Calm is a Skill

Durham VA Medical Adventures, Concluded

Now comes the fun part. Figuring out what to make of the last couple of months.

Around here we have taken to calling it - only half jokingly - the summer of biblical plagues. Everything that has happened has been so crazy, so outrageous, and so unpredictable that it feels like something out of Ezekiel or Job.

We all have something akin to PTSD. We all are paranoid that something else crazy is going to happen. Every phone call, every text, every visit, makes us jump. We aren’t sure what’s next.

It seems like a lot of us feel that way about lots of things. Climate change. Iran. The ever increasing cost of everything. The unpredictability and instability of our entire governmental structure. We are left wondering what comes next. For us, for our kids, for our grandkids.

Constantly being worried about what’s coming is a hard way to live. It invites chaos. It leaves us unsettled in every way. It is like we are all under a dark cloud. The storm is coming, we just don’t know when or how bad it will be. We are left dreaming of the sun and praying for its return.

All the trauma I have experienced in my life has prepared me for this. I am used to chaos. It feels like home. That’s not a flex. That’s a trauma response.

In all of that craziness, and the specific craziness of the last few months, I was reminded of a few key truths that I will carry from this experience. I share them with you as a gift. Do with them what you will.

Lesson #1 - Calm is a Skill

It is easy to get overwhelmed with all the things. For a long time, I was angry and bitter. My frustration seethed just below the surface, and the smallest bump made my scars open. I didn’t think that I was capable of joy. I was constantly anxious.

Over the last decade or so, I have taken up meditation and rededicated myself to prayer. My relationship to the G-d of my understanding is complicated, but it exists, and I try and maintain it. What I have learned is that calm is a skill. It is something that can be cultivated and grown and made stronger. And that is what I do, every day. Without calm I would not be here.

If you want to be calm, practice being calm. That’s it. That’s the secret.

Lesson #2 - Life is a Team Sport

No one does this alone. Any of it. “Self-made” is a myth designed to sell cigarettes and pickup trucks. All of us need people. Sometimes we need lots of them.

Without the doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and support staff at the VA I would not be here. Yes, they dropped me. That sucked. They also saved me. Life is complex that way.

My second attending in the SICU (I had 3 total) was Dr. Atilio Barbeito. He is a professor of anesthesiology at Duke. When he first visited me, there was a spark of recognition for us both. See, we had met 10 years before. He was just a resident then, and he was the doctor who put me under and then brought me back when I underwent electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) after my suicide attempt when I was in the inpatient psych ward at the VA.

I am not sure what you know about ECT, but it involves having electric impulses sent to your brain for the express purpose of creating a seizure. I did 6 sessions over two weeks. 6 seizures. After each session, as I awoke from the procedure, I suffered from short term amnesia. I would wake up not knowing who I was, where I was, or why I was there. The danger of ECT is that every time you take the chance that the amnesia could be permanent. Luckily for me, each time I did it the confusion only lasted 5 harrowing minutes or so. Each time, Dr. Barbeito was there, comforting me, reassuring me, caring for me. After one session I remember him holding my hand as I cried.

As scared as I was in the hospital, when I saw him I knew everything would be okay. I trusted him. Sometimes we just need people to be there with us. To fight along side us. To hold our hand - literally and metaphorically.

There have been so many people who have done that for our family these last few months. Cameron Barr and our church family at UCCH. Tana Byrum and La Familia at FPGB. Friends like Ruth and Lori and Katie. Katie came twice after I got home from the hospital and used her days off to still do nurse stuff, changing the dressing on my drain and verifying it was still good.

Without the help of dozens of people who wrote cards, gave gift cards, emailed, texted, and messaged on Facebook and Instagram, and who generally held space for us, we would have struggled even more to get through all this.

Community matters. Don’t let anyone ever tell you differently.

Lesson #3 - Nothing lasts forever.

For almost all of my time in the hospital I was NPO - from the Latin *nil per os*, which means “nothing by mouth.” I couldn’t eat or drink. Not even ice chips or water. At one point I told Barbara that I would murder someone with a pencil for an ice water. She laughed. I was almost completely serious. At that point I thought how I felt would never end. I had a tube in my mouth and a drain in my side, and multiple IVs in both arms. I looked like a human pin cushion. The bags of fluid and medicines and blood stretched literally halfway across the room.

I was paralyzed by the thought that I would never leave that bed. Never hug my kids again. Never get to wrestle with Theo or play Uno with Justin or argue with Matthew about sports. I worried I wouldn’t get to hear Alex’s laugh, or feel the joy that radiates when Elizabeth truly smiles. Feel the warmth that comes when Willie leans in and lets me hug him. All amazing things.

And. Calm is a skill. Life is a team sport. Nothing lasts forever. Even the hard stuff. Especially the hard stuff.

The doctors worked the problem. Barb worked logistical miracles to be at my side everyday. My wife is incredible and all of this has reminded me of just how amazing she is. At one point she was taking care of 3 kids under 3 while I was off playing Army reindeer games. Elizabeth was 6 weeks old when I left for Iraq. Alex was 7, Willie 5, Matthew 3. And she held it together and made it work. And she did it again the last few months. She was in and out of hospitals: ERs, the psych ward, and the ICU. Through it all she maintained her sanity and her sense of humor. And looked good to boot. I am the luckiest man on earth.

My pain didn’t last forever. The Rubik’s cube was solved. The roller coaster went back to the platform and the seats opened.

I am home now. I feel so much better. I hope I never go back to the SICU. As a patient at least. I wear a bracelet that reminds me “Don’t let the hard days win.” And the hard days haven’t won. Because they are just days. And we work past them and move forward. We solve a problem. Then we solve the next problem, then the next. Eventually, you run out of problems. For a time at least. And you enjoy that time to the best of your ability because that is where life happens.

I am lucky to be here. But then again, aren’t we all?

I hope that the last few months have been better for you than us. I hope that you are finding moments of calm. I hope that your network of support is connected and engaged. And even if none of that is true, I hope you will remember that tough times do not last.

I have a lot of deeply contradictory feelings about the apostle Paul. His writings in the New Testament have been a source of inspiration and consternation for me ever since I first picked up a bible. Paul is the author of the book of Romans, and in the 5th chapter there is a passage that has been our family verse for decades now. Paul says:

(W)e also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame.

There is no hope without challenge, no growth without struggle. I am an optimist not because I am naive enough to think everything always works out, but because I see the spark of the human spirit all around me. I saw it in the doctors and nurses and staff at the VA. I see it in our friends and church and school and our found family. I see it in Barb’s eyes, and in Justin’s flexibility and in how hard Liz has worked in therapy. I see it in Willie’s resilience and Theo’s rambunctiousness. I see it in Alex’s mothering and Big Justin’s dedication. I even see it in Matthew’s TV preferences. That dude loves NCIS and all the CSIs. He has the TV habits of a much, much older person. Goofball.

If you look around with soft eyes you will see the human spirit all around you. Let your heart be open to it. Embrace the people around you, in all their messy human-ness.

After all, nothing lasts forever. Even a roller coaster ride.

Thank you for reading my story. Thank you for being a part of my network of support. I will be back again soon. For now, I’m gonna rest.

Be well, y’all. No matter where or how you find yourself, keep pounding the rock.

And look for the sparks of the human spirit that can maintain you and sustain you, now and forever more.

May it ever be so.