The Sick

A week ago I was at my family doctor’s to have a cyst looked at, so that I may be referred to a specialist.  Both doctors have seen me about this reoccurring issue, but the last one was in 2002, and my family doctor does not have the record anymore, so I needed to be re-assessed. 

I left without a ‘script, as it didn’t appear infected, as with the previous two times.  Still though, I was warned that there could be a waiting list to see this doctor who in theory can help me.  The specialist said that if this happened again, he would sew the pocket up. 

Now it is infected, and I have heard nothing yet this past week, not even that the specialist was contacted.  Fortunately, I have a great dermatologist, and I remembered this past long weekend that he can most likely help me, as he treated cyst-like pimples on my chin when I went through an awkward phase of adult acne on my chin in my mid-late twenties.  He is a great doctor, and one of the few who I trust as well.

So after calling him this morning, his assistant, who is just about as awesome as he is, made an appointment for me for tomorrow morning – even the very earliest one so that I won't be late for work!  Thank you God, because I need help fast now, no more messing around.  I can tell that it is starting to get infected, all of the old signs are back, inability to walk, sit, or lie down in any comfort whatsoever.  I look like I am in pain, even though I am trying not to.  Even my chameleon talents aren’t sufficing now.

The past week, along with the inability to get help due to the long weekend (Even though it was Easter – praise be to God!), I realized that for 33 years, I have never not been able to get a doctor.  I am one of the most healthy people who I know, yet I have nine doctors saved on my phone.  Now I understood what it is like to need medical assistance, and to not be able to get it.

I spent the past week and weekend, in my own disbelief of this very potent stress on a very delicate part of my body, and my inability to get it looked at, also thinking about the millions, maybe even billions, of people who cannot get aid when they are sick.  For the first time, I have a new compassion for a new cause – our health care systems. 

The sick.

We have all been sick, even if just with the common flu, which is in itself incredibly painful and toiling.  Can we really imagine what it would be like to not be comforted, relieved, or cared about when we are at our most vulnerable?  Maybe I needed to be in this position to understand.  Maybe we can only feel compassion through that same experience that leads to the pity, or maybe we are not all meant to fight the same causes, but rather disperse and fight what we can, due to our own interest and thereby allocated energies.

So I now have a new grassroots cause, and right on time.  A couple of times my penance has been to pray for the sick, and next Sunday I begin to administer the communion to the sick after Sunday Mass.

So many people are talking about this "cosmic consciousness".  There IS no consciousness!  God help us if those of us who recognized this are attached, bound down, by these New Age idiots.  If we were all connected, how can we be so oblivious from the one thing that actually IS common - getting sick, needing help in recovery, and for a lot of us, not getting that.