A Piece of My Mind When You Come Into My Room When you come into my…

Question Answered step-by-step A Piece of My Mind When You Come Into My Room When you come into my… A Piece of My Mind When You Come Into My Room  When you come into my hospital room, you need to know the facts of my life that there is information not contained in my hospital chart that I am 40 years married, with 4 children and 4 grandchildren that I am “genetically Lutheran”… with gut disease, like Luther himself that I am a professor that I teach teachers, priests, sisters how to nurture faith in the next generation that I love earthy sensuous life, beauty, travel, eating, drinking J&B scotch, the theater, opera, the Chicago Symphony, movies, all kinds, water skiing, tennis, running, walking, camping that I love loving, the wonder and awe of sexual intimacy that I enjoy gardening, smell of soil in misty rain and scorching sun that I have led a chronic illness group for 12 years When you come into my room, you need to know the losses ofmy life that I have Crohn’s disease and 3 small-bowel resections that I have been hospitalized more than a dozen times for partial bowel obstruction that I am chronically ill, and am seeking healing, not cure that my disease has narrowed my life, constricted it that I once fantasized but no longer dream about being president of Concordia or Mundelein College that I can no longer eat fresh salads or drink a glass of wine that I love teaching but sometimes have no energy left at the end of the day that my Crohn’s disease is active in the fall and spring, cyclically in tune with my work that when I was to give my presidential address to the Association of Professors and Researchers in Religious Educa¬ tion, I was in the hospital for surgery that when a colleague read my speech, I felt professionally dimin¬ ished that I can travel only where there is modern technology … I need fiberoptic intubation When you come into my room, you need to know my body that I am afraid of medical procedures done at night… I awake fearfully to 10 feet of air in an IV tube … I kink the tube and call… nurses come quickly… but I will not forget… and my body remains sleepless in any hospital that I know the loss of25 pounds, not recorded in my chart… I had to beg for a subclavian catheter for additional nutrition before I received one that I am afraid of fifth-year residents… they tell me if my intestine does not open in 4 more days, I will have to have another surgery… information not helpful or useful that I am on Pentasa, prednisone, Bentyl, Questran, vitamin Bi2, Relafen… more than 20 pills each day… if I remember that I hate rounds held outside my room, rounds that do not include nurses, my wife, my children, my pastor, or even me… rounds done over me, around me, but not with me that this body seems battered, old, vulnerable, tired …but still me that I live by medication that I live by technology that I live by waiting, in the eternal “advent season” of doctors’ offices When you come into my room, you need to know my heart that I am emotional… a folly functioning feeling person that I am afraid of the NG tube, sometimes wrapped in my mouth, clogged that I fear surgery, each time that I once felt I could not breathe in recovery that I fear awakening from surgery with an ostomy that with each partial obstruction I am anxious about another surgery that I have lost confidence in my body that I experience sadness and depression more often now than before the disease that many persons chronically ill consider suicide, I am one ofthem that the advent of symptoms is scary and debilitating that I am angry at life’s unfairness: my brother, older, eats too much drinks too much plays too much and is healthy, always healthy so too my wife and it seems also my colleagues… like I once was but am no longer, ever that I worry about the future… insurance that I am anxious about aging and how I will cope that I long for one perfect day, only one symptom-free 24 hours that I lust for remission that being sick is narcissistic, boring, dull, painful that there are times I want to give up When you come into my room, you need to know my mind and my spirit that I seek meaning in suffering that suffering is the nudge to the religious question that I have faith and lose it that I cling to my faith in spite of all evidence opposite that I am trapped by the struggle for meaning yet engaged by it that I am slowly coming to believe that meaning is what we bring to suffering, not what we gain from it that God, faith, meaning, ultimate concern, love, salvation are the being of my being that I struggle with God that Job was more just than God that in my religious quest words are important, music is a mirror to my soul, and Eucharist, the stuff of mystery that I believe deeply that I need to engage suffering that disease forces the God question and nurtures the Godless response that illness focuses the issue of death When you come into my room, you need to sustain my hope You need to know that I believe love wins over hate, hope over despair, life over death that I hope against hope that I pray and believe prayer heals that some days I am able to make meaning of suffering that I am more gentle, more compassionate, better with dying, more loving, more sensitive, deeper in grief and in joy Sit at my “mourning bench” if you are my physician listen to me, talk truthfully to me you need to know all this if you want to heal me And bear my rage about my disease that I will never be cured that my daughter has Crohn’s disease and is only 33 years old that she too has had her first surgery and lives with many of my feelings and I am angry and sad And support my hope that tomorrow there may be new medicines that today you care deeply that you will do best When you come into my hospital room, promise me presence promise me a healing partnership keep hope alive it is all I have. Stephen A. Schmidt, EdD Chicago, Ill  Questions : How did this list (or statement or poem) make the reader feel?Did the reader find this format to be an effective (and perhaps even an artful) way of getting his points and feelings across? Why or why not?What does the author mean at the end when he says, “When you come into my room, promise me presence?” Can come to  think of examples from a time as a reader own experience as a patient when you didn’t feel like you had the healthcare professional’s full presence?How does that feel for the readers as a patient?   Arts & Humanities Philosophy ETHICS 1 ETHICS Share QuestionEmailCopy link Comments (0)