This confession is for all of my students/previous students who think that my legs never ache and that I never get tired when I'm force-marching them around Britain. Every time I climb the very steep steps to the ruins of Tintagel, I think that I'll count those steps as I go because there don't appear to be that many of them carved into the cliff. But after the first twenty or so, the lack of oxygen shoves that idea right out of my brain. I become preoccupied with trying to navigate the uneven rises (most of them not suitable for short-person legs) while trying to breathe while trying not to stumble while at the same time trying to make room for the tourists coming down those steps from the summit. It is never me at my most elegant, and my perspective becomes so narrow that I forget to enjoy the fact that I am scaling the side of a cliff above crashing waves in a dramatic, movie-worthy setting where King Arthur may or may not have walked but Edward the Black Prince did .
We rarely see clearly when in the middle of things. We need a chance to turn around and examine where we've been. Then we can look beyond that point to what came before and begin to assemble the pieces. We then see that what we thought were separate, unrelated moments are clearly linked. When I pass through that little archway and into that first courtyard at Tintagel, I can look back to see the steps, the bridge that got me to the steps, the ramp that got me to the bridge, the steps that got me to the ramp, and the steps that took me down to Merlin's Cave. I can also see that steep, steep descent that delivered me to the bottom of the cliff so that I could then better appreciate the climb to the top. The picture becomes a logical whole; while my understanding does not always share that wholeness, I am able to appreciate the connections creating that chain. And in all of that, I am reminded that even when I think I'm in charge, the handiwork comes from a much greater, supremely powerful Source.
This walking adventure is one more link in a long chain of events that started with Dr. Adrienne Boissy at the Cleveland Clinic, who very kindly dismissed my diagnosis of multiple sclerosis with a thorough examination of several MRIs, a battery of tests for infections/diseases/disorders inconvenient, rare, and/or truly scary, and the most welcomed and nicely-put slam I have ever received: "You're too old for MS." The year I spent in Dr. Boissy's care as she eliminated everything I didn't have was, at the time, unsettling on the best days and terrifying on the worst as my body and memory failed me repeatedly. Being unable to control is not a comfortable place for anyone. But eventually, after stepping back to look for the simplest answer, we found it--a Vitamin D deficiency exacerbated by my Hashimoto's hypothyroidism. In the middle of things, we rarely see clearly.
With my restored health, I could see that there was a purpose in all of that testing and frustration and fear and uncertainty, but it wasn't yet clear what my purpose in that might be. Then my brother-in-law Paul dropped something heavy on his toe; the resulting blood work in the ER so concerned the attending physician that Paul was sent straight to a transplant center in Indianapolis. Ten of his friends stepped up to be tested as living kidney donors. Jeff and I had been told we weren't acceptable candidates because we both have hypothyroidism, so we did not join the list though we wanted to. Fortunately, Paul's friend Dan was able to donate, and now they both enjoy excellent health. Seeing the miraculous transformation in Paul from the hour before surgery to four hours after it was...awe-inspiring. From threatened to rejuvenated, that quickly.
That inspiration came back to me the next year when a friend needed a kidney. I won't say I was never concerned about going through with the procedure; surgery is, after all, surgery. I won't say the testing was stress-free; there was a glitch with a mammogram, of all things, but mostly the stress came from my inability to control whether I would pass the tests. But I was able to look back over the previous medical challenges (mine and Paul's), to see the connections between events, to understand that difficulties provided benefits and awareness I couldn't articulate but could sense with a calm certainty. It did not take long to gain clarity.
People sometimes ask, as nicely as they can, whether I have regrets about being a donor. I do not. I would make the same decision again. In fact, I have made that decision. I was scheduled to go to IU's medical school when I leave this world, to be the first one in class every day for an entire year of someone's journey into the life of being a healer. I really liked the idea of going to medical school. But I see more clearly that the path for me is to offer the value of providing life rather than continuing to teach. A very long and complex chain of events has led me here, with the potential for something good to come of all of it. So, I plan to be an organ donor once again.
