Ask A Nurse

I remember well the summer of 1994, one of the best warm seasons I’ve ever known. Our second child was due in October, and we were scheduled to take a tour of Scotland in late July. A visit to “the old country” was good medicine, but our overseas adventure was placed in jeopardy when, ten days prior to my departure, I woke up one morning with a bleeding bowel.

Fearing for my health had never occurred to me before that unfamiliar morning. I arrived at the office thirty minutes before she started seeing patients and, when I reported my symptoms, my doctor performed a brief and thoroughly unpleasant procedure, and sent me straight to the hospital.

Now, I know many Canadians complain about Emergency Room wait-times, but I have a different story to tell. When I arrived, everything about my treatment was prioritized. I did wait for a few hours in Emergency, on a gurney, but once given a bed, my treatment procedure according to what I understood as proper and expedient protocol. I believe I received the best possible treatment available, and despite how much I despise living in such a dreary, practical place, an environment void of décor and utterly sanitized, I knew my recovery was the priority of all engaged in my care and treatment. I held that same opinion after witnessing the birth of my son and daughter, two very different events, but both took place in the company of skilled and conscientious practitioners.

Those of you who work in hospitals, and especially you folks involved in treatment, might like to watch the movie, “Ghost” (or again, if you like) to gain a little insight into how often the dearly departed wind up wandering around the halls of hospitals, trying to, in varying degrees, find out what the hell has just happened to them. For some, death comes quickly and sometimes without warning, and because our consciousness abides, they can find themselves disoriented and utterly confused, two typical symptoms or, more accurately, two typical states common to an unexpected departure from this Third Dimension.

My very real three-dimensional symptoms had earned me a ticket to immediate fasting, intravenous fluids, and an impatient wait for blood tests, an upper G.I. exam, and a colonoscopy. I was admitted on a Friday morning, and the tests were completed by Tuesday. By that time, I was displaying no symptoms whatsoever, and all I was given was a best guess in the form of “No specific diagnosis”. Now, I had a hunch that, after spending the warm summer night on the kitchen counter, the chilli had gone off. I ate it anyway. Grandma’s chilli was to die for, but I confess, I didn’t expect to experience a serious health crisis because of my passion for stewed beef in tomato sauce.

So, there I sat after all was said and done, waiting again but only the last few hours before my discharge. Two days later, I’d be flying Halifax to London direct on the redeye; in three days, I’d be standing in the Scottish Highlands drinking good whiskey and taking pictures of rocks and woolly cows. I was almost ecstatic, so I decided to take a little me-time and practice a sitting meditation.

The previous night, I wasn’t able to focus. An older man had been brought in around 04:00, and he was disoriented and rambunctious. He hollered for half an hour, and then the shouting suddenly stopped. The rest of us did our best to relax and to go back to sleep, but I remember lying awake for what seemed a very long time.

In meditation, time is meaningless. Time spent in one altered state or another can leave you with an entirely different sense of duration that, for me, seems completely dependent on the amount of information accessed and processed in the session. The more information, the longer it seems, but longer in memory, not when experiencing the actual event. Even before I closed my eyes, my mood had been enhanced by the news that I was completely hale and sound, and our U.K. trip would unfold entirely as planned. So, I closed my eyes and stilled my mind, seeking whatever glimpse of the vast mystic sea my faculties would allow on a fine summer morning in ward Three-West.

I sat still and comfortable. All was breath and bone, flesh and blood and the curiousity of consciousness to explore and expand and to seek. There was one breath, then another, and again one after another, ceaseless motion and perfect stillness, connecting and separating the highs above to the depths below, inward and outward in utter unison.

Suddenly, a familiar swift and murky motion swirled to my right, my eyes still closed tight. A picture formed, expanding outward from an indiscernible center. As if still sitting on my bed and casting a glance toward the door, I “saw” someone standing in the doorway, an older man who gave me the distinct impression he was a farmer (and I’ve known a few old farmers), standing with one arm raised and resting on the door-frame.

“Can I use that bathroom?” he barked.

Now, this moment was creating an entirely new level of novelty but I was so relaxed and so completely content, I held my focus. Having had a few of these same kinds of perceptions in the past did not prepare me for one quite so interactive and so I knew I was safe in assuming this was not a vivid glimpse of things to come. Instantly, I knew a sentient being was speaking with me from across the void, but it was also clear to me that only I knew and understood the true distance between us.

“Sure,” I silently said.

I opened my eyes and saw the same sterile scene I’d witnessed only a few minutes beforehand. I saw no one in plain view, but I had a hunch the old farmer was slowly making his way past the end of my bed toward the shared bathroom, soon to realize that he had no urine to stream and no body to cause him any further discomfort.

I can say with certainty I was the last person who talked to that old farmer from the world of the living, an event allowed in that one still moment by my heightened mood, the stillness I’d created, and by his surprise departure.

I hope he’s found fields of barley.