The surgical divide -150-

Introduction:

We take many things in our life,  as available at our will or pleasure.This card house requires variety of glues to stay intact. This need will be felt only when an emergency comes calling to make us start counting our fortunes & friends. For both it might turn out to be an enlightenment! Can this experience be called pickling of nerves?

 Extreme experiences in life might give rise to the feeling that one is near or on edge of a precipice. This experience of being on edge differs from person to person and hence unforgettable and unique, as far as that individual is concerned. 

That over the hill experience can be described   like this: It is similar to an ace mountaineer, reaching the peak only to find the foothold slippery and getting scared of falling either over the peak or sliding back to the valley and yet determined to regain at least a toehold. 

The intervening period between the slip and the grip, and the experience of an emotional flux– is the state being on edge.

One such state of being scared and unsure is going under a surgeon’s scalpel, literally up to one’s neck, deep on a diet of anaesthesia, routed through the spinal column. Chest to cranium you are present and chest to toes you are immobilized like a stone.

Sensing a travel through unknown corridors, the demons of doubts and fears take control of the neurons. The brain, under seize, joins hands with these villains to generate nightmare after nightmare, struggling to take back its commanding role. 

Bathed in anaesthesia up to the chest, the patient starts experimenting with different version of fear psychosis. This process starts with a procession of gods, semi-gods and angels. The only doubt that remains unanswered is  "will I regain consciousness or slip into  coma?"

Now, the patient on the surgery table begins to see all the dark matters in the universe. Fear is such a powerful force and endows the patient   with special vision, to see even the dark matters, a feat impossible as per the laws of science! The patient has now become a full fledged citizen in the state of fright.

When all these things are happening on the surgical bed, another branch of science dealing with pure human emotions generates morbid thoughts, in the mind of an attending relative. The severity or intensity depends on whether one is a close relative or just a relative.

The sluice gates of the fluid bank get opened by moist palms, moistened lips with a racing heart ably assisting the process. The hospital floor suffers wear and tear; the flush in the wash room becomes tired.

The life threatening or severely inconveniencing malady gets corrected. The after effect of a surgery lingers on, not of anaesthesia, bothering the patient. Some get over it quickly and others carry it as a ghost from the past for a long time. May be these types can only forget things in instalments.

To describe the traumatic feelings, pre and post surgery, the best suited person is the person reliving the surgical trauma – words straight from the horse’s mouth.

The patient starts convalescing, testing the patience of dear and near with tales, liberally mixing them with horror, warnings and lectures in medical sciences. The negative impact these repeat recaps are capable of creating in others’ psyche, is simply forgotten.

Fearing a lesser stellar rating for the surgical experience, these recaps ,invariably tend to,  omit to mention the supporting role played by the one who stood by anxiously, outside the operation theatre!

This leaves the relative/attendant to recite the other side of the story; to whoever is willing to lend an ear needing a break from the previous one - less dramatically of course!

The attendant’s mind, under notice to churn out alternate scenarios, tries hard to cope up with a flood of improbable ideas as far fetched as the screenplay of a blockbuster. 

The attendant discovers that fear is a dipole and the lines of patient’s nightmares pass through his/her mind. The mere thought of the patient undergoing a surgical procedure is enough to reproduce the very same feelings and anxieties, strictly obeying the laws of magnetism!

Taking a small diversion, the procession of different set of gods, semi-gods and angels take to the streets of prayer, though the doubt – ‘will the operation end in success or cross the border into the no-man’s land – coma remains glued to the mind.

The attendant opens a register of friends & relatives who would come forward to donate a pint of blood, or chip in with a bundle of currency notes or a towel to cry into.

At the end the attendant feels whether the experience was worth the trauma?

The Poise at the end of a rainbow

Introduction: 

A command has only one answer – YES. A request or a question might have multiple choices. Saying none of them starts the vicious circle of feeling and emotion. An emotional black hole is created.

Poise is the measure of resistance offered by a fluid to its own flow. Literally, this word also means a calm, graceful, confident and balanced manner in which one holds attitude, behaviour and emotions.

Emotion is a strong feeling; feeling is experiencing its effect in physical or emotional plane. It is universal, has no language barrier, and may differ in spelling or pronunciation. What ever be the word the meaning conveyed and the effect caused are one and the same.

The usage of feeling interchangeably with emotion or vice versa or the combined phrase emotional feeling – expresses its dual nature. Fluid flow and the emotional equanimity is measured in and described as Poise, respectively!

Resistance in fluid changes with the external conditions like pressure and temperature, at that instant.
Human emotions are in no way different. Pressure (stored emotions or stress) and temperature (degree of insult/hurt, intensity of arguments and such extraneous factors) definitely play an active role. Natural flow of fluid is from a high point to a lower one. Human emotions flow, also, from a high pressure point (stress) to ….?!

The fluids exhibit two types of behaviour, obeying the governing laws and reluctant to do so, on their own, needing a disciplining hand.

Feelings and emotions are more complicated than the behaviour of a fluid in flow. From A to Z there are many types of positive and negative feelings and emotions. The negative emotions are generally: dislikes, disappointments, defeats, hurt, guilt, sadness, subjugation, anger and hate. The positive ones are: love, affection, happiness, pride and bliss.

Emotion gets expressed in two ways – unbridled and controlled. Bottled up negative emotions erupt like a volcano to damage equanimity of the individual – an avalanche express without brakes. Bitterness is doubled, as both the individuals suffer the after effect called guilt.

On the other hand, the positive emotions envelop like a mist, fall like snowflakes to radiate calmness of the expresser and the receiver –controlled hang gliding. Happiness is doubled.

Fluid and emotional flows are amenable to restriction, moderation and unhindered deluge. The secret is in finding the modifiers.

For the fluid, a non-living thing, man made solutions are available. Internally, the resisting flow surfaces are modified or externally the fluid contacting surfaces get treated – an amicable settlement between the fluid layers and the pipe!

Human being is different and has the faculty of reasoning intelligence and analytical aptitude. Moderation to control the flow of negative energy lies in the attitude or poise of the individual concerned. The individual is free to choose a suitable modifier, be it based faith or physical conditioning or response conditioning or an overall personality development programme encompassing all the above.

A beginning and a focused follow through is only required to slay the demons called negative emotions - feeling guilty about them is of no help, by  collimating the thought frequencies towards the positive energy flow region.

Mind is the seat of illness and cure. Actions are the root cause for generating feelings. A weak feeling fortifies itself in to a weak emotion. Dislikes develop in to abhorrence and this is the point at which abhorrence becomes hate and the ultimate expression of anger.

This inherent behaviour needs disciplining and a little ironing out on the folds in the mind. This conscious attempt to safely defuse the anger, harmlessly, is the cure. Personal likes to love; to joy and then to happiness is the ultimate expression of bliss. Even if it is as a weak positive emotion, building up on it is a wise option.

When fewer muscles can generate a smile, why then to flex a lot of them to gnarl at someone? Once this is accomplished, the iridescent rainbow of bliss will appear at the end, as an el dorado.