A couple days ago we drove down to Portland at 5 in the morning [a two hour drive] so I could get a test that will show the surgeon which lymph nodes my small melanoma cancer mole drained to. It is standard procedure-more on that later, I don't want this blog to be a diary of my aging body but I will share some things as I go along.
One lies on a scanning bed, the kind with an open ring [I told my doctor I am unable to go in an MRI tube and never will unless I'm dead}, and after they inject the cancer site with dye, you just lie there and wait. It was easy, and the shots are nothing since they numb the area.
Martyn had once said to me that I looked at hospitals and doctors with suspician and fear, and he looked at them as helpers–for they saved his young life years ago when he was involved in a horrific accident. A drunk driver ran a stop sign, out in the rural area he lived at, and Martyn was life flighted out of the area, and he spent weeks in traction and had multiple surgeries. He's lucky to be alive. For those that don't know the story, I had minor anxiety feelings when something bad was happening, and I waited almost 2 years to get on medicare to find a cardiologist as I knew the tests were too expensive. After three weeks of various stress tests, the final one showed I was 99.9% [no exageration] in my main artery, a shock to everyone since I eat right and am healthy. And they wisked me to surgery, I had no time to think or fear, I was just in complete "I am not in control of this" mode.
My mother drummed into my brain that people go to hospitals to die. That was her experience up in the country when she was growing up in North Dakota. Her mother died when my mother was only 8, of a completely ridiculous reason-she had appendicitis and the rural country doctor was known to be a drunk and he sent her home misdiagnosed and she died a horrible death. It clearly, as is understandable, marked her life and colored many of her personality traits and beliefs.
But I realized something as I was lying there, calmly, having this procedure in the same hospital where I'd had heart surgery a year and a half ago–I no longer felt fear of the hospital, or doctors. I told Martyn this, that after having so many procedures and getting to know the doctors, I felt like it was a place that helped me, and I saw it as a safe place. They were helpers. After facing such a serious surgery and aftermath...I just let it all go, the fear that is. As we left the radiology area, I caught a glimpse of a tunnel and I remembered being wheeled through those tunnels to get CT scans the days following surgery. It didn't scare me, I just thought of it like a positive memory.
It got me thinking how fear colors so much of our choices. This is true with animals too. The horse hears a strange noise as you are riding through the woods and fears it. His rider is hopefully a leader in his eyes, but if not, the horse reacts from fear. The dog bites out of fear more than displeasure. The child acts out not because he's bad but because he's fearful of doing it all wrong and getting punished again.
Or the person who has never met a person of another color or culture sees someone walking down the street towards them and becomes scared as they don't know them, and they confuse their mannerisms or dress or speech as a threat but it is more likely they are being misunderstood. Many people fear immigrants taking their jobs, even though the jobs they are working in are being helped by the immigrants, or the immigrants are working jobs many americans won't take. Have you harvested food for 10 hours a day? This is fear of status and power and ignorance of the real situation.
Fear colors politics and laws and always has and it always will, in my opinion. Fear of losing power, control, boundaries, positions, status...the list goes on and on. People stay in jobs and relationships out of fear.
So when I get fearful, I try to ask what is it I don't know that is making me scared. And look for helpers. Sometimes its a doctor.
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