20 January 2021
Today's Cards
Context
Welcome to Day 20!
After doing everything I could for myself yesterday, I simply needed time to catch up to the appointments put in place.
In the morning we had furniture returned that had away for reupholstering since October 2020 – that’s COVID/ coronavirus for you! It looks fabulous! Worth the wait.
My husband had to go to work today, and I had the scary prospect of having to deal with restricted capability on my own.
It’s amazing how even the simplest of tasks take on complexity. That’s not even having to deal with the restrictions of the cast. If I thought being confined to the house for COVID-19 was bad, being confined to a chair is a much worse and way more frustrating. While always having an amazing amount of respect for people who have disabilities this puts a whole new level of appreciation on top of that.
Neither near death experience, decompression sickness (mild), or concussion never prepared me for the physical incapacity of something more than a day or two. Oh, I was so blasé about so many things. So many more things that I will need to become more mindful about to enhance my appreciation of life itself.
Simple things like having a shower, which not so long ago seemed like something you just did, is now a Ben Hur movie production. Since, breaking my ankle on the way back from the beach, I haven’t been able to have a decent shower. As I write, I still have salty hair – eww! Note, I have had sponge baths, it’s not the same and enjoying the water on your head washing away the day’s ills.
The Queensland Health system mentioned that I could follow them up in the afternoon. I’ll wait.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock!
Erh… what’s on Netflix?
Hmmmm.. that looks good. Let’s watch that.
Watching, watching, engrossed.
BRING! BRRING! It’s the phone! IT’S THE PHONE! (Okay, I know phones don’t make that sound anymore).
It was the hospital to which my doctor referred me to for the Fractures Clinic telling me the referral was in the system and that the Royal Brisbane Hospital had picked it up. From there it was just a matter of waiting for the clinic staff to contact me to make an appointment. Expected timeframe was anytime in the next two weeks!
Two weeks had me worried that my broken bone would heal in the wrong position. Called a friend of mine who knew people, who had broken ankles, to ask for advice. Here, I will refer to her as Audrey (not her real name). Audrey mentioned that she would contact her mother – a long time nurse, recently retired – to find out what the process was when she was there.
Feedback from Audrey’s mother was that this was pretty standard, usually this period of time allows the swelling to go down. This was confirmed by another friend Zezee (not her real name either) who’s mother had a broken ankle. It’s more common than I thought.
None of this helped quell the anxiety I was feeling about things being out of alignment. From my photo it looked like something was skewed. In any case, the swelling needed to go down.
So, by the afternoon I had resigned myself to the wait. The whole thing was exhausting and I drifted in and out of micro naps and my focus wasn’t there although I did a lot of breathing and mindfulness activities.
Now that I’ve reached that topic, I’m used to sitting cross-legged for meditation and watching TV on couch of an evening. Na-uh! This is where I fold my hands and pout. Quite ineffective when nobody’s around except the cats!
Anyway, as the day wore on my leg started becoming more painful.
The Cards
New Vision was the first card and was in the Now position. Normally this card represents going and doing things your own way. New Vision for today, is a new way to view the world, especially the Queensland medical field and its processes.
With respect to doing things my own way, I’m not sure many people follow-up once the referral is put into the system, since there’s probably no need. I’m new to the system and part of what I do for a job involves lots of follow-up.
Mind was the second card and was in the Influence position. The thing stopping me from progressing was Mind. Mind card is about overthinking things, getting caught up in thoughts and misdirections and not taking the time to quieten the mind to allow clarity to come in (refer below to Hindsight Note, how this happened).
Conditioning was the third card and was in the Goal position. Again, breaking the bonds of conditioning was a goal. It might be that I thought the system was broken and that I needed to go rogue on it! That was conditioning.
Audrey had used the system in Queensland previously and advised me to follow the system but to trust it because it usually worked pretty well. So, no need to go rogue on the system. I needed to break my conditioning around thinking the system was broken which is a common perception.
It did make me realise that I needed to step back and let this experience speak for itself, rather than letting other people’s experiences define how this was going to work for me.
Patience was the fourth card and was in the Distant Past position. Speaking of other people’s or my experiences Patience, once all is confirmed has paid off in better service. Of course, there’s the squeaky wheel that gets served first but not necessarily better or with the same degree of care. So, past experience held me back from contacting the hospital Fractures Clinic in the morning.
The Fool was the fifth card and was in the Recent Past position. The Fool in a tarot deck does not always mean you wind up as The Fool. Sometimes it means taking a brave leap which you believe is what you must do. In the broken ankle scenario, I’m going to treat this again as breaking out of the mold.
Perhaps, it was trying to exercise (walking up and down the hall one time) the toes by wriggling them like the instruction sheet handed to me by the hospital recommended. This did seem to aggravate the injury more.
Receptivity was the sixth card and was in the Future Energy position. Yesterday, the Receptivity card was in position eight on how others might view me. Today, it’s in the Future Energy spot signalling that perhaps I’ll be entering the energy of receiving and accepting life in whatever form it takes. To some extent I believe this is what happened when I resigned to the day and the process.
Innocence was the seventh card and was in the Feelings position. Looking back on the day. There was an appreciation for how it unfolded and I felt that I did do things my own way like in the New Vision card. However, I stripped back what I thought I knew about the health system and viewed it with new eyes. As Marcel Proust once wrote: “[t]he real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes”.
Awareness was the eighth card and was in the Other People’s Views position. The card of Awareness is about discovering an innerness that is inherent in yourself. Other people’s views, could be that they see me as not consciously portraying positivity but that I might be (?) It’s open to debate.
Flowering was the ninth card and was in the Hopes and Fears position. Flowering is a beautiful card of a woman completely herself, not afraid of her femininity or expressing it but she is not weak. It is what I hope to be, not being a mother I can only hope to live up to some of the amazing feats mother’s have been through and go through on a daily basis. My fear is that I will never live up to that expectation.
Trust was the tenth card and was in the Outcome position. And finally we reach the position of Trust in the Outcome spot. Trust is the complete letting go of all control and letting the chips fall as they may.
It took awhile for me to get there but at the end of the day I think I finally got there.
Hindsight Note from 21 Jan 2021
At the point I was being treated or subsequently, it would be useful to note that I had not seen my x-rays (“it’s all in the system [computers] and the system wasn’t relaying images beyond the radiology department. Dr S always had to go to radiology to view the image and therefore out of my reach and view. So, I had no idea what we were working with. Also, the use of “temporary cast” made it seem like it was just patched up, rather than fixed and held in place.
When it came to putting the cast on, I was asked to lay on my stomach and if possible. Dr M would then bend my leg up perform appropriate ministrations to the injured area and apply the cast. Again, I did not view or understand what was being done or the severity of my break.
I was naively thought that the break in my leg had left my bones out of alignment. The photo I had taken looked like stuff was definitely misaligned (turns out this was just swelling).
Nonetheless, it was this assumption that was triggering my need to get things happening quicker, you know before my bones started healing in the wrong position and it had to get rebroken to be put in the right position.