The Power of Friendship in Recovering from Illness -- or Brain Injury!

I wanted to get something written up today EARLY while it is what is being covered on the news today related to the memorial service in Tucson last night which was a great deal about healing the country as well as Congressman Giffords having just opened her eyes for the first time right beforehand.  Her friends who were present were just interviewed and 'obviously giddy' with the excitement of seeing her making improvement and feeling positively about the opportunity which was taken related to this unfortunate event to provide an example to all of us for not overly analyzing what the problem is with any one incident, but to look at the overall and solutions. 

When I worked in driving rehabilitation, I learned the term 'potholism' -- if you see a pot hole, you'll tend to hit it, but if you look at the solution of where you need to go to miss the pothole, you'll more than likely miss the pothole.  Not long after that job, I went to work for the hospital owned by the City of Colorado Springs in a newly thought up position (and not popular by the managers or staff), to have an experienced therapist migrate to where they needed staff, so I was seeing patients in the hospital the majority of the time, the plan was, and at outpatient being a backup neuro OT (occupational therapist). 

One day I went to work at the hospital and picked up my assigned patients and one of them had just had a brain tumor surgery/removal and she was a young woman.  So the PT and I figured we should collaborate on the evaluation as she was paralyzed on half of her body.  So I had the pleasure of meeting one of my greatest teachers that day, when this polite young woman agreed to sit up on the edge of the bed with our help and she asked for her glasses (and wasn't able to see out of one eye at all), and sat there working to hold herself steady sitting edge of bed and said 'I need to get well, I have a little girl!'.  She lived with her parents and was 17 or so i think; the father as a minister, and I could only imagine the pressures this young woman had on her!  

The way the system worked there I'd forfeit the patients to another therapist who worked more often than I did and not have someone back again typically, but about a month or so later, on my schedule at outpatient, where I ended up working most of my time due to the primary OT having a shoulder problem and needing to take a couple of months off a couple of times, was this young woman!  She'd been through the rehab unit and now was home and needing to continue her recovery.  She was lucky -- that primary OT had the good old education of the past plus years of experience back from when the therapists actually got to really work with patients and take continuing education and the whole system was robust in terms of what people knew to do with patients.  She even got back to driving!  She never got any return of the vision but her affected side of her body really came back to almost 'as good as new'.  

So today, while the country and world might be partly focused on the story of one of our leaders making improvements, I hope everyone who has any kind of adversity ahead of them today is inspired by this story I've just shared and also that we hold the intention to continue with the positive tone that appears to have come from the service last night, which was meant to be a 'memorial service' but appears to me to have had a pre-pared speech interfolded with the particular occurrences. 

I also feel particularly close to this in another way; having lost a friend almost 25 years ago 'seemingly senselessly' through murder, her name Christine and she had made application to medical school after having completed a Masters Degree in nutrition, with an ambition with her husband to help children. (He went on to become a child psychiatrist and for decades he didn't remarry).  I was an atheist at the time and really struggled with why it was this had happened, and one of my friends said 'she just was done with this life and we'll maybe not know for a while why this had to happen as it did'.  

I really encourage everyone to take the opportunity in this tragic occurrence to acknowledge there are many, many things that are contributing to many, many things going awry that are unfortunate and if we all look in the direction we're wanting to go and steer in that direction, we'll get down the road.  Maybe stop and pick up one of your friends or someone you haven't gotten to know yet on your way -- we're all in this together, as I've said all along here on Lumigrate!  And don't forget to have some healthy snacks (and good water or other nutritious drinks) with you for the ride! We might need to keep our strength up!  ~~ Mardy