Be the helper.

I woke up remembering. The cold roll of IV poles on wheels rolling over the linoleum tile floors. The clank of sharps into the red plastic receptacles. The quiet but repetitive beep alerting the nurse that an IV bag was empty. The slow leather crunch as aching bodies tried to find a comfortable position for the next few hours. Soft moans from hurting humans. Anxiety meds being pushed for hurting humans who feared needles. 

Also. Silence. 

Into a beautiful brownstone on Pine Street in Philadelphia, directly across from the lovely gated courtyard of Pennsylvania Hospital, our nation’s first, I would be dropped off, routinely, by a friend or family member. My head, under intense pressure and feeling like fire, sitting atop my neck…which often felt too weak to hold it up…my eyes bulging through my skull…I would walk in and wait. My normal cheery self was dampened. My head heavy. My heart numb. My world a gray haze of noise that I tried to shut my eyes to. 

My name would be called by people who were called in this life to serve those of us in pain. Bless the helpers. 

Back I would go. I had a favorite recliner. It was by a window…that faced an exterior wall. But there was light. Not too much. The sweet nurse spoke softly and asked for my level of pain on the scale. Usually, at that time, it was between a 7 and 9. This number is coming from a former marathoner who opted for natural childbirths and experienced, unmedicated, an amniotic transfusion when the heart rate of my fourth began to dip during labor and they pumped bags of saline directly into my laboring and contracting uterus which squeezed with the immense power of biology and the infinite strength of womanhood. “Today…it’s a nine.” I would say with a shallow sigh so as not to move too much to hurt my head. “Aw sorry, honey,” she would say. “We’ll try to get that down for you.” She’d wheel away on her round stool and start collecting a cocktail of pain meds and steroids and Ativan and all sorts of who knows what. She would slide the needle into my bruised arm and my constantly-pierced veins because everyone had been trying to figure me out and I was a regular at Labcorp where they had been taking 4-15 vials every few weeks. She was good. It never hurt and she always did it just right. The Ativan would hit and I’d slide. My eyelids would get heavy. I was alone. 

One day, from behind my partition, I heard a young man’s voice. He sank into the leather chair on the other side of my metal and fabric wall. He was tall. His feet stuck out past where my partition ended. His mom was there. He was nervous. He didn’t like needles. Should she administer his anxiety meds now? First? Will the meds the nurse gives via IV work in time? After many, many back and forths between the women, it was determined that maybe the mom needed some coffee. He would be fine. She left. He sighed. “She’s really good, this nurse,” I said quietly. “She usually gets it right the first time.” “That’s good,” he said. “What are you in for?” he asked, trying to be lighthearted. And to this man whose face I never saw, I shared something so private….that because of my birth control, my Mirena IUD, I had something called Intracranial Hypertension… the hormone levonorgestrel caused an increase in the production of cerebral spinal fluid and my brain was under intense pressure. In the many months of people not knowing what was wrong with me (viral meningitis vs tick or mosquito borne encephalitis vs MS) someone in one of my many ER visits gave me a mega dose of IV steroids. It was the only thing that gave me life and helped my pain more than any NSAID or barbiturate ever did. But. Fun fact. Steroids also mess with your intracranial pressure…which isn’t a big deal when your chief issue is poison ivy or asthma or most other things. But when your main problem IS with your intracranial pressure…I was trapped in a loop of failed prednisone weans and my adrenal glands were shot and I had no immune system and crazy pain. 

“Wow,” he said. 

“What are you in for?” I asked in return. He had had issues with mysterious pain for much of his high school and college life, often requiring that he be schooled at home. He spoke about his struggles with isolation and how, though he looked healthy and like a super fit, strong guy, sometimes he required a wheel chair. He met a girl online who felt his same pain and sometimes she would help wheel him to the corner market in the city where he would stand up from his wheel chair to reach an item on the top shelf. “People would make fun of me all the time….‘he’s cured!’ peers would laugh. But I just couldn’t walk so far from home…I could stand, but I just couldn’t walk.” Still, he was able to complete his schooling and became a lawyer. One stressful day he lost feeling in the side of his face. He had actually been in a relatively good space in life but now was looking down the barrel of an MS diagnosis and had been planning to move from home to start fresh and had just taken a job in DC…but insurance was covering his care here and if he told his new job, would they even hire him…. 

I never saw his face. 

He fell asleep. And I must have to. Next thing I knew, my machine was beeping and I was getting my needle out and my gauze and tape on and sorting out my next appointment time. 

There are people…. some you know and some you have never met as many of us walk in our healthy circles and watch our healthy kids play sports and do things that healthy people do, like go to the grocery store or to the gym or out to dinner. But there are so many people who hurt. People who need hugs. And rides to appointments. And a listening ear. 

In whatever way you can… today… be on the lookout for the people that need help…getting into their cars or holding doors or reaching for something on the top shelf. In your moments of mindfulness, send out love or say a prayer for these people, these you’s and me’s, who exist in this world and need help. Be grateful for your own health, as perfect or so-so a condition as you are in. Be thankful for the helpers. The doctors and nurses and PAs and NPs who help us when we need it most. People like this exist all around us and they deserve to be seen. Remember the hurting. Today, be the helper. ?