A Different Point of View

“Time heals all wounds” is an age old saying that people use to comfort someone who is sad, or hurt, or who has suffered a loss. The idea being that sadness lessens given enough time, or that the period of mourning will be over—eventually. I am talking about emotional and psychological wounds, of course, and not the actual, physical ones. Physical wounds, if deep enough, always leave a scar behind, with deep and thick scar tissue to remind us of the shock that caused it. Emotional and psychological wounds actually have a chance to fully heal and leave no scar tissue behind, as the wisdom goes, but do these wounds really heal completely, given enough time?

They don’t completely heal, we all know that. We can pretend that they are healed, because no one can really see the actual wound. It is us who feel the pain, and it is us, who have to deal with the suffering. We can pretend that we are not suffering, even when we can barely stand the suffocating pain. We can also pretend that there is no wound to begin with by repeating over and over that it didn’t hurt! At the same time, there are those who enjoy the pain and like to suffer. They keep picking on the wound, until it festers and gets infected, and gets loaded with, you know, the “p” word. Yes, there is an emotional equivalent of the “p” word to that of the “p” word for physical wounds.

Before I say more, let me tell you about my favorite meme about this subject. It goes like this: My therapist told me, “Time heals all wounds.” So, I stabbed him. Now we wait…

Heal, don’t heal! That’s not important. What is important is how we deal with the pain. As one smart cookie said that it’s what we do with the time that heals. Some prefer pain killers. Drinking comes to mind. The heavier the pain, well, the heavier the drinking. It is like applying Orajel to the area. Numb the heck out of your tissue. Eliminate all the nerves that keep firing and the pain is no longer there. It may be a temporary solution, but hey, it works for the time being. We can apply more when the pain starts again. Keep numbing the pain and eventually, the pain will be replaced with some other problem. That is one way to solve our dilemma, replace one pain with another.

Or we could replace the horse that we fell off, with another horse. Some of you may readily know what I am talking about. It is about replacing the source of the pain with another equivalent source. Run from the arms of one, into the arms of another. You can forget about the pain if you can find a way to forget about the pain-giver. This method works like magic. Poof, and we are on another track and setting ourselves up for another, but different pain.

There is also the option to be the one causing the pain and not be the one suffering from it. Break hearts instead of getting your own heart broken. Cause emotional trauma to others before someone can hurt your feelings. Go on the offense, instead of being on the receiving end of things. Take the first shot; throw the first punch; make the first move; throw the ball, long and deep.

My favorite technique is to not give a darn. Don’t let anything bother you. Be nonchalant, as people who know me are sick and tired of me saying that. If you don’t make yourself vulnerable to emotional and psychological distress, well, then no one can cause any harm. Just don’t fall in love, or be attached to anyone, or even care. Once you achieve this aloofness, there will never be any wounds that need healing. You’ll go through life with no pain, and with a lot of gain. You’ll see that people are drawn to you like flies. It is human nature to try to change you in such a way that you become susceptible to such harmful things like affection, friendship, and adoration. But you don’t really need any of them to live a successful and fulfilling life. Yes, people say that to truly be happy, you do need such things in life. My response is very simple: Why try to be happy and risk being hurt, when you can just be content and live carefree. Why, indeed!

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We knew it was time for him to go and we were prepared for the news. But, when the news came, the shock was still very strong and jarring. I had never cried so much as I did when he took his last breath. Not so much at the void that he has left but at the relief that he was no longer suffering and could finally be at peace. May he rest in peace!

I remember my childhood and growing up under his watch. He was a good father and like all good fathers, gave us all the resources to grow and to be successful. He showed affection at a time when showing affection was not part of our culture. Fathers were meant to be strong disciplinarians with rigid and cold personalities. We were meant to fear our father. He was not supposed to be affectionate. He never uttered the words, “I love you,” to us. It was not part of our culture, or even of our language. But he made us feel loved, with his actions and his care, so that we never had to wonder. We just knew.

He had a great personality, was full of charm, and had a good sense of humor. I learned my first prayer from him and my strong belief in God came from his teachings. I learned about history and philosophy from him and even about medicine, as he practiced medicine as his calling. He taught me to be caring and giving, as a means to happiness. I also learned my first raunchy joke from him, when he told it to his friend while pretending I was not within earshot; not to mention, my love for reading, when he made all of his magazines and books available to me, irrespective of my age and the ability to handle adult content.

( Different Point of View ) We are three brothers and one sister and throughout our years, he helped nurture and develop our personalities as they suited us best. We each required different handling techniques and without any formal training, he and my mother managed to help us grow as unique individuals. He loved my mother with all of his heart and I think his decline started when she passed away at a rather young age.

Getting old is not for the weak, as the thought goes. He was strong, and as I learned, getting old is not for the strong either. Things start to happen that one normally does not anticipate, even though we see all others go through the same aches and pains. Body starts to collapse. Organs start to hiccup. Skin starts to loosen. Joints stop working. Pain becomes the norm, rather than the exception. More and more pills become part of the meal plan. Side effects from those pills add to the misery and soon quality of life is only as good as the effectiveness of the medicines being prescribed.

We wanted him to go in the end. He was bedridden. He could not move around, could not go to the bathroom on his own, and eventually could not even talk properly. The picture of a man with the ability to conquer the world changed to a shriveled skeleton of a being. That is the biggest loss for me.

The other day I looked in the mirror and saw my father staring back at me. Most people say that I look just like him and it was uncanny to see him standing there across from me, as he had looked when he was my age. I felt a sharp pang in my heart, as it became quite clear that I had reached that very same age when my father had started to decline. I just wish I could go back in time and do things differently, just to minimize the toll that life is about to take on me. I just wish I could get a second chance to be with my father and not take him for granted this time around. Alas!

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The lead doctor takes over, asks for a scalpel while he administered anesthesia. Then they all dig into the patient. The doctor operates, as one nurse hands him different tools, while the other wipes sweat off his forehead. Soon there is a smile, and everyone starts clapping as the doctor finds what was causing all that trouble to the patient and removes it. Another life saved, another miracle performed — all in a day’s work.

That’s what we see on T.V. every day. Emergency rooms are full of guardian angels standing between life and death. Our last hope—nay our only hope—when something tragic happens. Full of professionals working very hard and working way, way over time, to save the lives of our loved ones.

When we walked in with our son, we saw a waiting room full of other people in dire need of assistance with their aches and pains, with their emergencies and traumas. Only staff member present was the receptionist behind a glass window, like a bank teller, who pointed to a wall full of clipboards behind us. We first had to fill some forms.

We found a couple of empty chairs. My son took one, his mother took the other, while I stood next to her to assist. My daughter, who for the first time in her life showed a soft spot for her brother when she insisted on accompanying us, despite our advice that it was going to be a long night, started to complain about, well, everything. She was turning out to be more and more like her mother every day.

Once we turned the forms in, we were told to take a seat and wait. Wait, we did! Oh, boy, did we wait!
What I learned—something that will amaze you, I am sure—that there is no such thing as an emergency in the emergency room. There were people already waiting there, some in much worse shape than our son, and all looking towards the two doors that led to the inside of the hospital, hoping for someone to come out and call their name. Some were holding their heads in their hands; others were holding blankets that covered them, while our son was holding his cell phone tight—he had to Instagram the crap out of his experience.

One lady was brought in by an ambulance. No one rushed to help her. The ambulance crew dumped her in the same waiting room with us. It looked like she needed to lie down, but there were no chairs big enough to do that. Only chairs available were made of stone, and when one became available for me to sit in, within minutes my butt was asleep, my thighs were tingling, my legs were starting to become inflamed, and my feet went numb.

There was a two-seater under the T.V., occupied by one rather happy individual. When her name was called, my son hobbled quickly to jump in and stretch himself across to prevent that old lady from taking it. I have never seen him move so fast since the day he was born. His mom announced, rather aggressively, “that is for my son, my son needs to lie down.” He did. He can play his game on the cellphone much better when he is lying down.

Another ambulance brought a young man in a wheelchair and positioned him next to the receptionist. He was told that soon they’d come to take his x-rays. Hours passed, and no one came by, not even to check his pulse to see if he was still alive, let alone take any x-rays. Another man came in, also in a wheelchair. He kept asking for help and kept saying that if they cannot attend to him quickly, he was going to leave. There was one couple that kept asking for attention, as well. They were told that the doctor was doing a procedure and won’t be available for a while.

Both parties left after another hour or so of waiting.
It seemed the emergency room was shorthanded. I could understand that part. Businesses usually go through staff shortages, and an emergency room is a business just like any other. What I couldn’t understand though, nobody was complaining about the wait, other than that guy in the wheelchair, of course. At my business, people start complaining after ten minutes and start demanding their money back after another ten minutes. I didn’t see that kind of nastiness there that I usually see at my place.

A few names were called. A nurse interviewed our son and told him to wait again. More people came in. I could swear that at that time of the night, there were individuals that looked like from another dimension, or another planet, at the very least. Zombies were invading the emergency room, but since no one was paying any attention, they couldn’t do much, besides sit and wait. We kept shifting our chairs until we all could sit together next to one another. The bathroom was rather clean when we got there, but it kept getting worst and worst as the night progressed.

There was a lady who cleaned the floors a few times but didn’t wipe any of the chairs where all the sick people were sitting. I must have changed my chair about ten times, and by the time our son’s name was called, I must have picked up quite a cornucopia of germs.

The person who helped him was not a doctor; it was a nurse-practitioner. That is the answer from the medical profession to the insurance companies. While insurance companies mostly set the rates that doctors can charge to their members, doctors have promoted their nurses to the level of a practitioner. Honestly, maybe nurse-practitioners are probably the receptionists who have seen enough patients with routine problems that they can diagnose the majority of the cases.

They don’t even need a formal education. A nurse-practitioner is slightly above a mom. Only she doesn’t have a certificate to show for it.

Some doctors don’t even see new patients anymore. A nurse-practitioner must see all new patients, and once she or he refers a patient to be seen by the doctor, only then will the doctor take that case. Only then will the doctor be able to charge according to the juiciness of the case.

Our son needed two stitches. It is truly a sad story as to how he hurt himself. He was swimming in the community pool with his brother but had forgotten to take the key with him. When all other pool-goers left, they both got locked in. The smartest thing they could think of was to jump the fence. They could have asked someone for help; the manager only lived 100 feet away, but they decided to climb over the fence.

As all tragedies are made, this son of mine decided to use the trashcan on the other side of the wall as his landing pad. Of course, the trashcan did not like the idea and decided to move before my son could put his full weight on him. As my son fell, the spike went through his thigh. His wound had to be stitched, and he needed to get a tetanus shot, as his mother insisted.

We were back home after six and a half hours in the emergency room. My wife and I both had to take the day off because we didn’t get to sleep until after four in the morning. My son and daughter didn’t care because they are both off from school for the summer. I woke up the next day with a fever and a runny nose, which turned into a full-blown plague in the next couple of days. I had to ask my wife to take me back to that emergency room. I wanted to put all the germs back that the emergency room had so kindly given to me as a gift.

The worst part of our visit to the emergency room is the fact that my son’s uncles are upset with him. He couldn’t even jump a tiny, little fence; they are saying, while they had jumped bigger. Well, let’s leave it at that. I don’t want I.C.E. to pick their next lead from reading this column.

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