A Very Spooky Medical Crisis
WHOOOO AWWWWW OOOOOO ! (Insert werewolf sounds!)
Ahhhh…October! A joyous time of warm spices and transitional weather. Hot one second, cold the next. We begin to layer. We are layering not only our clothes, but our Halloween/Fall decorations and especially our social calendar. Things are filling up (or are already packed to the max!)
In our world, we have two birthdays and an anniversary that set the festive stage for Halloween. We love celebrating and fall celebrations are the BEST! This year, two of our celebrations were spent in the ER with mysterious neurological symptoms. Very spooky indeed!
Mysterious Neurology could be the next big horror film. It would be terrifying.
(Seriously, someone write that.)
As anyone who has had mystery symptoms knows, it is a lot of tests with very little answers and none of it is happening quickly. The hospital walls are decorated for Halloween. Spiderwebs, ghosts, cute jack-o-lanterns, adorable bats, and for me, these decorations are really comforting in a really scary situation. It was nice to have something to look at while waiting, and someone put in the effort to make the place brighter for everyone there.
The medical staff is clearly overworked and tired, but everyone is making their best attempt at getting through. There are dark jokes, comments about how there is no candy yet, and the busy ever-moving processes that they have to go through. A lot of boxes to be checked by a lot of different people. And I didn’t know their names.
They knew mine. They check the spelling of your name on the sticker or wrist band several times, but no one was calling me by name except to shout it through the waiting room. It was very busy, so I started saying, “Hi! What is your name? I’m Allison, nice to meet you.” Every single one of them laughed. Not laughing at me, but I guess that interaction doesn’t happen very much. And from what I could hear coming from patients it is clear why. So much anger, so much stress, so much frustration. It was also terrifying.
How do we as humans react when we are at our max and something terrifying happens?
We Freeze.
We Fight.
We Flee.
All are normal reactions, all are valid, and all have their place and their time. In the couples workshops, we talk about this in-depth. How our hard-wiring kicks in when we are stressed mentally, emotionally, or physically. So in a medical situation, everyone is operating under high stress.
The ER is basically one of those scary haunted houses where werewolves jump out at you and you firmly yell “NO!” and then scream your head off while racing to get out of there. But the werewolves are just people in pain and the ones that want to run out of there are at work.
I can’t help but see the incredible benefits for medical staff to have access to Imago skills in their work. Primarily for their own sanity, and also for the patient’s experience. I had one marvelous PA mirror me when I was describing my symptoms. She said back to me what she heard and since I was having difficulty speaking, it meant so much to hear that I had communicated what was happening correctly.
A simple mirror does wonders for that terrified Lizard Brain.
Still no answers, but a lot of things checked off the list and the biggest win was meeting a lot of wonderful people working really, really hard to save lives in impossible conditions.
Hopefully, the rest of October will be layered with wonderfully spooky things! Let’s try to let all the wonderful things about Fall and Halloween (connecting with our neighbors, celebrating transitions, make-believe, and FINALLY a big ole pile of candy) bring your nervous system to a peaceful place. After you get away from that annoying Haunted House werewolf…or mirror them. 😜
Don’t forget to thank your local medical providers, nurses, PAs, doctors, specialists, CNAs, and Admins!
We would like to offer a discount to medical staff for our November workshop. Use SUPERMED at check-out and receive $100 off the price of the workshop.
If you do not have a partner and would like to attend with a colleague, join us!
