Sitting beside you

Bia and I are witnesses that cure depends essentially on physical, mental, and spiritual disposition based on sensitivity networks. The senses of vision, hearing, smell, touch, and taste, isolated or in combination, are a generous source of nourishment for both body and mind. Associated with good memories, positive thinking, and promises of a better future, they are a gift to the heart. Spirituality was the incredible force that sustained us in moments that inspired faith, trust, and joy. The subtitle “Feeling to help cure” defines the purpose of our “Sitting Beside You”.

“To Feel is a demanding verb. It requires patience, tolerance, unconditional dedication to other, acceptance, letting go, humility, and wisdom in order to allow one to decide for oneself and for the other”. – Bia

To Feel, in the sense of taking in the other, means listening to the other’s concerns, fears, suffering, while being willing to participate in the other’s destiny, dreams, and quests. Here, I recall the empathy and consideration of Dr. James Suen, who knowing about our loneliness and fears paid us daily visits to find out if we were doing well, if we were eating properly, and brought us movies, CDs, and DVDs of musicals to entertain us. He talked about a wide range of subjects, listened to Bia’s observations and gently insisted on her participation in coming up with answers. Very cautious in prescribing medication and treatments, he patiently went over them with me, spoke slowly to make sure that I clearly understood his recommendations. When the time was right, he took us to meet his family and to gorgeous places around Little Rock. Dr. Suenshine, as my daughter used to call him, intentionally playing with Dr. Suen’s name, not only took care of us, but cared for us. Dr. Suen, with his soft and peaceful voice instills hope and trust through carefully chosen words, and envelops his patients in a cloak of attention and compassion. He is trully a doctor of the body, mind, and spirit.

Feeling to help cure. Cure, in Latin was spelled coera and fitted into a context of love and friendship relationships in which one gives of oneself to focus on the other with dedication and consideration.

Physicist Amit Goswamit, author of the book “The Quantic Physician” adds that, in order to accomplish complete healing processes, that is, of body, mind, and spirit, it is necessary for the medical sciences to adopt a new formula: integrating methods used in conventional medicine (pharmaceutics, surgery, and technology) with alternative medicine practices like homeopathy, acupuncture, meditation, and yoga.

Conversely, modern alternative medicine is recapturing one of the leading therapeutic traditions that advocated that cure is a comprehensive process involving the individual as a whole and not just the part that is in poor health; a Western tradition that goes back to the cult of Asclepius (ca. 2000 B.C.), whose art of healing gave us the father of classic and modern medicine, Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.)

In his sanctuary, in Epidaurus, Greece, Asclepiads stimulated activities associated with dance, music, gymnastics, poetry, rites, and sacred sleep.
There was also the Abaton, an incubation room where the sick were allowed to sleep and dream in communion with the deities that touched them and cured them. The Odeon was the place where one could enjoy soothing music and also write and recite enchanting poems. The Gymnasium was where therapists guided and helped patients with exercises that integrated mind and body. In the Stadium, sports and controlled competition improved muscle tone. The Library was reserved for book consultation, contemplation of works of art and discussions on the most varied subjects.

Bia and I are witnesses that cure results from the bonding between reason – I think, I know my doctor’s reputation, I know the depth of his knowledge and the technology he masters; and sensitivity – I feel, I trust, I want to be healed, combined with the beliefs and expectations of those interacting with the patient. It is a relationship of esteem, affection, and mutual empathy between patient, the healer, the caregiver, and those comprising the sensitivity network.

And to substantiate that the idea above has been championed for a long time, we quote the following words from the Bible:

“Honour a physician with the honour due unto him for the uses which ye may have of him: for the Lord hath created him. And he hath given men skill, that he might be honoured in his marvellous works. With such doth he heal men, of such doth the apothecary make a confection; My son, in thy sickness be not negligent: but pray unto the Lord, and he will make thee whole. Then give place to the physician, for the Lord hath created him: let him not go from thee, for thou hast need of him. There is a time when in their hands there is good success.
For they shall also pray unto the Lord, that he would prosper that, which they give for ease and remedy to prolong life.” (Ecclesiasticus 38: 1-14)

Caregiver will thus be our way of calling those who take care of and care for people who, for one reason or other, depend on Care. The Caregiver must always remember that he or she is body, person, and affection, interacting with another body, person, and affection, that is, the Loved One, the person that has been enfeebled by disease.

Body, a structure made of muscles, blood, nerves, and bones, our primary way of being, of inhabiting, and embracing the world; a structure that also bears dreams, desires, conflicting passions, guilt, joys and sorrows, successes and failures, health and suffering, scars on the skin and in the soul. This is what we are: human-body-soul beings.

We should also take notice that the Loved One, for being this somebody else, should be respected in his/her dignity. Dignity that also invokes clearmindedness, courage, acceptance of reality, absence of pettiness, modesty, discretion, and thoughtfulness not to overburden the other with his/her own misfortunes. Or maybe all of that, but upside down, unconsciously reversed.

Feeling is synonymous with Loving Caregiver.