for the love of the Sage Bug, no. 5: 09/20/10

It's been awhile since I've been here. Today now being Monday, even though we are no longer in Room 12, this reflection is one that's been with me for a few days. I find I need to finish it and let it go, as it is pertinent to the world of hospital, recovery, health and healing, or at least my experience of it. And as time goes, everything moves and goes. Too many happenings and too many hours passing oh so quickly, which is a strange thing, because, again, one of the strange things that happens in this world of intense care and hospital life is the plasticity of time, and also how at the same time a single moment can also stretch on for an eternity.

I think of and wonder about this thing we measure as time and our awareness toward it. It seems everything is organized and managed by the hour, the week, the day that we know it to be. It's what makes our individual and collective worlds work. It's what we agree upon, just like it's understood that green means go, red means stop, no matter where you are in the 'modern' world.

But time in the world of intensive care, well it's strange. Whole hours, mornings and days pass, and where are you in it? tidying up a windowsill, sorting clothes for laundry, waiting for the medical team to round, listening to alarms and watching machines, having tea and one of those good cookies from Au Bon Pain, and already the sun is setting in the western sky. 

These days pass not so much by hours anymore, but rather by events, observations, rituals. Counting to 15 every time I wash my hands (apparently the magic number for reducing the risk of infection). Noting where the medical team is on the unit for rounds and when it is our turn. What chapter and book we are on. Looking at the board at 6:30, day or night, to see who is on for the next twelve hours, the name of the one caring for Sage and writing the notes, answering the bell, giving meds, ice chips or a cold drink, reassurance while checking the lines, turning off the IV or ventilator alarms, shifting pillows as needed or desired. 

It's equally strange to realize that anything can become 'the norm' if you do it for long enough, that maybe it is only a matter of time before whatever is happening and whatever you are doing is what you become used to. So being here now for as many days as it's been, I don't know if I am used to it. In such a weird way, it's just become what is. There is no past or future, it's just now.  

The last time I started this particular reflection it was day 49 or 1,176 hours of being in the Intensive Care Unit. I'm told that's a lot of hours, but I don't know. Is it? What's a lot? How does that get measured? Is it relative to what you're doing, where you are, what you're in the middle of? Is 49 days different from one and a half months, in the way it sounds or feels? I'm not sure what I know anymore, except for some 'oh yes ah ha' moments of clarity and understanding that find me  - or I them - in very unlikely places and times. Usually when I am not looking for them, and most often when I am quiet, still and unsuspecting.

I've come to know a couple of things since being here, which certainly doesn't mean I would wish this experience on anyone or that somehow it's some sort of great thing to be going through. Again, it just is what it is. It's not so much what comes to us that matters, but how we meet it, greet it, deal with it and be with it.

So what I've come to know. A lot. More than I realize and it may take me 49 days times 10! before I might be able to verbalize or see it. But for now, there are three things that float down like feathers before me that I'm able to catch and hold, if only for a moment, in words:

1. Medicine is as much as an art as it is a science.
And the science part of it is often only as good as the person interpreting it. There are the numbers, the assessments, the "if this is happening, then it means this" approach, the learning about, the knowledge of the systems, the organs, the way everything works together in the human body. That is most definitely a science, and I think the 'how' of that science - how it is spoken, defined, deduced, considered - is an art. It's an approach and understanding that can't be measured. It has to do with the humanity of the person taking all that in, and how s/he does that can be, and often is, artistry. I've seen it here, both the science and the art of it, and when it is present in that human form, you just know it, like the taste of water in the desert.

2. The human body is, quite simply, remarkable. 

It is, it has to be (so I think) some profound expression or force or source of God or just love, far beyond our comprehension and grasp. It's amazing the body works the way it does and that it works so well. It's equally amazing that more doesn't go wrong with it more often - that with such an incredibly complex system, it all flows so smoothly the majority of the time. 

It's kind of remarkable as well that the majority of us know so little about our physical body, how it works and if we have any idea of the chemistry and biology within it. The levels, the nutrients, the organs and muscles, membranes and pressures and relationships needed to have it all function - it's a wonder it all comes together and kind of crazy that we take it for granted the way we do.

3. Patience and courage are most definitely disciplines. 
Through the forging of both and with a splash of grace, they can be transformed into virtues - but it isn't a given and it doesn't always happen. Again, I've seen this, been witness to it, through the company I've been keeping, the one constant through these days and now months: Sage. She is so uncomplaining it's humbling. Accepting of it all without being resigned to it. Clear as a bell as to what she needs. Just knows herself and goes from there. Whether sleeping, awake, sedated or conscious, the inner core is so ridiculously solid. You don't go through something like this on any level without a level of inner discipline that is unspoken; being in the presence of it, well it's hard to fathom, but it brings you to your knees and tears to your eyes. 

So perhaps all there is to do is stay quiet and keep the palm open, pay attention and be ready to catch what will come, if one is so lucky and bold to find it. That's all I seem to know for now, among so much that there is still to know. And really I guess underneath it all, behind even these words, just lies gratitude. For all of it. For Sage. For the gift of life and the gift of life in Sage and personified as her.
As amazing and remarkable as medicine and the human body. Bless all of it, in every moment.