Comments on: Wonder if life is passing you by?

By: Boaterbob

Boaterbob — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 14:49:14 +0000

Years ago Mom had a trivit that read, “Why worry about tomorrow, We may not make it through today.” Afred E. Newman said, “what, Me worry?”
St. Francis said, “grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.”
We may be granted the serenity already, but being blessed or cursed with the “free will” we may choose not to accept the grant.
Worry is unavoidable in the initial revelation of a potentially bad thing. But some embrace worry as a way of life eventually as a result of not taking action to find a solution or control mechanism for themself or the other they might “care” about.
Roominizing over the issue embellishes the images or visions in the mind of what bad might happen and blows them up to a bigger proportion than the issue really is. “Oh my God! It could be bigger and worse than I think it might be!” It usually isn’t after the facts surface. And that is often the case.
In my experiences these 52 years, taking action to discover the facts of an issue usually gives me the tools to deal with the issue and put it to rest or in perspective on how it affects me or another. Either way, the worry fades to gone.
I dismiss the visual experiment for these reasons regarding “Worry.” First of all they are selected by someone else. Worry is very subjective. By that I mean, an individuals mind manifests it’s own visual mind picture that can be unimaginable by someone else.
Have someone explain to you why they are worried about something so you can see it their way. I propose it will never happen.
Describe a painting to someone. What it looks like and the emotion it evokes in you so they can see and feel or experience the same thing you do. I don’t think it is possible. You’ll probably respond with a facial alteration and perhaps a smile and kindly nod and then wonder what they are smoking. But I digressed.
Processing worry to some kind of resolve requires some kind of response. I was told once to make a list of all possible actions that could be taken to address an issue before me. All possible actions including the most rediculous just to get them out of my head and onto paper in front of me. I submit, as I always included on my list, everyone would write down, “Do Nothing.” Why not? That is a choice isn’t it? That would permit us who are more comfortable with worry, to continue to worry in our comfort zone.
Being one who believes there is a God I also believe there is a spirit in humans in addition to the brain, mind and supporting physiologies.
Chemicals can certainly correct or influence the brain and mind and we can actually see, scientifically, the affects of altering chemicals.
In my experiences with near death and dying, there is a spirit in tact in each individual unaffected by the condition of the body in it’s worse moments. How is science going to deal with that? I doubt in its arrogance, that it will. But that is another topic. And unfortunately, in this country I love, it becomes a political topic too quickly.
Worry, caring, and concern is the emotional alarm that brings and issue into the picture and up front to be dealt with. A tool to point out to us something we may have neglected or just didn’t notice was festering or developing to a point it needs to be dealt with, or not, but it is there. If we react we worry and never move on. If we respond and deal with it, it is resolved or put into perspective and reduce the amount of life passing us by.

By: alphapyro

alphapyro — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 14:32:39 +0000

Considering the case that human suffering is around you all the time, where do you find time to ignore it? Are you implying that I don’t live among human suffering? Not in the extreme case, but coworkers and friends around me suffer all the time. The girl who sits across from me showed up to work with long sleeves and I caught a peek at her arm and it is sliced up pretty good all up and down the forearm, both forearms. Sounds like human suffering to me. The guy who sits behind me lives in the ghetto. He’s bitter about life because his brother was shot over a couple thugs out to prove something, which amazes me that he would be in customer service. That’s not human suffering?

In varying degrees I believe I’m among human suffering just as much as everyone else.

Does this bother me? I’m concerned, but it’s ‘no skin off [my] back’.
I can’t stop people from slicing themselves or feeling bitter against the world. I can’t cure anyone’s cancer, and I can’t garuntee that I can save your life. All I can do is the best I can do to be ready to help where possible. Beyond that, I waste my time worrying and over compensating trying to do what I know is out of my capable means that very moment.

The fine line is walked by those who balance care against needless worry.

It’s like optimizing, but different. No computers and stuff. Yep.

By: JT

JT — Tue, 23 Aug 2005 20:14:53 +0000

Actually, getting out on paper my views on patient care would probably be far too large for a blog post, but perhaps too short for a book. I’ll try and condense an answer that’s specific to this post.

I’ll even borrow the separation that Democritus offers between worrying and caring above. I do ‘care’ for the patient’s well-being, and I address them very humanly. I’ve heard some colleagues refer to them as ‘clients’ and I am not comfortable with that. Clients are for lawyers or contractors or advertisors, something less lethal, though not necessarily less malignant.

Overall, in my job, I’m simply addressing a mechanical failure of a body. After I’ve dealt with a patient’s psychology, I sort of turn into a mechanic. In this instance, a sleep mechanic. I’m investigating biological mechanisms and documenting the interactions for failures for which I can offer some corrections. That portion is impersonal, though not unartistic.

While I don’t have an immense amount of patients that die on me, those who have that I do find out about leave some minor impression to resolve. This may seem sad or defeating, but my overall mission is the improvement of life, not the prevention of death. Those that die, I merely have to resolve within myself this one question, “Did I do what I could to improve their life while they were living?”

As long as I can answer yes, whether that be the mechanical treatment or the way I treated them as a human-being, I usually let the notion of death go very rapidly. Do I worry about them after they leave my lab? Very little. That worry would probably make me very ineffective for future patients.

What I was indicating in the post is that future psychological treatments (if it already isn’t apparent) are going to seem even less psychological and more mechanical as the human brain is reverse-engineered. I’m not quite this cynical, but I think it is possible that future psychological issues will be resolved by a ‘patch’ or an ‘upgrade’ like any other finely bugged computer program.

I made fun of this ‘ideal mechanical treatment’ because it’s ridiculous to forget the human element. But it’s also ridiculous (though more common) to eliminate possible cures because they seem to make life too ‘mechanical’ and less ‘god-like’. Examples are stem-cell research, cloning and gene therapy, all which recieve a massive resistance.

I once had a Jesuit priest talk with me and he said something fairly profound to me at the time. (paraphrased from memory) “If we are made in god’s image, I feel it is only because we are meant to try and become more like him. Creating and replicating are part of the tool-sets for which god is known and I don’t see why we should feel a need to avoid these developments. Cloning may be only a small step in our future towards meeting our maker.”

That being said, he did also provide excellent arguments for why not now, but maybe soon.

I hope that explains some of my motives in patient care and the overall scheme of ‘health care’. Most healthcare workers believe in improvement of life or getting a paycheck. Very few are hell-bent on merely extending life or preventing death. I would be willing to bet there are probably a few workers out there who worry too much about their patients. Cancer wards and neo-nate bays tend to have high turn-over in staff for this very reason.

Human suffering, at least when you are amongst it, is extremely hard to ignore. From a distance, however, it can then be ‘no skin off [your] back’.