Tarot for the Healing Heart [antikvár]

Prologue The Kinqdofi op the Sick Everyone who is born holds a dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Susan Sontag I have been a registered nurse (R.N.) since 1977. Through the years, I became despondent over the fragmentation of health care. More and more I saw myself as a skilled mechanic of body parts taking care of the "gallbladder in room 222." Medical specialties further emphasized the remedy-oriented fixing of body segments. Have a problem with the kidneys? Call renal. Heart irregular? Bring in cardiology. Suspect depression? Consult psychiatry. As a charge nurse, I became the division of labor gatekeeper in the kingdom of the sick. I was encouraged by my supervisors to give sedatives for sleep, instead of backrubs, because it took less time. Nursing stripped itself of its healing heart in the name of technology. As treatments and communications became more complicated, less time was spent at the bedside. I had a hard time fitting love, spirituality, and mystery into my skilled, hectic practice. I was taught that curing, or absence of symptoms, was my goal and anything less was failure. My job was to save lives, or, at least, postpone death. With this definition of healing, I was doomed to fail because eventually we all die of something. The hospitals where I worked were filled with profoundly ill people. They were poked, prodded, and chemically treated. The war against death raged.