Good morning relatives
its snowing how great is that
we have had a intensive week here at the Center of the the East and West Gate
this week we have had big lessons on ego disguised as compassion I am so grateful to the negative teacher
when I was in veterinary school at U Penn in Philly doing my residency in dentistry and orofacial surgery I was on call one night ( I was actually on call every night as I was the only resident in our department LOL) and I got called in to see a dog that was bleeding from under his tongue.
He was a white boxer, 13 years old, and just a sweetie. he of course belonged to an older woman who loved him so much so much in fact that she almost loved him to death. he had presented to the ER for bleeding under his tongue and lethargy. the lethargy was from blood loss. when I got to the hospital and reviewed the findings with the ER doc as they were the first to see him his biggest rule out was an oral mass that was dehiscing ( basically they suspected he had a big tumor under his tongue that was bleeding out).
Now its really important relatives that I explain here that what the initial impression is in any case that presents to the ER is probably the difference between saving a life or ending it. At least in the veterinary world. How so ? well when a pet presents to the university hospital ER they see a resident or intern that will do the initial assessment, triage the patient and then ultimately offer options to the owner.
IF the first doc or second even that sees the patient is incorrect in their assessment of the patient then the owner might decide to euthanize their pet rather than treat based on the wrong thought process.
one of the most difficult tasks that a teaching hospital has is teaching its doctors young and old to not make snap judgements. it is critical to observe a patient not judge them. Observation is very different than judgement Judgement can cost a life.
observation leaves room for discovery of the true reality or underlying facts no matter how obscure or different they are from what our mind tells us is present. Often our ego can push at us to create for our own convenience a story that to us is plausible and gives us the right to start taking lives left and right. But that story is only an illusion that we have created to save face, or to make us look like we know what we are doing when we don't. In the ER (as well as in any other relationship ) this habit of snap judgements and telling stories to support them can be deadly.
it's really important when faced with any kind of situation that is traumatic or freaks us out or knocks us off our comfort zones that we don't let ourselves get distracted by the shock. If we start euthanizing relationships based on trauma or shock or fear we will make mistakes that are really hard to fix.
Most of us are taught from the time that we are children to assess and judge to determine what we see rather than find out what is present in front of us. and believe me relatives we all carry a big old fat library around with us just full of stories waiting to be told. Stories about how a teacher was too hard on a student that got tired of learning her lessons. stories about how the old woman at the door is seeking help for her children who miss their long dead father, stories about how we cant afford to followthrough on our spiritual commitments because we fell down the stairs. You know those stories those ones that make us the hero and whomever we need to distance ourselves from the villain, because they were illuminating just a little too brightly the fact that we didn't keep our financial commitment not because of unexpected medical bills but because we spent that money on ourselves first because we don't like how it feels to do without. Lights that reveal that the old woman was really using her children and her dead husband to lure the gatekeeper into his ego and thus neglect his post at the gate which ultimately will cause the house to fall to the predators lurking just behind her skirts, Lights that reach into the dark and reveal a pattern in the student that this is the fourth or fifth spiritual school that she has attended because she never follows through on her lessons at any of the previous ones and finally here at last at this one she once again chooses that the way is too hard and the teacher is a meany.
those veterinary school teachers are meanies for sure. They push and push at young doctors publicly to think again, look again at the facts, what are the facts and what is the story? What are you deciding rather than reporting? what is the consequence of that decision? what is your agenda!!
That old boxer dog was lucky that he had an owner that was so attached to him. The ER doc had recommended as had almost all the other docs that saw that dog before I got to the hospital, that the owner put him to sleep. Whatever that was under his tongue was big and bloody and horrible. it was a boxer for cripes sake! everyone knows that boxers are prone to cancer. and to top it off oral cancer especially involving the base of the tongue has a really bad prognosis. so the story line became that this boxer dog had oral cancer, a poor prognosis and the humane thing to do was euthanize it.
the humane thing was death.
death of a relationship
its funny how stories often lead to death don't you think? curious isn't it how we are taught that the villain must be discovered and put to death. the enemy shot the alien crushed the mean old teacher squished like a bug from our lives we will live on victorious no one needs a cancerous relationship do they?
well there is a reason that euthanasia is not legal in human medicine.
its because people like a good story and they like putting themselves and their story in the lime light rather than the light of truth they like being a victim so that their actions are heroic
want to know where that kid learned to kill what he felt threatened him at that school and in his mother and then in himself ? he learned it from fairy tales, from movies, from his parents and friends from us.
everybody counted on the thought that he would have the same villains that they did . that he would see the same threats that they would that his story would match theirs and the status quo of reality would be maintained. but he didn't see it the way they did. we are all so busy seeing the horror of the gun from what he did that we aren't seeing the horror of judgement followed by action.
the right to act in judgement to decide the teacher is a meanie to kill the villain makes a hero
those are the things we should be in an uproar about relatives
about the stories that we make up that lead to the death of a relationship. In our need to teach our children that the thrill of the story is more important than the truth we are teaching them that some day it is ok for them to euthanize us when we don't suit their fancy any more.
we are teaching them that being the hero and killing the villain or disposing of relationships that make us uncomfortable so uncomfortable that we cannot face ourselves in the mirror any longer so we shatter it. Those lights in those relationships that make us face the fact that we cant pay our spiritual commitments because we don't want to be disciplined at balancing our spiritual checkbooks. we don't want to be accountable for our actions and our words
and what is another boxer dog any way?
so relatives how do the teachers at a university train the best and the brightest to lay aside the habit of judgement? the convenience of the story? Especially if that story makes them out to be the hero doctor?
they teach us discipline they teach us consequence they hold us accountable publicly they use a thing called grand rounds. Grand rounds is where all the departments and students and clinicians and residents and interns and doctors to be gather together and cases are reviewed step by agonizing step publicly and the doctor that made the choices is raked over the coals publicly about every decision every communication every penny spent of the clients money and every consequence of every action or INACTION is publicly critiqued.
sound really abusive doesn't it? sounds like an archaic nightmare how would you like that about your spiritual life? hmmmmm
how would you like to have your checkbook on grand rounds? hmmmm
or your ego?
or your latest story about the teacher being a meany?
think it would hold up?
that is how they teach young doctors to do away with the convenient story and to stop with the judgment and to seek observation and facts and to not overstate or to make decisions for the client. and you know what it works Most of the time
sometimes like with the boxer dog thing slip through the cracks.
when i got to the hospital I got the story of the boxer with the oral mass and I was actually directed by doctors that had more letters behind their name than I did to use my authority as the orofacial surgery resident of this most prestigious veterinary teaching hospital in the united states to encourage this woman to put her dog to sleep because it was the humane thing to do and I should not try and waste her money or put the dog through more suffering. I was instructed to do that to use my influence as the final word of our department to put the finishing touches on their story.
now I don't know how many of you have been fire keepers or gatekeepers I have and the first thing that happens is that you are asked to abandon your post. and usually it is by the emperor himself. but don't do it relatives don't abandon your post if you do the kingdom will fall
you know how on yahoo mail or paypal or your bank website they send out on occasion a little reminder that you should never ever EVER give out your password and that they will never ever EVER ask for your personal information or passwords even if the bank is burning down to the ground!! those reminders. well it's the same when you are a doctor
never ever ever let someone else tell you what to do with your authority your license or your signature ever ever EVER
the same goes for being a spiritual firekeeper never never never leave the fire ever
so instead of recommending that she put her dog to sleep I asked her what she fed her dog
I went to great schools, I had great teachers, my dad was a great teacher, Grey Antelope was a great teacher, you are great teachers, Margaret Behan is on of the best ones, so I don't forget that they believed in me. I don't give up or give in to doubt or let someone else tell me what the spirits are saying so easily as all that. I was worth teaching because I won't abandon my post and because they knew that I wouldn't be dissuaded from shining the light into the dark and seeing what was present. The light has no judgment it is just light. what it shows is lurking in the dark is not just the good that people who got lost need to remember about themselves, it also shines fully on what people try to hide in the dark. what they are covering up with their story about the teacher being a meany. my teachers also knew that I would keep shining the light even when all the forces of the dark tried to extinguish it. keep on with the light.
so I asked that old lady that owned the boxer dog that everyone one wanted her to euthanize about what she fed her dog and when she first noticed the blood she said she fed him canned food which he loved! but that for the past week or so he had difficulty swallowing. He had gotten in the trash a few times and gotten cans out and that she just didn't want to put him to sleep. i asked her if she ever let him lick off of the spoon or out of the cans and she said with a bit of a guilty surprised look yes! and yes he did on occasion get a can out of the trash. I asked her how long ago she caught him with the bloody can and she said about a week ago.
so I recommended that we take her dog to surgery and look under his tongue with general anesthesia and see what we would see and go from there we could always euthanize him. but bringing him back to life wasn't going to be that easy if we made a mistake and the facts didn't in the end support the story.
Trust me Relatives there is nothing in the veterinary world that teaches a young doctor and sometimes even an old one not to make up stories about the facts faster than the unwarranted death of a patient. Nothing teaches accountability like finding out at the necropsy table that there was no mass, there was no cancer in the lungs, that it was something simple something fixable. something that could've saved a life if everyone had just not gone with the convenient story.
I've even had owners come in with stories about their pets wanting me to euthanize them just because they were tired of them, or tired of picking up poop, or never bothered to train them or fence the yard or they just wanted a new boyfriend and he didn't like dogs so the answer was death for the animal and they all seem to think that they can direct what I did as a doctor. its pretty amazing that when people come in a veterinary office they think they own your license. That for a $45.00 exam fee they get to not only kill their pet they are tired of or who has become inconvenient because that pet reflects that they are an uninterested and uninvested owner, but that they have the right to make you the doctor put that animal to sleep. I think its like the same thing they think about spiritual teachers or leaders that we are for sale. like a spiritual supermarket that if they give money they get to determine what comes out of a spiritual leaders mouth or out of their prayer or the syringe of a doctor.
Remember that the reason someone gets assigned the role of teacher or leader spiritual or otherwise is usually because they can see beyond the convenient facts. because they can put two and two together and get one. eventually that light they see in the dark with is going to reveal something about you or themselves that you would rather it didn't. But that is what makes them who they are isn't it?
How did I know that that boxer dog was worth a second look? well I didn't know but I saw the facts differently than my colleagues. it was a boxer dog so the breed is prone to cancer but this boxer was 13 years old if that dog was going to have cancer it would've been when it was 7 or 8 years old. this one had already outlived that idea. also even though that tissue under the tongue was bloody and smelly it could just as easily be from impacted food or infection. and the dog was other wise really healthy and bright. And most of all the owner owned the dog not me or my story. and she was not ready to give up on him.
so we went to surgery which is called exploratory exploratory surgery
how many of us forget to go on to this next step when things get tough how many of us avoid exploring the facts? looking for what ever is true even if it is obscure or inconvenient or perhaps doesn't put us in the best light? the exploratory process is what helps us determine what is crap and what is not crap what is repairable in a wound and what is non vital you cant just sew up an old wound without debrideing it or you will enclose dead tissue with living bacteria will be overwhelming the same with the investigatory process that should test out the story that leads to death of a relationship if your story has holes in it then what will leak forever into your subconscious and your heart and mind no matter how far into the dark you push it is your own guilty fabrication. you have to live with that or as I found out early as a kid and then young doc and young spiritual student not live with there is no living and no good sleep with the kind of stories that wont hold up to exploration.
That dog had cut the underneath of his tongue licking out the inside of a dog food can he got out of the trash, he had licked and repeatedly cut his tongue and it had gotten all bloody and had food in it and it was shredded. it looked horrible to the eye that was willing to make up a story ending in death it was the perfect prop. but in reality it just needed to be cleaned and sorted and the dead parts cut away and then all of it sewn back together. and most important of all get a dog proof trash container so it wouldn't happen again.
One of the things that we also learned as doctors in training. Is that we have a responsibility to own up to our own ability or inability. If you or I are not cut out to be ER doctors then we need to admit that. If we jump to erroneous conclusion over and over about things then when is it that we learn to stop jumping? if we are more invested in our pride and ego than we are truth how many relationships will we kill before we are willing to kill our ego? its a good question relatives. its one of the responsibilities of a teaching hospital to determine who has and who doesn't have the ability to be a doctor. who do you want in charge of your pets health? in charge of teaching your children generosity? in charge of your medical care in the future? able to make that decision to pull the plug on you when the time comes? if you are someone who jumps over and over to conclusions that lead to death of a relationship, or makes up stories that only shine you in the best light who is responsible to tell you no?
and do you want the children who have watched you make up all those convenient stories all these years and kill of relationships that shined the light on who you really are, do you want them to make the decision about your euthanasia?
so there are those of you who have read this long long blog and been entertained by the story, those who will identify with different characters those who will use it to explore their own stories and those who will see in the mirror the finger of their own conscious pointing back at them.
Best of all those who will see me as a meany. and i am a meany I mean what I say and I mean what I see and I mean what I do I don't mind being the meany especially if it means you get the big picture
It all depends on what you believe in what you value the most what kind of student of your own life you are how many dogs are you willing to put to sleep? how many spiritual leaders are you willing to discard? how many are in favor of gun control rather than teaching each other not to be judgmental or to have heroes or villains and that death is not an acceptable answer for a relationship that is difficult or that makes you uncomfortable.
I can say one thing today I like who I am and who I turned out to be and it was tough over my life to learn to let that light shine in all of my dark places I didn't want to see them either let alone anyone else but Xena the warrior princess reminded me last night that people do make mistakes, that the heart with a good intention should always be protected, and jumping to conclusions about the events that preceded a massacre and who is at fault doesn't always mean that the guilty party gets punished.
next time I will eventually get to that part about ego and compassion but right now I'm off to do the rest of my day
love ya
mean it
mb
No comments:
Post a Comment