Aging Healthcare System

It is New Year's Eve. And I have time to blog-- some might call it ranting. I invite you to blog along and rant away with me in the fresh new days ahead.

Every Monday the daily paper runs a special section devoted to lifestyles and human interest, "Health and Fitness." A calendar is routinely included and community organizations, businesses and visiting conferences can post an announcement under "Fitness Events" or "Health Events." Today's calendar includes an announcement listed under "Health Events," and titled: "Look Great in 2008" I feel compelled to take a stand on this matter today. I am a registered nurse and I have strong feelings about the responsibility of the health care industry to truly care for the health of people.

The announcement is an invitation to drive out where our city's money lives (and practices medicine) around Wolf River Boulevard. We can attend a free seminar led by a plastic surgeon and the owner of a laser surgery center, a spa. These two well paid professionals will freely tell us about surgical and nonsurgical options for a more youthful appearance. In order for these two professionals to be paid, we first have to buy into their value system. It would seem they value their increasingly high income. And, it would seem, they prefer that we do our part, as pitiful aging schmucks, to keep gravity from pulling down our jowls and gluteal regions. It is a masterful exercise in illusions and conartistry. Let's be clear... neither health nor fitness are accurate headings for this posted announcement. It's a chance to take advantage of the fact that some of us are afraid of looking like ourselves.

For twenty five years I worked as a registered nurse. I took care of human beings in acute care settings. For ten years I listened to people who came to treatment because addictions had taken over the best part of their lives. For three years I bathed and turned people who had experienced severe head trauma. For three years I assisted five gastroenterologists in a practice where people made appointments to talk about and be treated for gut pain and dysfunction. I gave medicine to inpatient psychiatric people for two years. The most healing part of their treatment plan was the listening, sitting down and taking time to hear their stories and the stories told by their family members. I worked for a year in a weight-loss clinic. Here I saw first-hand how fear can be exploited for profit. I worked for two years on a stroke rehab unit and learned to highly respect the physical therapists and their practice. I worked for three years on a neurosurgery unit where life threatening tumors and blood clots were removed from the brains of people who got better, some for the rest of their lives and some for a while. Some surgery is miraculous in its capacity to improve the quality of life. I worked for one year as a hospice nurse, visiting and listening to people who were dying at home with their familiar things, their friends and family close by. That's when I went to seminary and earned my degree; then went to a Clinical Pastoral Education Program in a hospital to learn more about myself and how I can help people who suffer.

Here's my point: People rarely see how valuable they are in their own family and community. We rarely understand how much power we have to heal ourselves and each other. (Imagine for a minute what our world might be like if the medical profession focused on empowering human beings rather than holding power over us in our paper gowns as if we were children and they our benevolent fathers.) We are trained from birth to discount the value of our own gifts, to long for what we do not have, to envy those who fit the silver-screen standard for physical perfection. We want to belong to the popular crowd in school. We want to drive the expensive vehicle and make a statement in the car-pool line up. We shop, shop, shop in an effort to purchase that one glorious item off the shelf that will assure us of our worthiness. I am in the same soup pot as the rest of my neighbors and friends and family. I lived with an eating disorder for eighteen years, vomiting up every bite that dared to cling to my stomach walls in an effort to stay thin and acceptable to the God of Great Beauty. I had to weigh one hundred pounds or less in order to qualify for the air it would take to breathe my next breath.(For two years I ate lettuce only and for sixteen years I ate cookies and cakes with pie and ice-cream-- then vomited.) I did not die but it was not because I didn't try to kill myself for the sake of staying thin. I know the cost of buying into the illusions and conartistry that pads the pockets of advertisers, designers, retailers, and unscrupulous health care providers. As human beings, we have the power to look in the mirror and see what great effort has gone into our existence. We are each a storehouse of possibility and hope. Each one of us is creative, gifted with treasures to invent new ways to make life better for ourselves and the next generation.

Finding those treasures within ourselves can take time and sometimes therapy-- but rarely if ever-- does it take surgery. Most often the treasure is discovered after our muscles have weakened, our bones have become less sturdy and our vision is not as keen as it once was. Aging is not a disease. Aging is a privilege and a significant part of our human development. Aging adds value to our communities. It is a crime to distract human beings from the real and honorable experience of aging with grace and dignity. As if we didn't pay our dues in high school to the prom king and queen debacle. It is a crime to imply that forcing skin and bones to look like they did years ago has anything to do with health care. The universities that train our doctors know better. Doctors are educated in institutions of higher learning, not in some day long seminar for shysters. Graduates from medical schools ought to be the ones in the front lines, teaching people the value of life itself. Evidence based practice teaches that people grow wiser with age and they can take better care of themselves in their wisdom years if the health care professinals provide good life sustaining education. Not cosmetic surgery that tells the person, "You would still be a woman if you just looked more like Julia Roberts." Or else, "I could still call you a man if you looked something like Brad Pitt." Good healthcare education would prepare people to expect their skin to sag at a time in their lives when wisdom prevails. At a time in their lives when they have the most to give the rest of us.

We are beautiful. We always were. We always will be. We are creatures created in the image of God. That means Perfect Love lives in us and longs to be shared. No plastic surgeon can touch that or improve upon it. But it can grow sweeter and stronger with age-- if we do not lose our way by focusing on the little folds of skin around our eyes instead of the great vision that swells from our soul.

In his book, The Force of Character: The Lasting Life, John Hillman says that our later years confirm and fulfill our character. "In Japan, bowing the upper body is not simply a mannered postural greeting, a show of deference. It is also a practice that builds the ancestor into one's framework. Old people are supposed to be bent over like stalks of ripe rice. Our culture [unfortunately] sees only osteoporosis. We see the body, but not its instruction. Or we get one bare message only: We're heading for the grave."
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I feel sick when I hear of doctors taking advantage of people's misinformed fears. Look great in 2008? Let's look like ourselves and share from the best within us. Our bodies do sag with age. We change. We grow older as the years come and go. It is a good thing to look our age. It informs the youngsters, lets them know who they should turn to when they need things like truth, justice and hope.

A Sunny Tradition

When it is cold and gray outside, I enjoy warmer memories as I sit bundled up in a huge housecoat with furry houseslippers on my feet.

I was raised about an hour's drive from St Augustine and the beach-- which is where our family went to celebrate birthdays, Labor Day and Memorial Day. Grandma and Grandpa, aunts and uncles, cousins galore...we all converged on the beach with glad shouts, racing to be the first one to touch the salty water. Mama looked beautiful in her black bathing suit with her hair free and wild in the wind. Cousins chased us up and down the endless expanse of sand. We ate sandwiches with grit in every bite as if the grit were a special ingredient to mark the occasion. Those holidays seem close to heaven in my memory.

Is there anything better than a day at the beach? The tide came in. The tide went out. The waves reminded us all day long that everything changes, in and out, in and out. Our castles were washed away and we enjoyed watching them fall, dissolving, as much as we had enjoyed building them. We all wore festive sun-burn by the end of the day since this was prior to the time when we started packing sun block protection in our beach bags. We knew it was time to go home when we felt that tight cold feeling on our shoulders, when our cheeks were sizzling.

I remember riding home in the back of our station wagon, stacked like a log among my brothers as we alternately slept and stared out at the night sky above us. We always woke up for a treat at the Dairy Queen. Mama and Daddy sang in the front seat. If there were troubles in our lives, they were set aside for the day.

If I cannot go to Florida today, the next best thing is to take a trip into my memories and relax into its warmth. I had no idea back then, digging a hole with a brightly colored plastic shovel, how special those moments were. How rare. I wonder what I will be doing this holiday season that will one day show up in my warmest and favorite memories.

Encouragement

Most people who know me also know that I love to watch birds. One of the great joys of a road trip is seeing a hawk perched in the branches of a tree or soaring high over a field. On a recent trip with my brother, we saw an osprey high up in a dead tree. At first glance, we thought it was an eagle. As I write in my study at home, I watch flocks of sparrows in our back yard. The finches have moved on for now. They'll return when the sunflowers bloom. Birds inspire me. Their beauty increases my sense of gratitude.

A few years ago when I was working as a chaplain at Methodist Hospital in Memphis, I was out on an emergency call in the middle of the night. A heart attack had suddenly claimed the life of a beloved husband and father. The family and friends were in shock as I helped them make phone calls, sip from trembling cups of coffee and cry on each other's shoulders. We stood in a circle for prayer before I walked outside to breathe the 4 a.m. air and stretch my sleepy muscles. I was heading back to the on-call room, hoping to get at least one full hour of sleep before day light.

Through the cool darkness I heard honking, Canadian geese flew in formation over my head. Wisps of clouds surrounded their flight as they moved, a single unit, across the sky. Geese fly in a formation that confronts the force of an oncoming wind. The leader has to exert the most energy as her/his beak cuts into a wall of wind. The others follow. No one goose is expected to lead all the time. That demanding duty is rotated regularly as geese migrate. All the geese honk their voices as an encouragement for the one who leads, calling to the one who is working the hardest as they travel together. Encouraging the leader is as significant as being the leader. The flock moves forward as one unit. The goal is to survive.

I found myself crying, standing alone on the sidewalk outside the hospital. I cried for hardships that wild animals endure in this world. I cried for the family who had just begun to process their tragedy and loss. But I also recognized the taste of sweetness in my tears...in the family's response to one another. Their hugs, comforting words and shared memories would hold each friend and family member, encourage them as they moved forward through the next few days and weeks. Just as the geese honk to let the leader know s/he is not working alone, not beating those great wings against the air for nothing. We are all in this life together. If we're going to make it, we'll make it by flying together as one surviving group, moving toward the fulfillment of our community's highest vision.

Great Gift Givers

So here it is the season of giving and I am so aware of the really great gift givers in my life. My daughter is able to come up with exceptionally perfect things. I am thinking of the book she made for me several years ago, a collection of pictures and written memories...a history of our relationship. Immediately, it was one of my favorite things.

My brother, Stanley, recently gifted me with a surprise that brought tears to my eyes and became another highly cherished item. The gift came by Fed Ex after a camping trip we took together at the end of this past summer.

It was my idea to go camping. I love the sound of bird song when I wake up in a sleeping bag, separated from the earth and the furry creatures only by the canvas walls of a tent. I love the smell of bacon frying over a fire outside. I like the taste of coffee from a tin cup. I like the outdoor feeling that insists there is no place I have to be, no task that must be done other than to sit, eat, drink, and appreciate the beauty of nature. I am where I belong-- wearing flannel and seated by a fire.

My brother is the perfect camping companion. He is strong. He has a pick up truck big enough to hold everything we needed and some stuff I just wanted to bring along. He is very informed about the outside world and the creatures who live there. These are essential qualities for a camping friend. Stanley is good natured when putting down tent stakes, dragging branches to the camp site for firewood and unloading heavy coolers of ice and food. He saw to it that we had a crackling fire for our three days and nights in the woods. He brought a row boat. And he enjoys aimless, quiet hikes in the woods as much as I do.

It had recently rained when we arrived at our destination. We made sandwiches and sat under a pavilion to eat. We told each other stories, reminding each other of our childhood days and our turbulent teenage struggles. Before I finished my sandwich I realized what a treasure this camping trip was going to be.

We rowed Stanley's boat out on the lake and saw a beaver hard at work in the water. A great blue heron stood like a tree at the water's edge and waited for food to swim by his motionless feet. We saw a river rat swimming through a cove thick with lily pads. We walked in the woods and startled raccoons who ran to get out of our way. We saw so many deer we lost count. We drove over to a buffalo sanctuary and stared at the great beasts in the field, imagining what life was like when Native Americans depended on them for so many daily necessities. A gray fox visited our campsite each evening just after darkness settled in outside the light of our fire.

We both collected rocks and pieces of drift wood, art pieces from nature to add to the beauty of our back yards at home. One particular piece of drift wood caught our attention at the same time. It was lovely, about a foot long and four inches wide. The water had carved a circular pattern in its center. The piece spoke to me of peacefulness and connections. I wanted it. But Stanley insisted that it belonged to him. "You may have seen it first, but I picked it up." The matter was settled.

Neither one of us wanted the camping trip to end. We packed up and Stanley drove slowly out of the forest and toward civilization. We stopped to eat one more meal outside-- at a roadside picnic area. Funny. The two of us shared the same bedroom until I was eleven years old. He is only one year older than I am. In so many ways we are like twins. Much is said between us without a word being spoken.

We returned to our homes, our partners and our work lives. A few days went by. I heard the Fed Ex truck squeal to a stop out front. A package was dropped on the porch. It was from Stanley. What had I left in his truck? I opened the package and gasped at what I saw. It was the lovely piece of drift wood, the piece I had tried to claim. Stanley had taken it home and had carved into it images of the great blue heron, the buffalo and the little gray fox. They stared out at me from the piece of smooth wood in my hand. Peaceful connections, memory keepers, straight from our natural surroundings.

There are some great gift givers in my life. People who know how to give gifts that connect the most significant dots. Makes me glad to be alive. And makes me more aware, looking around to see what I might give that would mean as much for someone I love.