Seeking and Finding Wholeness

I found myself at urgent care having trouble breathing last week. After many hours of tests and waiting, I was admitted in at the hospital and diagnosed with Pulmonary Embolism (a blood clot in the lung with a 30% mortality rate). Luckily, the one I had was small in size and I bounced back on my feet quickly.

If you know me you will know that I’ve always believed that everything in life has positive aspects, even seemingly dangerous, unpleasant or unforeseen situations can still offer glimmers of positiveness, sometimes lots of positiveness. Not only that, but that negative events could be turned around and used as opportunities for improvement. Unfortunately, some people take offense when I mention that ‘bad life events‘ can be positive things.

I am about to share with you actual thoughts I had while I was at urgent care and from the time that followed at the hospital. You will soon notice the majority if not all the thoughts were somewhat silly, somewhat childish, but that doesn’t matter because I know that all of them made me smile.

I am often amused easily by nature and seldom by man made things. I believe that anyone can be as amused as me by what nature has to offer, it’s not difficult; it is also possible to amuse at life events just the same. The way I see it, people and life events are parts of nature.

Now let me share with you my thoughts. Some of these thoughts were vocalized as soon as they materialized in my mind resulting is some chuckles, smiles or laughs by people that were there. In general, finding the positiveness in little things made the whole experience of being at the hospital much more pleasant for me and more tolerable for others.

You may want to read the post about my Pulmonary Embolism (here) to get the time line of events. The thoughts below are organized in chronological order.

Feel free to laugh at my easily amused self

Why am I sharing theses?

To show you that you can find intriguing, exciting, amusing, beautiful, even amazing and positive aspects to everything and every event, including when you are in pain and at the hospital.

Here goes:

On the CT scan

Thought: Wow, my first CT scan, I wonder how different it is from an MRI.

When I was diagnosed with pneumonia

Thought: I am glad it is not a clot. Now I will get to know what its like to have pneumonia. I’m glad I went to urgent care.

When I was asked to do another CT scan

Thought: I hate the idea of being exposed to all this x-ray radiation. But I’m glad the doctor has good work ethics and that she called me. Who knows what would have happened had I not have gone back.

When I was diagnosed with a blood clot

Thought : I am glad it is small, I am glad it is not cancer, I am glad no surgery is needed to extract it, I am glad my body will absorb it and dissolve it with no intervention, I am glad it is in the lung not the brain or heart, I am glad I went to urgent care!  Now I want to work on getting better.

When my weight was measured

I said: Yay, I lost weight since the last measurement.

When I was admitted in

Thought: Yay, I don’t get to go to work tomorrow

I said: This room is like a hotel, they even have a closet, drawers and a TV just for me

I said: The remote control is awesome!

I said: Yay, they have cable (I don’t have cable at home)

Thought: This bed is soft and I love the adjustable back

I said: Wow, I get my own phone and phone#!

Thought: The nurse is so nice, she is the nicest person I met in years, she is giving me lots of attention!, I wish she’d stop making me laugh because it hurts to laugh. She is amazing with a great attitude. I’m glad she’s here tonight.

I had to sign a paper

I said: You know, I can’t breath or talk much now but I can sign

On the hospital food

I said: Look at the menu and food choices, it’s like a hotel.
I thought: Wow, hospital food yum (and I was not being sarcastic, i enjoyed every bite, I always loved hospital food, airplane food, hotel food, even dormitory food)

On the water cup

Thought: It’s nice how I don’t have to refill that cup myself.

On the guy sharing the room with me

Thought: Poor neighbor, he is having trouble breathing, I wish him well

Blood thinners:

- On having to be on a “consistent” diet:

Thought: This is restricting, but I can use it to make sure I eat better, better consistently.

- On having to keep a constant level of physical activity:

Thought: Finally, I have to be disciplined about exercising regularly, this is the strongest incentive.

- On not being allowed to play contact sports:

I said: No problem, I don’t care for sports anyway. I am not a fan of competitive, especially not contact, sports.

- On the needle marks at the hospital and the one I get every day now:

I think: Wow, the most (record) needle pokes/marks ever. I’m breaking my own record.

On the whole experience of getting sick

Thought: I see lots of positive things that will come out of this. I am glad this happened. (I know some out there may find this weird, but yes I am glad to the event and everything that happened since, I truly embrace it as it is)

Conclusion

I hope the 1-liners above made you smile. Every person has their own sense of humor and sense of excitement or admiration to things. I find my humor involves being easily excited or amused, I guess it can be called silly.

I hope that you are able to find your sense of admiration, appreciation, amusement and excitement about everything, and to see positive things everywhere, all the time. Everybody can do this.

If you catch yourself one day repeating one of the 1-liners above, I hope that makes you chuckle, please come back here and let me know.

Thanks,

May you be easily amused, always.

Ethan