For those of you who have been wondering if I abandoned this project, the answer is no. For the past month and a half, I have just not been up to par. I thought that it was perhaps just a season of silence, also known as writer’s block. A trip to my doctor confirmed that that was not the case.
I had scheduled my yearly visit because I was feeling a strange tightness in my chest. When I scheduled it, I thought I would see him as usual and he would give me a short list of things to do, which I would immediately abandon to go on with my busy life. A short 15 minutes after I called, he called me back, “Go to the emergency room”, he said. “Why?” I replied. “Because I said so!” he replied. Now that has never been enough reason for me to do anything, just because someone told me to. And I let him know I was not that bad off that I needed to spend 4 or 5 hours of my precious time sitting in a room full of sick people reading 3-year-old magazines. I told him I was fine, and he let me know that I had better keep my appointment, in no uncertain terms. Like he was going to hunt me down or something.
For those of you wondering, I have a wonderful rapport with my doctor. He checks me out, tells me what to do, and I go merrily on my way, forgetting whatever it was he said. I usually see him once a year, he gets his digs in (You need to lose weight, you need to stop this or that, you need to get all these tests done.), and then he forgives me for not doing anything he tells me. This year however, I went prepared. I weighed myself before I went, on the off chance that his scale was wrong, and went with the lightest clothing I could find. At least I felt I had covered one base.
This year the visit was different. I was not feeling well, and when he took my blood pressure, it was “off the charts” as he said. Then he asked me what had been going on in my life over the past year. I told him I had retired, and he concurred that that was a good thing, and then said “And what else”. ”Well, lets see. I have lost five friends this year in the space of eight months, the most recent in just the past couple of weeks. I have taken on going to the nursing home, not just for my dad, but also for all of his roommates. (When I leave there, I have a list long as my arm.). I am still working 18 hours a week, but I had been putting in another 25 doing stuff for other people. This is, after all, what I feel I was called to do. Which means anything someone else asks me to do. So in all actuality, I am retired, but I am working more hours than I did when I worked full time. BUT it is for a good cause.” I paused, thinking of some way to redeem my prior statements. Then it came to me. “You know your scale is only 4/10ths more wrong than mine…”
I wasn’t really paying attention to him as I related this, but when I looked up, his eyes were big and very, very stern looking, and he said, “I believe this is stress related, but just to be sure, I am going to check your heart, considering your age..” What, now I am old??
He proceeded to name off a list of the things I had to do, as he wrote up the referrals, known by me as “The List.” “I want you to have an Echocardiogram, an EKG, complete battery of blood work, a Nuclear Stress Test, a chest X-ray. Then I want you back here in two weeks for more blood work and a blood pressure check. Then I want you back here in three weeks for a follow-up and in four weeks another follow-up. “My brain began to tune him out and all I as hearing was Yadayada yada…… And then it hit me. “So you want me to reduce my stress, but you give me a list as long as my arm, adding things to my already busy schedule. What part of reducing stress is this?”
“It’s the part where we find out what is wrong with you.”
Now he didn’t have to order a battery of tests longer than a college entrance exam. He could have just asked me, and I would have told him what was wrong with me. I am stubborn and willful. That is why I throw his list out the window as I am driving out of his parking lot. It is also the reason why I think I can do all things myself, unassisted, and it is also the reason why I think no one else can do those things. It is apparently also the reason why my blood pressure went through the roof this past month. And there is one other reason why I feel this way.
I am in a constant learning process. God is always teaching me some new thing, and if I shrug it off, without learning it, He brings it back to my attention. Most of the time it is in a gentle manner, reminding me that I need to attend to something, but this time, it was a gripping pain in my chest. He got my attention. He has been trying to teach me for years that in order to be an effective servant, I have to take care of myself.
Dr. C. will be happy to note that I am following all of his instructions, even though I am complaining about them the entire time. He really is the best doctor I have ever known, and I give him props for not throwing me out years ago. However, I still want to add that if he didn’t want me to be stressed, he should have ordered up a paid vacation on a beach somewhere, far from the demands of life, where I couldn’t get myself into trouble.
Although I doubt the insurance would pay for it, and I am sure that there is no where on the planet I couldn’t find some trouble to get into. But at least, he could try..
Copyright © 2011 by Susan Linn-Gomez. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright © 2011 by Susan Linn-Gomez. All Rights Reserved.
