the limits of my medical knowledge, and my husband still has that "Please help me" look on his face, I feel guilty and frustrated.  I feel like a failure sometimes when we have to go to the hospital for non-routine treatment because I feel it means I failed at management. Is that the "doctor as god" complex, having a hard time admitting that I can't do it all?
• When he is inpatient I have dichotomous feelings - frustrated by having to wait for other people to act (at home I give the meds when I feel they need to be given), yet safe because if something is not going right there is someone else to turn to (if he vomits the med someone else can figure out what else to give).
• One of the big surprises is how many employees I see in the hospital and clinics that are parents of my patients (did I mention I'm a pediatrician?).  I smiled when the Gastroenterologist came out of the OR to tell me that the PEG placement had gone well and mentioned that "half the endoscopy staff said to treat your husband well because you are their pediatrician."

The one big advantage I have over other people going through difficult medical treatments is that I feel at home.  The geography and language of the hospital are not foreign to me.  I understand the hierarchies - I'm not afraid to ask someone where they fit in the team.  The ebb and flow of shifts, the difference between what can be accomplished during a day shift and a night shift.  This allows me to act as an interpreter for my husband, to try to ease his anxiety.  No, the nurse can't just change that medication from oral to IV, you must wait for the night float resident to answer the page and give a new order.  Yes, they will still take you to the OR for that procedure, even at 6pm.  I know which alarms on an IV I can fix and which I can't.

I am still deep under water with my head down, swimming hard to get through this as I carry my husband along.  But now when I look up, sometimes I can see a bit of light dancing on the surface of the water.  Then I have hope that end of the hard times is near, we will come to the surface and enjoy a large gasp of fresh air that will wash over us with wonder.

1 more round of chemo, 13 more radiation treatments to go.

ALB

Love the Ones You're With

I hope this doesn't come as a surprise to anyone, but life doesn't turn out the way you think it will.

When I was growing up a good Mormon girl I had a view of what my life would be.  We were taught all about what our lives should be through Primary and Young Women.  I got my Gospel in Action award and my Young Womanhood Recognition award, graduated from seminary and got married in the temple.  A few weeks after we were married my husband's church attendance became spotty, and within a few months he was only attending Sacrament Meeting.  Within a year or so he was completely inactive.

I was heart broken, though I mostly kept that to myself.  What do you say to people - or really, what can they say to you?  I had a copy of Carlfred Broderick's book One Heart, One Flesh that the Bishop in our single's ward gave us when we got engaged, and that was very helpful.  I can't even remember why it was helpful because I've lost the book, I just recall that it gave me the spiritual strength to stay married.  (On the other hand I gave a copy to a young neighbor and later she thanked me because it gave her the courage to get a divorce - go figure.)

I didn't go to the temple for a couple years because in my mind that is something you do with your spouse and it was too upsetting to go alone.  Finally I did start going, and came to enjoy the peace and inspiration in the temple.  It was in the temple, as I prayed once more for the Lord to help me, that I got the answer that will probably last me for the rest of my life.  It was simply this - "Love and patience."  (It will last me for the rest of my life because it is not as easy to accomplish as it sounds.)

It's not earth shattering, is it?  It doesn't take your breath away or explode in your mind or reveal an untrodden path.  At this point in my life it feels like the most well worn path I can take.  And yet there is something comforting about going down the well trod road.

I laugh to myself when I hear people say that there is no sadness and there are no tears in heaven.  I am sure our heavenly parents weep on a regular basis for the poor choices we make.  To raise a child for half of eternity and then watch that child separate itself from you - how could you not be sad? To see that child use the gift you all fought to preserve - the gift of agency - to make choices that will forever separate that child from your presence?  How could there not be tears?  I feel my sadness to seem minor in comparison to this.

Love and patience.  It didn't take me long to see that Heavenly Father was only telling me to follow his example.  It is how He deals with the poor choices we make.  As I tell my Primary children, your Heavenly Father loves you, not matter what, there is not a thing you can do to make him stop loving you for ever and always. And he has eternal patience.  I suppose it helps to "know the end from the beginning."  Still, he patiently waits for us to turn to him and is never absent when we reach out.  Love and patience.

When someone I love makes a choice that breaks my heart, what choice do I have but to love them and patiently be there for them if and when they chose another way?  I have been down the sad road and shed a lot of tears - didn't get me anywhere but sad.  I have been down the angry road and yelled about my sorrows - didn't get me anywhere but angry.  I never chose the bitter road, but that is just me.  The love and patience road did get me somewhere -- peace.

This journey prepared me for the day when my brothers left the church for various reasons.  And when a friend was excommunicated.  It feels weird to say that I'm not sorrowful about these things, but I'm not.  I am filled with hope and peace that with time things will change.  I love them and care about them.  I am willing to patiently wait for them to use their agency to make better choices.  My open arms aren't waiting for them to turn around, though.  I am embracing them all along the way so they don't forget that the Lord loves them and there is peace in his path.  Love and patience.

Cast your burdens of anger and sorrow on the Lord, and take up his yoke of loving other people with him.  The burden is lighter.  And not every day, but some days, it is like having wings to fly.

ALB

Who am I? (A posting of introduction)

The name of my blog is taken from the back of a t-shirt.

Granted, it is a t-shirt that I made for myself before going to Girls Camp as a leader for the first time 11 years ago.  I wanted to put my name on the back of the shirt - but which name?  By that time I had already collected many names and couldn't pick just one that I felt summarized who I am.  So I put all of my names in a row.  When someone asked what to call me, I pointed to the back of my shirt and said, "Pick one."  Or combine a couple.  It's all good.

Sister for my place in the gospel of Jesus Christ.  A literal spirit sister to each and every human being who lives, has lived or ever will live.  But don't expect me to put you all on my Christmas gift list.

Doctor for the 4 years of medical school that got me the title.  I'm not stuffy about it, and I don't make a big deal when patients call me Angela ... or sweety ... or honey.  I do refer to myself as doctor when I introduce myself to patients because they need to know my role.  And I guess I was just raised to use titles with people.

Angela for the name given me by my parents.  Not Angie.  Not Ang.  Angela.  I can't really explain why, but I'm just not a nick-name person when it comes to myself.  Angela is the person I was growing up before I got the rest of these titles.  It's my go-to persona.

Beeler for the name I took with marriage.  It brought with it a wonderful family-in-law.  How many other people vacation with their in-laws and leave the spouse at home?  And it moved me up in the alphabet.

(I did not abandon my maiden name.  It sits in between my first and last names.  But not on this blog.  It is not my middle name.  It is my maiden name.)

Mom for the 3 little ones who call me that.  It is my best name.  It wasn't until having children of my own that I realized I had been a Mom all along.  I wanted to have kids for a long time, and even when I thought I couldn't I still knew I was a Mom.  Having kids just clarified what I was already doing.

Those are my titles.  How else am I defined?  Hopefully many of the entries to follow will answer that question.  In the meantime, here are a few more descriptors:

• The fat blob in the family pictures drawn by my son.  I can always tell which stick figure is me.
• Housecleaning is at the bottom of my priority list.  Seriously.  It's kinda sad.
• I am not 24601, but I do love a good musical.  I can sing but I don't advertise that, you have to find out for yourself.
• An iPad user who will not give up her unlimited data plan even though she doesn't come close to using enough 3G data to justify it most months.
• Meyers-Briggs introvert.  I have a vibrant inner life.
• Mamaroo100

OK, on with the show.  After a brief interlude to deal with the responsibilities that come with all these titles.