It’s 12 am, I’m on my way back from a terribly tiring day at work and I can’t stop thinking about how much my head hurts. As I drive home and I see a water tower and a smile suddenly comes to my face. I like water.
However, in this case, that’s not the reason why I smiled(if it was this would be a pretty amazing blog… but its not that amazing). I had a 59ish year old patient today who was having/had an heart attack and had to have been one of the funniest patient’s I’ve had in a while. He was what you would imagine of an “angry old man”… cursing just enough to have you on edge and not being able to hear you to not. When I first met him I walked into his room and he’s on the phone with his friend and I tell him I’m about to set up an IV for the meds the nurse needs to administer and so on the phone he goes “ahhh shit I think I’m having a heart attack or something… I’ll talk to you later”. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a patient phrase it quiet like that. I was having a bit of a time holding my laughter. As I started talking my nonsense he told me “I’m not trying to go down to the morb”. I thought about it for a second and then I started laughing and began busting his chops. At that time I thought it was his stuffy nose that caused him to talk like that. Then later he started laughing because he thought that I thought that he said “down to the board”. (incase you haven’t figured it out we’re talking about the morg). Anyway we continued to trash talk one another throughout the day and then we started talking about where we grew up… turned out that he lived right by the water tower which was a mile away from my old house.
So as I approached this water tower I couldn’t help but to think of the old man who even in the most critical of times in his life was able to make someone else laugh and not even be worried with his predicament. There is no real “punch line” to this story… it’s just amazing how in such a crappy mood the entire way home from work all I had to see was a water tower that immediately changed my mindset.
What a blessing this life is.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Singe your fingers...
What a cheesy title to a blog entry but who cares. In any case I’d been meaning to write a blog about one thing or another for the past 3ish weeks and didn’t end up happening until now. It’s interesting how even when I want to write a blog at times, I don’t end up doing it until its “meant to be” complete.
A couple weeks back when I had that patient with the hemorrhagic stroke (last blog entry) a friend and I were talking about the effect of traumatic and challenging events on people’s life… more specifically the metamorphosis that these events induce. Obviously in my case, the traumatic event was my father’s death. When I had my father in my life, I never really took to any of his lessons that he had taught me. It wasn’t until after his death that everything started to catch on. Prior to his passing I would know what was right and wrong but, would still do as I please… which usually ended up being wrong (not to say I was a devil child, I was just hormonal and slightly retarded). It wasn’t until my dad passed that all his lessons suddenly began stick.
After continuing to back and forth about the matter, I finally had a good metaphor come to me (shocking, as usually my metaphors suck). I've realized that in essence, everyone is a candle. And it is through these traumatic events that the candle is lit, and with that flame the individual is able to grow exponentially. Obviously there are those that do not deal with those events well at all and end up regressing. From my experience I have learned that these people generally based many of their actions on fear prior to having the event. Then once the event occurred and they were pushed further into a hole all they have left is fear… and we all know where there is fear, there is no faith...
And so I will leave you with a quote from Imam Ali (a.s.) regarding faith in God and ourselves.
Your remedy is within you, but you do not sense it.
Your sickness is from you, but you do not perceive it.
You presume you are a small entity,
But within you is enfolded the entire universe.
You are indeed the evident book,
By whose alphabet the hidden becomes the manifest.
Therefore, you have no needs beyond yourself,
What you seek is within you, if only you reflect.
- Ali Ibn' Abi Talib (A.S.)
A couple weeks back when I had that patient with the hemorrhagic stroke (last blog entry) a friend and I were talking about the effect of traumatic and challenging events on people’s life… more specifically the metamorphosis that these events induce. Obviously in my case, the traumatic event was my father’s death. When I had my father in my life, I never really took to any of his lessons that he had taught me. It wasn’t until after his death that everything started to catch on. Prior to his passing I would know what was right and wrong but, would still do as I please… which usually ended up being wrong (not to say I was a devil child, I was just hormonal and slightly retarded). It wasn’t until my dad passed that all his lessons suddenly began stick.
After continuing to back and forth about the matter, I finally had a good metaphor come to me (shocking, as usually my metaphors suck). I've realized that in essence, everyone is a candle. And it is through these traumatic events that the candle is lit, and with that flame the individual is able to grow exponentially. Obviously there are those that do not deal with those events well at all and end up regressing. From my experience I have learned that these people generally based many of their actions on fear prior to having the event. Then once the event occurred and they were pushed further into a hole all they have left is fear… and we all know where there is fear, there is no faith...
And so I will leave you with a quote from Imam Ali (a.s.) regarding faith in God and ourselves.
Your remedy is within you, but you do not sense it.
Your sickness is from you, but you do not perceive it.
You presume you are a small entity,
But within you is enfolded the entire universe.
You are indeed the evident book,
By whose alphabet the hidden becomes the manifest.
Therefore, you have no needs beyond yourself,
What you seek is within you, if only you reflect.
- Ali Ibn' Abi Talib (A.S.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
