The following write-up was written shortly after the experience happened to me, about eight years ago, if memory serves. Came across it and thought, still relevant.
Friends,
Over the weekend, a reminder of how we are angels to each other.
Last weekend I was scheduled to do the Universal Life Expo in Columbus Ohio, sharing a booth with Books Etc. (an Orrville, Ohio bookstore owned by my friends Charles Sides and Jenny Horner) and, on Saturday, speaking and doing a workshop.
The trouble was, I got sick the week before, a cold that developed into asthma. It kept getting worse, even at the airport waiting for my flight out. Flew out, and on Saturday gave the talk, gave the workshop, and had a fun supper with Richard and Tara Sutphen (but felt myself getting sicker as the night went on).
Sunday by pre-arrangement I slept late, hit the show about noon, toughed it out through the afternoon. (First time I ever did a trade show sitting down.) Got back to Charles and Jenny’s in Orrville, had kind of a hard night, coughing up phlegm – or trying to – for most of the time. Even sicker Monday morning, but had just one thought in mind: Get back home.
I have been dealing with asthma for more than half a century. It has been a continuing challenge to my self-reliance and independence. Many of my friends think I am far too resistant to getting medical assistance, perhaps not fully realizing what my life looks like from inside. It is often hard to be sure that independence and self-reliance have not passed into pig-headedness, and I have to make the judgment call one incident at a time. When in doubt, I usually have erred on the side of independence, regardless of discomfort.
Monday became decision-time, in a big way.
Charles and Jenny drove me to the airport. I was stopped by security (turned out to be my inhaler causing the beeping) and could scarcely stand unassisted during the wanding. Had to sit and rest before and after putting my shoes back on. It was hard getting to the plane; the few steps down and then up wore me out. The stewardess saw me sitting white-faced and rigid in seat 1A, smiled and asked if I were nervous! All I could gasp out was “asthma.”
It is only a short flight to Pittsburgh but by the time I’d gotten into the terminal, totally breathless, I had to grab a couple of seatbacks, and wait to be able to continue. I had an hour between planes, but didn’t think I could get to the other gate. I flagged a cart and asked for a ride, which represented a first crack in the do-it-yourself-at-all-costs philosophy. Asked if I could pre-board. Second crack. When the plane arrived in Charlottesville, I thought about how far away my car was, and asked the stewardess if they could get me a wheelchair and wheel me there. Third — major — crack in the structure. They did, and as they wheeled me out to the car the guy persuaded me that we should have the guys from Pegasus – a sort of air-rescue unit – check me out. I thought about it and said okay.
The Pegasus guys gave me oxygen and a nebulizer treatment, took blood pressure, pulse, etc., and strongly suggested that I go to the hospital via ambulance. I fought the idea, figuring I could drive home (driving isn’t actually much physical exertion; nowhere near as much as walking, for instance) and then see my doctor. I had just about decided to do that, but then thought that it would be muddle-headed to overrule so much strong advice from so many experienced men — at least half a dozen by then – who were there to help me. And the ambulance was already sitting there. So I gave in, and the rest of the day, and the next day, was a luxury of being cared for by others instead of having to struggle through it by myself.
The entire stay was interesting and I may write about it, but all this is merely leading up to this. There is an old saying that God has no hands to work through but ours. Regardless of your theology, surely you can see that the saying is not only true but obvious. It is never more obvious than when your life is in another person’s hands, which is more often than we usually realize. I watched the functioning of the emergency room for several hours, and what it amounted to was that all these people – doctors, nurses, orderlies, various technical types – are there every day, waiting to help whoever comes in needing help. I woke up early today and put into the form of a cinquain.
E.R.
No breath.
Resource’s end.
Surrendering control
To these calm strangers, knowing them
God’s hands.
* * *
Be well, my friends. I send you my love.
As another asthmatic, I know the feelings well.
Hope that the situation hasn’t repeated in the ensuring eight years!
Happy Holidays!
No, that was the turning point, i think. Then a couple of years ago a friend of mine who is an ENT doctor came to do a Gateway at The Monroe Institute, back when I was still living nearby. He and i hung out after his program, and he took my medical history — via a series of seemingly casual questions, the devious bastard! 🙂 — and recommended: (1) get away from the woods i was living among, unfortunately, as the fallen leaves were full of mold, (2) Vitamin D-3 and magnesium tablets, as he said that most of his asthmatic patients are deficient in those two things. Both those things helped, plus ceasing to drink milk, though cheese and other dairy products do not appear to cause problems. And i have done other things which i can talk about if you wish. PEM me.
This reminds me so much of my own stubborness with seeking outside help when ill. There comes a point when I just have to give in and go the allopathic route or just go get something checked out to make sure it hasn’t turned into something more serious than what I’ve already had diagnosed. I too wait until the last possible moment before admitting that maybe I can’t do it on my own – despite my conviction that my beliefs are what affect my health and not some random external (or internal) gremlin out to get me. I’ve had a lot of help from my ‘guides’ over the past year, which in some ways made me even more determined to deal with my condition in my own way. There comes a time though, when I just have to accept that maybe my belief in my own ability to heal just isn’t strong enough.
On a side note, my friends and I have all read The Sphere and the Hologram. We refer to it a lot in our metaphysical discussions – it’s a great addition to the Seth material which hardly anyone I know has read enough of to be able to refer to in any really useful way. So thank you and TGU for giving us a more common language.
And I think you for the support this message provides. We never know, you know, whether what we are doing will meet response; we just have to keep on and hope for the best. Interesting that you mention Seth, as i am finally in the Seth binge i have wanted to begin for years — ever since writing Muddy Tracks, in fact. I am reading The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events and finding what it says obvious to my new self, where i think i would have really had to wrestle with it, 15 years ago.
The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events was exactly where I left of in my Seth reading 10 years ago. Perhaps if I hurry I can get through it before the 21st – probably not 😉
Sometimes I browse Seth Speaks and am always surprised by how new and different it reads. I suppose what is new and different is really my own point of view and where I am in life. But that´s an interesting observation, too.
Yes, reading Seth is like reading Thoreau, say, or anyone whose work is packed with matter. I’ll never forget reading Thoreau for the first time, as a young man. The WAY he wrote was so exciting to me. I hadn’t ever thought about writing that way, where one sentence is joined to the previous sentence in such a way that the reader has to stop dead in his tracks (or hers!) and say, “huh?” until the implicit connection reveals itself. A form of Hemingway’s iceberg theory, come to think of it, only in essays rather than in fiction.
Absolutely agree, that`s why of us to be “educated” in the earth, or eventually of to be a matter of the soul development I`ll guess.
Thank you very much of telling Frank, it is what friends are for….