North's Journey Journal

There is an old 70’s gospel song called Hold On (A Change Is Coming) by the Gospel Group - Sounds of Blackness

Go To iTunes for Sample of Hold On, on the Album- The Very Best of the Sounds of Blackness. You'll need a downloaded music store program. You can also find it on any other program like Real Player Rhapsody, AOL Music, etc.

I loved songs like this when I was in High School. Back then, it was more about the fun up beat sound than the words. Last night I got to experience, once again, how powerful those words are and how powerful upbeat positive music can be. My current physical situation has put a completely new dimension to “Change”. It has also put a completely new level of experience around “Fear”. From a spiritual inquiring mind, I’m getting to have a round with ultimate questions, like “Once again God, why am I really here?”; “Why this and why now?” and of course the all time hit- “How can I survive this?”

The answer to these questions is in the waiting. Over the past week, one of the most difficult challenges was sleeping and waiting to fall asleep. No sooner would I fall to sleep, than I would be reawakened for vital checks. Due to the sensitive nature of adhering a flap of my stomach, muscle and skin to my head veins have to be connected and quickly learn to like each other. It’s sort of like a forced integration program. The tissue from somewhere down lower in the body must be accepted into the upper end neighborhood. To make sure this happens, the pulse is taken in the new areas every hour. If there is even a hint of rejection, outside forces (surgical teams) can be brought into force and support the less able tissue. (I believe it was such checks that lead me to my bonus round of 2 hours of surgery after the 15 hours. It’s monitoring and practicing the what-if scenario that helps Doctors to become wizards and mere patients to simply grapple with fear in ICU and ultimately find faith in their medical teams.

The other new dimension of this experience is getting your own personal, always handy, suction wand.
It gives you the ability to pull out any phlem (flim, flam or gunk) that finds its way into your throat or is expectorated as your lungs cough up loose inflammation from lying around too long. It puts some power in the patient’s hands. Not a pretty picture, I know, but its reality. And I LOVE my handy personal wand and would not go anywhere without it. WHY? Because, now I have a whole new fear to overcome. Will I cough up the phlem, suction it out in time or will I stumble and have someone discover I got close, but no brass ring. Of course, my new mantra is “I am not my cough, I am not my phlem and I am not my fear about any of this.”

Getting around to what happened last night. I took Tylenol PM. It has Diphenhydramine hydrochloride in it--- A good sleep inducing agent, but not for me. I have had issues in the past. It somehow affects my Self orientation and creates a real sense of separation in my ability to connect with free choice. In short, I become my instinctive survival mode driven human being.

At about 1pm after sleeping solid for three full hours, I stumbled for my personal phlem remover. In the back of my mind ran the routine, cough, probe, remove. Only this time, I knew this was a category 5 Phlem. If I did not get this one, there would be total reliance on someone else finding me in time. How would I respond? I kicked in the manual cougher drive and hacked as loud as I could simultaneously snagging the intruder. Apparently, waking Stef as she came to check on me … my back up alert signal had worked. I drifted back to sleep.

Then about 15 minutes later, I woke in fear. What if I had not coughed loud enough? What if I missed? How could I ever go to sleep again? The side effects of the Diphenhydramine hydrochloride were kicking-in. Fear was consuming me. I was still groggy enough from the medicine that I could not think about how to reverse gear out of the illusion to which I was succumbing. I could only lay there and think thoughts like--- Do I dare risk going back to sleep. Amazing, the very drug that got me to sleep earlier, now was working double time to keep me awake.

Finally, I found the window out. Use a chant I know, Use a song I know, anything to shift the grip that this fear has on me. I tried a few from Rickie Beckwith, I tried a few Ron Roth morning communion chants, I tried to rationalize, I tried to reassure. I tried Beck’s three-step cognitive sorting. Nothing was working. My fear had the upper hand. It was clear in that induced state that I could easily screw up the next time. Even a category 2 could drown me. Then it dawned on me … what voice am I talking to? What value is this voice really bringing to the situation? What if I could wait out the effects of the drug? It would only be about an hour more. At that time, I could better assess the situation and make a real plan to deal with the concern. That is when the old 70’s Gospel hit started humming its way into the background. Hold On, (A Change is Coming) I sang it quietly to myself for the next 40 minutes or so. The distorted thinking finely dissipated. I became calm. Outside of wanting to capture the experience, I was ready to go back to sleep. No worries.

I had listened to the old Gospel once in the last few days in the hospital. Thinking about how it should be the theme song for all “nurse call buttons” After hearing a neighboring patient call out for help, after loosing his call button. I called for him. We lay there as strangers waiting for the response. I never found out what was his problem, much his name, face or other basics. I just heard the rapid movement of equipment and people. As I lay there, I realized that there were all kinds of fears the nurses had to deal with. I started imagining what if you could instantly be fed inspirational music to keep you focused away from fear after you have pushed your call button. For, my neighbor, the nurses responded so quickly in this case the first four notes would have barely played. For me this morning, 40+ minutes waiting out drug induced fear thoughts was plenty of time for several repeat plays. Here are the lyrics in their entirety. I’d highly recommend the song, it’s a fun tune and the words are so general they work in any situation.

Much Love and Life

North

“ Hold On, (A Change Is Coming)”
(recorded by Sounds of Blackness)

Yesterday, a man step to me,
He said how can you smile when your world is crumbling down
I said, heres my secret, when I wanna cry, I take a look around
And I see that I’m getting by

And I hold on (Hold On)
A change is coming
Change is coming (Hold On) (Hold On)
Don’t you worry
Don’t worry bout a thing (Hold On) (Hold On)
You can make it
You can make it
Hold on
Hold on
Everything
Everything will be alright

Some people like to worry
Some people like hide
Some people like to run away
From the pain inside
Now it’s your business
Do whatever you wanna do
But if it don’t work out
Here’s what you oughta do


When the troubles of life weigh you down, just lift your head
Yea, yea, yea
When the love you seek is hard to find,
Don?t give up, just keep strong, keep their faith and
Hold on

(Repeat Chorus)