A Delightful Day in the Hospital

I had a gynecology exam. Afterwards, my gynecologist shook his finger and said, “I’m worried you may have cancer. You need a hysterectomy. You don’t need your uterus anyway. If you don’t get a hysterectomy, you need at least a D&C (scraping of the uterus).1”

I sat in my chair, stunned and terrified. When I recovered my voice, I said that I wanted to get a second opinion. Fortunately, my friend had come with me; so after we left, I got to discharge and think out loud about my next steps, including where to get a second opinion.

An internal voice (a distress recording) kept saying, “Just do what the doctor says.” This brought up the fear that a cancerous uterus was contaminating my entire body. I reviewed my choices, got sessions on my possibilities, and continued to cry, shake, and yawn.

I made the following decisions: to get a second opinion from a woman doctor I trusted (even though she was not covered by my insurance), and to take this issue to Pam Geyer’s 2 Health and Healing workshop. Pam suggested a good direction—to talk and shake about how terrible I imagined it could be. I used this direction for the next four days in my Co-Counseling sessions. The small internal voice now repeated, “It’s not that bad—you’re exaggerating.”

Pam’s workshop gave me good information and good sessions. The information that served me particularly well was as follows:

• Working on an early medical memory may unlock our feelings of pain and fear about current medical conditions;

• It takes a lot of discharge, particularly yawning, to get rid of the effects of anesthesia;

• Pain is mainly fear; we can discharge it rather than mask it with pain medication;

• Medical professionals feel overwhelmed by their demanding roles and jobs, but they genuinely want to help others and deserve our thoughtfulness.

I worked continuously on early medical memories, including memories of other surgeries and anesthesia. Pam also recommended working on the events that occurred before and after the anesthesia and surgery.

I returned home with a mental backpack of 3 new approaches to working on my fears in sessions. It became evident that my friends and counselors had undischarged memories of their own around illnesses, doctors, and hospitals. Almost everyone took my situation as an opportunity to client about their past experiences. Unfor- tunately, those experiences sometimes became the basis for advice. I felt as if I were walking through a minefield of undischarged illnesses.

My next step was to find a trustworthy doctor with good attention for me who was covered by my health insurance plan.4 My discharge enabled me to pick a good gynecologist. My new doctor and I set up a date for him to do a D&C, and we also decided to have another surgeon remove a fibroid tumor on my back at the same time. I preferred not to have general anesthesia, but as long as it was necessary, I wanted to get as much done at one time as possible.

I went to the hospital for day surgery and set up good attention for myself. My long-term friend and Co-Counselor (whom I identified to the staff as my sister so she could stay with me the entire time, except when I was under anesthesia) held my hand as I yawned widely and cried. I even gave her a short session about being in a hospital as we waited two hours before going into the preparation room.

In the recovery room, I returned to conscioiusness to a kind nurse, and we launched into a conversation about vacations and favorite places to go. I was anxious to test my ability to think abstractly, to assure myself that my brain synapses were still working. They were. The next thing I knew, all three of my friends were standing around my bed looking at me delightedly. I was crying. I felt well cared for. I continued to feel the need to think in a complex fashion—for example, about the etymology of the word “patient.” However, my uterus was cramping in a painful way, so I talked about that. The nurse kept offering pain relievers. I thanked her and assured her that the pain wouldn’t last. In less than an hour the pain was almost completely gone. They said that the incision on my back would get painful. It did not. Hands and attention were all that I needed for comfort.