Читать книгу Close to the Bone - Jean Shinoda Bolen - Страница 12

The reality and possibility of serious illness evokes soul from the first moment it registers. It might be after hearing a report that something serious was found on the X-ray or more sophisticated scans or in the specimen sent to the lab, or after an illness announced itself with the sudden onset of acute pain, loss of consciousness, or bleeding, or after the discovery of a suspicious lump or discolored area, or after surviving a suicide attempt or a disabling injury. Whenever or however that line from health to illness is crossed, we enter this realm of soul. Illness is both soul shaking and soul evoking for the patient and for all others to whom the patient matters. We lose an innocence, we know vulnerability, we are no longer who we were before this event, and we will never be the same. We are in uncharted terrain, and there is no turning back. Illness is a profound soul event, and yet this is virtually ignored and unaddressed. Instead, everything seems to be focused on the part of the body that is sick, damaged, failing, or out of control.

A hospital has much in common with an auto-body repair shop. It is there with its staff of specialists to diagnose, fix, or replace what it can of the physical body to get it running again. The patient and those accompanying the patient through this crisis are considered to behave well if they do not get in the way of whatever the doctors want to do with the ailing body. Troublesome patients (or their troublesome significant others) ask questions, want to understand what is wrong and why a particular treatment and not something else has been selected, bother doctors with requests, or don't respond properly. The medical setting is one in which there is a definite line of authority with the doctor in charge and others responsible for carrying out orders. A good patient like a good soldier is one who cooperates or obeys orders. Especially when cancer is the diagnosis but in many other conditions as well, the doctor's perspective is often similar to a general at war: the disease is the enemy to be fought, with the body of the patient the battleground.