The Phoenix Magazine -- Spring 2022

[To Dream a Dream]

Another excellent issue to enlighten us all. From our UOAA President’s Message in which Jim Murray presents an outstanding overview of the many accomplishments our organization has enacted recently despite the added challenges of Covid-19 to an impressive listing of affiliated support groups including those who have extended their outreach virtually.
Contributions by our Health Care Professionals address: Scars and Adhesions; Common Concerns; Caring for Children; Fundamentals of Recovery; Intestinal Blockage; Convexity in Pouching & Low Residue Diets. Topics often submitted to our Discussion Board.
Rolf Benirschke’s column contains yet another Journey of Inspiration about a police constable. A former Miss Texas & a ‘Cat Lady’ also share their first-person accounts. Brenda Elsagher (who hosted a highly informative UOAA Ostomy Academy in January) expresses her unique brand of wry wit & humor in The Lighter Side of Ostomy. And the column, Advice from Adam, raises psychological complexities that affect all of us. With or without an ostomy. I could go on & on with praises for this magazine that seems to succeed itself with each new issue. But please, subscribe & read for yourself.
One article in particular ‘hit home’ for me. Medical PTSD by Emily M. Parks. In which she succinctly exposes and excises a concept that I have referred to as the dirty underbelly of the medical profession. The failings & denial of fallible human beings often called upon to play heroic roles. I have known them since childhood. Been subjected to their much less finer moments. Worked with them. Yes, even loved & hated them. And believe me. Medical PTSD is an insidious condition not just limited to the patient. (As ever the poet), I was able to express myself in the following:

Atonement

Abandoned in a world that discards its broken children,
I brought my pain to you.
Offering it up with trembling hands,
Expecting my deliverance in some wand-waved miracle.
Instead, I met the stark efficiency of specialized action.
The brutal authority of a superior order
Trained and conditioned to isolate, excise or destroy.
Denying your self in an effort to sustain
One faltering spark of hope.

Dare I imagine you at work?
Gloves covered to the wrist with my bright blood.
Shrouded in complicent mystery
Beneath blinding lights,
As you struggle to draw life from death,
By committing an outrage like a feeding ghoul.
Leaving me alive,
Yet maimed by a bitter enlightenment,
That love, no matter how well meant,
Can sever, sear and scar.

Afterwards, we meet with hesitant eyes,
Confronting our ordinariness.
I, painted and curled.
My wounds concealed by subtle folds
And a soft cascade of ruffles.
You, careworn and drab, in tired tweeds.
I listen to your apologetic reassurance,
Forgiving you those mortal limitations,
As we talk together.
The crisis redeemed by an enduring bond.

Have I sufficiently healed to embrace a paradox
Too terrible for comprehension?
Are my kisses merely gratitude
Or some superstitious need to ward off future ill?
Held close, I marvel at a trust that continues
Striving to hear a heartbeat
Muffled beneath the tattered scrubs
Of a gowned scarecrow.
Always seeking to find the face behind a paper mask.

I can smile once again,
The doubt alleviated. My faith restored.
Raising my head from the prickly comfort
Of your woolen shoulder,
I look beyond reality
And catch a fleeting glimpse of God.

12/27/00
(C)