When a little bit of yourself collapses.

There was an exact moment when I felt that part of my lung cave in on itself. A tightening of breath, a pang of suffocation, a definite lack of air. We were driving to the mountains for the weekend and Jonah was about 6 months old, I was sitting in the back keeping him entertained, in our little 2 door hyundai hatchback.

Just like that, my breath was stolen. I took in a couple of deep breaths in case It just needed a little clearing. But I knew it was gone, my capacity of inhalation was diminishing.

I sometimes wonder If I had known more about doctorey things, that it would of made a difference.

The very first time I went to a doctor was when I was about 11 years old. (Apart from the day I was born and even then I nearly wasn't born at a hospital. Picture this; a women screaming at her husband to stop the car at the town centre roundabout, cause me, was on my way out. The women is wearing a big scruffy old rabbit fur coat and has football socks rolled up in her pocket to wear while giving birth. Hippies, I tell you......... Soon after my father got the women to the hospital, where I was promptly born.)

Anyway, my first doctor visit was the day I jumped off a stack of hay bales onto an antique chaff cutter, it was buried under the loose hay. A cut just above my knee, 8 stitches and my very first tetanus shot, ever. The next doctor visit I was about 14 and I had a funny spotty rash on my arms. Thats it, for my childhood. Later there was the odd pap smear visit to a nurse, and that was it, until I was pregnant.

No chest infections, no broken bones, no nothing......

I had a miscarriage a year before Jonah was born, and that was my first hospital visit and my first dose of antibiotics, Ever. I was 27.

So, you know I really did not understand the doctor patient world. I kinda trusted that they would probe for the answers. I had no-idea that night sweats had anything to do with disease or infections, I actually associated them with giving birth and breast feeding. I didn't even really know what an X-ray was for other than confirming a broken bone.

I didn't know a lot at all about medical things. I was healthy. Really healthy.

But then, I had not studied for 8 years to get a medical degree. I had been living my life doing other things.

The system is flawed. I had to see 3 different doctors with in the same clinic, they had different diagnoses and no follow up. I was so confused. It was so confusing.

Sometimes I feel as though doctors and people afterwards judged me, and implied I did not put the proper information forward for the doctors to determine my illness.

Which I know is ridiculous, because since then I have met a few doctors that have seeked and actively investigated to get to the bottom of issues, and you are full of knowing that you are seeing a real doctor, a bit like a witch doctor in africa I guess, where they are known for their healing abilities. Not just a career, it can never be just that, like an artist in a way, it's about the health of an individual and it's never going to be an exact science, it's about listening, and acknowledging, and about caring. There's no room for prestige, and ego and hierarchy. The patient and doctor are equals and the doctor should hold the ability of care and investigation. No presumption involved. A doctor can literally determine the health of you, thats not a powerful thing, it's a dangerous thing. It needs to be holistic, and its needs unity in the process of healing.

Why do doctors have to see so many people in one day? It must be pure exhaustion. Person after person with problems and issues, this is not healthy. Not healthy for anyone.

I could probably cary on for a very lengthy time about this. But I have to get outside into the day, into my life.

The health of the body and the mind is held out there, and I don't want to sit in a doctors clinic and office very much, and I don't want my family to either. Life is beautiful and short. I don't have time for spending it with the uncaring or the pretentious.

This is the only picture I could find of a antique chaff cutter ( 1610-1630 ).
I could of probably gone up to my parents place and taken a photo of the
actual one, because it will be still there, same as it ever was and buried under
something. But, well I kinda like the above picture, its shows its use and
now I know exactly how it was used after all these years later.