An Inspiring Procedure

Normally, we probably don’t think of medical procedures as being inspiring. Indeed, for me, they have most often been somewhat distressing, even the lesser ones, but today, I went through a procedure that, strangely enough, seemed to widen my inner spirit and open up my thinking to see more of the vastness of this experience called ‘life’. Most of this surely was a result of the care and consideration I received from the doctor and his assistant. From the start, I was treated as though I was someone very special, and perhaps that’s part of the reason why I walked out of the hospital feeling sort of free and unfastened, as if the procedure had pulled open some doors inside me. Of course, it definitely helped that the doctor’s diagnosis, after the procedure, was very positive, but there was something else, too. I think I was feeling, on the way to the hospital and during the procedure, not like a separate, isolated, unprotected person, but – strange as it sounds -more like an easy-going, boundless breeze in an infinite, wide-open wind. What can hurt a breeze that has no boundaries? Perhaps I should say that the procedure was ‘a breeze’ for me – an opportunity to feel the freedom that all of us truly have.

Perhaps this painting suggests something of the way I felt …

And here are letters I wrote to the doctor who performed the procedure, and his assistant: