“Marcus, keep your heart open. It’s less painful than closing it.”
That’s what the Universe sweetly and elegantly reminded me of today.
You may recall my dilemmas around the hustling here on Lamu Island, and how I started using solid steel energy defences to walk straight through it. Twice today I thought I was being hustled, when in fact it was quite the opposite.
Man no.1 came to my clinic, and I am sort of dreading seeing him as he was ringing my phone non-stop for half an hour from 10pm onwards on Sunday night. It happened to be the exact half hour that was half-time in the European Cup football matches, and I know this man is a highly dedicated football fan. My tired, cynical mind came to the conclusion that his emergency couldn’t be all that serious if it only lasted that exact half hour, and he did not go to the Dispensary but was just trying to speak to me on the phone. “He probably wants something other than medical assistance” said my highly suspicious anti-hustle detector.
As I welcomed him in my clinic, I noticed a bruise and scrape on his head. I asked him what had happened, and he began a long, slow and convoluted story about some money being owed to him by another man, but the debtor would not return the money to him, but only to his wife apparently.
My anti-hustle detector was going off again at the mention of money problems, and I got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. “He is trying to wrap a request for money up in a medical issue!” said my alert system…
I asked my mind for a bit of silence so I could take in this man properly. He was visibly shaken. He was angry but also very vulnerable. It turned out the debtor had attacked him with a sheathed blade, not cutting him, but bludgeoning him across his arms, chest, sides and head, while another man restrained my patient to try to stop a big fight breaking out between him and the debtor.
And what my patient had actually come to request was not money at all, but a letter for the police report to evidence the injuries he had incurred from the debtor. He showed me the partial report from the police where a medical examination was being asked for. He had come because he needed someone to listen to his story, look at his bruises, say that it was NOT alright for someone to hurt him like that, and to describe the injuries in writing so he could use that as evidence.
With deep humility and empathy, I did all of those, listening to him as he continued telling me about how each of the bruises hurt him, and how it even hurt when he was breathing. I took pictures of all the marks and wrote a careful description, sending a silent message of gratitude to the occasional medical thriller I have watched where that sort of thing is done.
He was very grateful as he got dressed again. I am going to invite him back to visit me again for some Trauma Release energy work, because there were deeper emotional and spiritual wounds that I could not really write about for the police report. I also hope he gets his money back and some judicial restitution.
Man no.2 came to me a week or so ago with a most curious problem that would happen after what he considered a most embarrassing activity, which he had managed to explain with lots of metaphors. I am glad I have a rather lateral-thinking and imaginative mind so I could follow the metaphors back to the actual meaning of his words!
I had originally asked him to get an ultrasound done to investigate the curious phenomenon, but I also knew he would have to save up money for a week or two to afford it. So I spent some time online doing research on his interesting set of symptoms (have I sparked your curiosity?!), and found that he could in fact have chronic inflammation of his prostate. Knowing that he really wanted to be rid of the problem and pain it was causing (unrelated to peeing – in case that’s your theory!), I went to find him in the village and quickly came across him outside his shop.
Then I explained my theory and the suggested treatment for it (a month of antibiotics), while using all his own metaphors so he would catch my drift. He liked the sound of all that, obviously relieved that his problem might go away so he could resume his solitary “activities”.
He then took me inside his shop and picked a small round wooden carving off the shelf and asked if I would like it. Anti-hustle bells went off again as it was the EXACT same design as the “gift” I had been “given” in Lamu town last week where I was subsequently asked for payment! I felt the sinking feeling in my stomach for the second time today… Did this have to become about money again?
Utter honesty always pays dividends for me in life, and applying that concept here, I told my patient about how someone had tried to hustle me with that same wood carving design. My patient laughed and said that he knew people exactly like that. But he wasn’t one of them. Then he wrapped it in newspaper for me and was about to give it to me when his wife appeared!
She was not aware of the solitary “embarrassing activities” of his that caused his medical problem, from what the expression on his face said, and I could see he was desperately trying to find a reason to give her for him handing me (the local Daktari) the carving. I may have slightly rescued him by thanking him and saying, as though I had already paid, that I would be back soon to buy more things from his lovely carving shop!
I feel deeply grateful to Man no.1 and Man no.2 for their gifts of trust to me today, and the beautiful reminder that there is such a thing as a free carving.
Gratitude also for the realisation I feel pain almost as soon as I close my heart to others. My heart loves to be open, and it is always beautiful to receive others’ vulnerability, trust and hope from that place. They remind me of my own vulnerability, trust and hope.
PS: No activity is too embarrassing to tell a sympathetic doctor about if it causes pain and distress!
