Tag: medicine

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A Love Letter

A love letter to my fellow therapists, doctors, nurses, healers

I know how much you want to help each client who comes to you. I know how hard you work and study to help them. I am right there with you; I have been a healer of one sort or another for over 25 years. I know how much you care for your clients and want to help them heal.

You love them and want to help. But what if you actually have very little control over whether your client improves and heals or not? What if your clients are in charge of what happens in each and every healing session, NOT you? And what if being a healer or therapist no longer meant you were supposed to have the answers, or know how to fix your clients’ problems? What if being a great healer / therapist / doctor does NOT involve dispensing advice and healing wisdom to the suffering masses like some kind of Healer Dear Abby?

How would embracing your lack of control change your healing practice?

Each client holds the keys to their own healing. Every client has their own answers – even if they don’t believe it yet!  At best, you can be a helpful conduit or sounding board – someone who helps your clients find a new perspective on their personal journey of self-discovery and self-healing. At worst you will try to take charge and actually get in the way of their healing.

Stop and take a breath. Give yourself a moment to grasp the idea that you are NOT in charge and you CANNOT CONTROL if and when, much less how your client heals. Each client is responsible for whether they heal or not. Does this lack of control and responsibility for your clients’ healing fill you with relief or infuriate you?

No matter what you do or say, no matter how many classes you take or how good your therapy techniques are, your client will choose whether they heal or not.  You don’t control that, they do. If one of your clients heals, it is NOT because you did an absolutely flawless massage, gave them the perfect pill or performed the best sphenoid release in the Midwest. It is not because you said just the right thing or executed a flawless lymphatic drainage routine.  People have been healing from all kinds of illnesses and pains for thousands of years before your favorite drug or healing modality was even invented.  And isn’t obsessing about technique how we healers handle our own discomfort with not knowing how to make everything all better for everyone? Honestly?

This idea of the client being responsible for their own healing probably bursts all your fantasies about “if I just get really good at the right and perfect technique, then my clients will heal.”  In my experience, there is no silver healing bullet – so stop looking for the “perfect” therapy, the “perfect” medication or herbal remedy, the “perfect” modality.  Besides, that search for the perfect healing tool will only make you feel like a failure over and over and over again.

Open to the possibility that you have never been in charge of anyone else’s healing and see what happens for you and your clients. Remember that it is their body, their mind, their emotional reactions that determine how much healing happens in each session with you.  Each client comes to you with a unique set of issues and strengths. Each client will heal in their own unique and unpredictable ways. If you want predictable outcomes, give up healing work and become an engineer.

So, if you cannot control the outcome of healing sessions with your clients, why be a healer at all? What is the point? How can you help anyone?

Before you throw in the towel and completely give up healing work in despair, try a few radical healing acts in your sessions. Shift your focus and see what kind of healing magic is possible:

  • Consciously turn control of the session over to your client and their spiritual source. And share with each client how large and in charge they actually are! Help them to access their own wisdom and their own power, rather than relying on yours. Every time you feel shaky or uncertain about what you are doing and if you are helping, take a breath and turn control over to your client and spirit.
  • Your mental and emotional state matters way more than ANY therapeutic technique or modality you use in a session. Keeping an open heart and an open mind has a big impact. Be aware of how you approach each client – what thoughts are running through your head, what emotions are surfacing? Are you getting caught up in needing to find the answer – or can you take a breath and let your client flounder around and discover for themselves what they need?
  • In each session, hold space for what else is possible. No matter what has happened for this client before, lasting healing is possible now. Hold the knowing that your client can heal whatever is ailing them – even when they have lost faith. Even when neither one of you has any idea exactly when or how healing might occur. Even when healing seems impossible, you can hold the memory of how other clients have shifted and found balance and healed. Hold the awareness that human bodies heal in amazing and miraculous ways every day. Set an intention in each and every client session that healing is possible, that healing is just a breath away – even when you have no clue how it can occur. Set a healing intention that your clients truly can shift and heal now.
  • Shut up and listen. Do you know how rare it is to find someone who will actually LISTEN? The simple act of listening is profoundly healing. Try listening instead of grasping for answers. Try listening and NOT giving advice! And try asking your client what they like, what feels good and healing to their body, what would help them right now. Can you stop assuming you know what they need?   Can you respect and honor your clients enough to put your ego aside and follow their lead? Make it your priority to create a space where clients can find their own answers.

Each client who comes to you is on THEIR own personal healing journey, not yours. So, take a big breath, smile at your silliness and learn to let go of control. You never really had it anyway.

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The Path Here: Nursing Then and Now

 

If you had met me five years ago, you would have never guessed I was a nurse. I managed a computer network group back then and I rarely mentioned my nursing background to even my closest friends. I left nursing back in the late 1980’s and for a very long time I was embarrassed to call myself a nurse.

I had been a good nurse, one of the best. I learned and applied all the latest technologies to my patients, from IV feedings to balloon pumps to SOAP charting and nursing care plans. Yet most of my ICU patients were not “fixed” by their treatment. Most of them died after a very expensive hospital stay. And worse yet, the treatments I gave caused many of my patients to suffer. I witnessed the failings of modern Western medicine up close; I watched patients held in limbo on the edge of death, only half alive. I watched patients suffer as they were separated from their loved ones by the very technology that was supposed to help them.

My nursing education had given me no framework to make sense of the pain and suffering I saw around me. The hospital where I worked was one of the best in the region and the nursing care I gave was state of the art. And yet I felt anger and a deep sadness within as I tried to care for patients the way I had been taught. I eventually left nursing and found a nice safe career in the computer field where the only thing that crashed and died was a poorly written computer program. When I left, I thought I put nursing behind me. But here I am back again.

Returning to nursing after more than a decade away was like peering down into a wild, raging river, seeing the whitewater and fast current and jumping in anyway. My friends and family looked at me in wonder and asked why was I going back? Health care is a mess, doctors and nurses are under constant fire and the nursing profession seems to be having an identity crisis. Plus, I earned twice as much money as a corporate manager. So, why did I return?

While I was away from nursing, I continued to search for meaning in all I had seen and experienced as an ICU nurse. My avocation became alternative healing modalities; Chinese medicine, herbal remedies, massage, acupuncture, spiritual healing. I read all the time about health and healing and became an avid student of mind-body medicine. I read studies on the power of guided imagery in fighting cancer, and on the power of prayer in helping open heart patients to heal. I learned how the simple act of massage helps premature infants to grow faster and thrive. A new world of healing possibilities slowly opened up to me.

As an ICU nurse I had focused on the physiology of the human body. Now I delved into the emotional and spiritual components of illness. I tried many of the alternative healing methods I read about, loved some and hated others. I went through a divorce, remarriage and a cleansing emotional healing of my own. And over time I began to miss nursing. At my core I was still a healer, a nurse, no matter how many computer programs I wrote.

So I finally came back to nursing. But I am not remotely the same nurse I was when I left in frustration years ago. My idea of what nursing is about has changed dramatically. I can still remember myself as a nurse, fresh out of nursing school. I remember believing then that “good” nursing was about mastering technology, understanding medication effects and curing an ailing physical body. My focus was on the disease and how it affected the physical body. Back then I thought nursing was science pure and simple; just apply the right technology or give the right medication and the patient would be fixed. It sounds a lot like car repair in retrospect. No messy emotional connection required or desired.

It’s been a long winding road for me. The shift in my definition of nursing has been gradual over many years. I cannot pinpoint when my idea of nursing actually mutated. Like the slow building of a sunset, my view of myself as a nurse has shifted moment by moment, experience by experience until today I look around to find that I am a totally different nurse.

Today I see nursing as more art than science. Nursing is not about passing meds and taking vitals for me. It is not about whiz-bang medical technology. And it is not about curing or fixing the physical body. Now nursing is about discovering how the emotions and the spirit of a person interact with their physical body. It is about connecting with a person and helping them to heal body, mind and spirit. And it is always personal and sometimes messy and emotional work. This time nursing is about relating to people one on one. It is about creating a healing space where the mind can rest and the body can heal. It is something I do with a person rather than to them.

Do I still find value in IV meds and CT scans and laparotomies? Absolutely. I also find value in meditation and prayer and acupuncture and herbs and the simple act of touch. I have come to believe that there are many paths to healing. True health is a balance of many factors; there is no one treatment, no silver bullet cure. Each person is unique and must find the balance of treatments, both conventional and alternative, that fits for them.

I have found my own balance. I have found a way to nurse that is uniquely mine and it gives me great joy. If you meet me today and ask me what I do for a living, I will smile and tell you proudly that I am a nurse. It is good to be back.

© 2002 Nancy Lankston

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Note: I wrote this essay 10 years ago and it’s been buried in my files for years. But My nursing buddy and sister of the heart, Megan, asked me to pull it out and share it. So, here it is. Unfortunately, most of what I say about hospitals and healthcare in the U.S. is still true in 2012. Here’s to changing it in my lifetime.

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The Wisdom of Dr M

 

I want to share an article I originally published two years ago. This piece is dedicated to an amazing healer named Dr. Armando Moreano. Dr. M taught me what true healing is all about…

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Years ago I worked for a very wise doctor. He was a petite little man with a hot Latino temper. I learned a whole slew of Spanish cuss words from Dr. M. He’s been dead for more than 15 years, but he’s still one of the most amazing healers I have ever known.

Dr. M grew up in Ecuador; a tiny country in South America that is certainly not known for being at the forefront of medicine. But he learned much about the true essence of healing from watching his physician father treat patients with access to only the most basic equipment and medicines. And even after years of U.S. medical training and experience, he managed to maintain an intuitive sense of how to help his patients heal; simple yet profound treatments were the rule. Nothing very complicated; not much in the way of whiz bang technology; just the basics delivered with love and compassion. His patients adored him – they sensed they were in good hands.

My boss knew all about his patients and their families; he would quiz them about their love lives, their jobs, their mothers – no question was off limits. I sometimes found his questions bizarre and intrusive. I was young and did not yet understand that he asked those questions because he sensed that his patients emotional and spiritual health directly affected their physical health.

I wish Dr. M were still here with us training this generation of doctors. How wonderful to have a doctor who remembers me and asks me about my love life and my family! All those nosey questions that used to embarrass me now seem crucial to quality health care. How can a doctor care for you adequately if she doesn’t know anything about you except a few facts listed in your chart? But that’s another subject entirely.

Dr. M was opinionated and not at all shy about expressing himself. He would go on and on about how preservatives in food were at the root of many health problems; he blamed everything from cancer and diabetes to arthritis and heart disease on artificial chemicals in our food. He liked to deliver his dire pronouncement about American food and health while standing in his office smoking a cigarette and drinking a diet Coke. This made his argument seem especially poignant.

My boss was a great example of the old adage that the most difficult patient for any healer to heal is himself. His father had died suddenly when Dr. M was still young. He never got to say good-bye to his dad and it obviously still grieved him deeply 20 years later. Add to that being caught in the middle of constant arguments between his wife and mother and Dr. M’s smoking made perfect sense. But back then I just thought he was weak for not being able to quit smoking. That was decades before terms such as emotional eating, stress related illness and PTSD became mainstream. Today the research on the link between emotional upset and illness grows every day. And as I try to give up my own chai habit, I realize first hand just how emotionally loaded our food and drug choices can be!

When Dr. M would jump on his bandwagon and lament the sorry state of American food, I would roll my eyes and try to change the subject. I was a know-it-all twenty something, fresh out of college; I really loved my candy and junk food; my boss just seemed like an eccentric old man to me. He actually reminded me of a college chemistry professor I had who would go on and on about the dangers of fluoride in tap water. Now I realize just how wise both of them were…Today, years later I am the one lamenting the sorry state of American food.

Our food has not improved in 20 years. If anything it has gotten worse. The grocery store has aisle after aisle of food, kept “fresh” with preservatives such as BHA, BHT and MSG. Europeans want nothing to do with our mi lk and cheese because we continue to feed our cows bovine growth hormones. How can we give growing school children milk laced with those hormones?!

The ingredients labels on many foods read like a chemistry experiment. It actually is a big chemistry experiment; put preservatives in our food to increase the shelf-life and assure us that all those chemicals are “fine”; they won’t do us any harm. Wait 20 years and see what happens. Sounds a bit like the instructions for instant soup; just add hot water and wait a bit. Only this time the results can be way more serious than soggy noodles!

This crotchety old nurse has gotten a bandwagon of her own and it is called Avoid Artificial Dyes and Preservatives. Twenty years after Dr. M tried to tell me and anyone else who would listen, I am now trying to tell you. My wise old doctor boss was absolutely right – what you eat can either nourish you or kill you; choose wisely. Do not assume that just because they sell it in a grocery store that it is good for you!

Those of you who have known me a while have heard all of this before. My husband calls it Nancy’s rant #1A. And yes, I actually do get red in the face and rant about this on occasion just like my wild Latino boss used to. Dr. M has passed his baton to me. : -)) I rant and I push my opinions about food. And I will continue to rant because your health is worth it.

What You Can Do:
1. READ LABELS; know what is in the food that you feed yourself and your family.
2. AVOID ARTIFICIAL PRESERVATIVES & DYES; Artificial chemicals are NOT food and they CAN hurt you. It may take 20-30 years, but these chemicals can make you sick and even kill you. And watch out for preservatives and dyes in lotions, makeup and hair-care products as well.
3. AVOID FOOD THAT HAS BEEN PROCESSED OR MANIPULATED TO MAKE IT LAST LONGER. Long shelf life does not mean high quality. In general, the more processed a food is, the less nutritious it is. For example, avoid oils that have been refined with chemicals and heat. Buy cold pressed oils instead.
4. BUY THE FRESHEST FOOD YOU CAN AFFORD. Cheap food can cost you your health. It is NOT worth it.

I hope you will take a cue from Dr. M; please protect your body from chemicals that can hurt you.

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Fading Away

Today’s blog entry is dedicated to my mom and to all the other families out there dealing with Alzheimer’s or dementia…

Mom’s name is Eve and she was born in 1925. Even now in her 80’s, living in a ‘memory care unit’ and suffering from Alzheimer’s, even now my Mom is still feisty and opinionated and a bit of a rabble rouser. My mom may have been born in 1925, but she really resonated with the feminist ideals of the 1960’s. Even though her career was staying home and raising 4 kids, Mom instinctually understood the basic feminist message. Women need choices about how to live their lives, Women deserve choices. My mom understood that even as she allowed herself few of those same choices.

My mom’s name may be Eve, like the first woman in the Bible, but the name NEVER fit her. Mom never fit the mold of the “little woman” who is made from her husband’s rib and is subservient to her man and lives to serve him. No way! My mom complained about the silly rules that dictate proper female behavior from the very beginning; as a kid, she demanded to know why her 5 brothers never had to do housework while she and her sister were cooking and cleaning every week. And how come the boys got to swim in the creek, but she and her older sister couldn’t? Apparently it wasn’t proper in the 1930‘s for teenaged girls to swim in the creek, even when southern Illinois was 95 degrees in the shade. Can you imagine??!

Later on as an adult, my mom wondered aloud why men got to do all different kinds of work while women were expected to marry and become homemakers. And she thought it very sad that an intelligent and beautiful woman like her sister who never married was labelled a spinster and considered broken by this society!

No, my mom was NEVER a mild mannered ‘good little woman’. And I mean that as the highest compliment. Mom was actually more like Adam’s first wife, Lilith. You may not have ever heard of Adam’s first wive Lilith, but she appears in the Jewish Talmud and several other sacred texts. Most references to Lilith were stripped from the Bible. And what, pray tell, was Lilith’s crime? Well, Lilith refused to be subservient to Adam. She refused to “lie beneath him”. And when Adam balked at treating her as his equal, Lilith up and left Adam and went to live by herself. For refusing to cleave to Adam and do what he said, Lilith was condemned by her culture and turned into an evil demoness that ate newborn babies and sucked the virility right out of men. For “misbehaving” Lilith was rejected and labelled an uppity bitch. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? I picture a mix of Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan when I think of Lilith.

Lilith is the original feminist archetype; she’s a powerful female who KNOWS she is complete unto herself and she needs no man to define her or validate her existence. Lilith resonates with that same powerful anger that drives modern feminists like myself; we feminists look around and see how women allow themselves to be treated and we roar with rage.

Unlike Lilith, my mom never left her husband. She never left, but she roared with rage at the inequities of her married life on many occasions. She roared but she really never figured out how to make her own marriage less traditional. It took me years to realize that Mom was actually raging at herself and her own decisions as much as anyone else. I think Mom craved a small space of her own without the needs of a husband and kids drowning out her own desires. Like millions of women before her, my mom craved a space of her own, but never figured out how to take it for herself.

When I asked my mom in her late 60‘s what she had dreamed of being when she was a girl, she had difficulty even answering me. Is it any wonder? Didn’t 1920‘s society just assume that girls would want to grow up and be a wife and mommy? Give them dolls and teach them how to cook and clean, right? What a waste!

My mom must have felt such a conflict within herself for so long. She resonated with the feminist ideals of finding yourself and building a meaningful career and yet stayed in a traditional marriage and spent her days taking care of 4 kids and doing mind-numbing secretarial work.

Please don’t get me wrong; my mom adores my dad. She always did. But she dreamed of something more than marriage for herself and for her daughters. She cajoled and encouraged and pushed me to take a different path; to be more than a wife and mommy, to graduate from college and find work that I could make my own. I have her to thank for this career that I love.

So, after decades of denying any part of herself beyond wife and mommy, my Mom is slowly losing her mind. Is that just coincidence? I don’t think so. Ironically now as the Alzheimer’s progresses, she becomes a lot less like feisty Lilith and more like docile Eve with each passing month.

Today I watch my mom’s brilliant wit and intelligence fade away and I am sad. Sad for the loss of the outrageous woman who was my mother. I am sad that my opinionated mother cannot figure out how to hold onto herself and her opinions any longer. And I am very sad that my 11 year old daughter will never really know her grandmother’s strength or her powerful presence.

I am also sad because I look around the “memory care unit” where my mom lives and I see what the future holds for her. I do not understand why she clings to a life that consists of eating and sleeping and not much else. She is kept safe and fed as every week she fades a little further away, like an old photograph fading over time. And I wonder what the point of this slow fade to death is. Years as a healer have taught me that God always has a good reason for everything. But I really cannot figure out the point of Alzheimer’s.

I watched “You Don’t Know Jack” a few weeks ago on HBO; it’s a movie about Jack Kevorkian, the euthanasia doctor that the press nicknamed Dr. Death. I watched that movie and I puzzled over how some people could condemn and despise Jack Kevorkian for helping suffering people to die. Granted, Jack is an opinionated old coot and he does not make it easy to like him. But his heart is huge and his intent seemed pure to me. I wonder if anyone who has watched a loved one suffer on the edge of living for months or years could condemn Kevorkian?

Is keeping my mom’s body fed and alive while her brain slowly dies a noble, caring act? Or would helping her to die quickly be more noble? At this point, I certainly don’t know what’s more right or more noble. Ironically, my mom was a big proponent of euthanasia before Alzheimer’s set in. She had a living will drawn up years before her illness became apparent. Yet today if you ask her, she will say emphatically that she wants to be resuscitated if her heart stops. Even as barren as her days seem to me, my mom still wants to be here.

Here she stays. I have trouble killing a bug, so there is no way I’m going turn into Kevorkian here. All I can do is watch her slow decline with sadness. I wish that I could somehow make it all better for her – and for me and my siblings. But all that I can really do is turn Mom over to God again and again and again. And try to remember that God has it handled.