Jan´s accident Part VI: It’s time for freedom

Start here with part 1!

In the streets they start to hang up the Christmas decoration, and also Goreti and her faithful helper Arthur (who is like a son for her) and who have spent most of their lives in Boston, start to cram the guesthouse with American style decoration. Jan is happy that he does not have to experience this. I also feel the sensory overload and I feel some new energy and tension building up. All my friends have returned home and I am feeling a kind of restlessness that cannot be pushed down again. I am taking a long walk over Monte Brasil, almost shouting at the gray huge hospital building that is looming over the city.

One of the songs of my Vagal Nerve Retraining program is very present with me, each line singing from my heart and expressing my feelings:

I pass by the military base, a sergeant of the guard at the gate is saluting me. I tense up and walk on faster, pretending I didn´t notice. Stuff from my Ex is coming up, he was also military. I was so young back then, 14 years ago, didn´t know myself… What a contrast to meet this wild elf Jan. But also stuff from my father, who was also faithfully serving this disappointing, rigid and cold system, that is so far from the real human needs, for all his life. It is a long walk and I leave lots of emotions and stuff in the nature, come back lighter. I get another salute, and this time I nod back while I put one hand on my heart.

I am completely following a strong instinct and the urge to make another lift up of the energy when I decide to leave this fateful guesthouse and book me a really nice Airbnb apartment. I am creating some magic now, based on a calm, deep knowing: This is where I will bring Jan, very very soon. At the same time we get info that his final surgery is going to happen the next morning. And I just feel that this is it, this time for real. I almost don´t sleep the night, so much fear coming up again. Everything completely out of my control. I wait a long long time the next day until Jan comes online.

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It is done, all went very well to the protocol, but he now looks really really bad. Very gray, in huge pain, disoriented. He had just partially been anesthetized and witnessed the hours long procedure… I have decided to not go into detail here for the reader to understand the heaviness of this procedure. Jan is so bad that from now on he has to take strong painkillers, opiates. Really, in hindsight, also seeing how his body was reacting to all the foreign parts and also the toll the procedure to take it out again took on his body and both our psyche (even though it all went „perfectly“, the surgeon is really good, but really, the scar from the initial injury almost disappeared, while he now has many scars from the secondary procedures), we are very disappointed and in disbelief that there was no dialogue with the medical staff, no presentation of options. We for sure would have opted for a more patient and natural approach. This system is just focused on bringing people back to their feed as fast as possible, so that they are physically functional and useful workers again. The initial fear, insecurity and disorientation of the clients is used to give them the illusion that the doctors are some unquestionable authorities and the only option. Also I understand from the history of the Azores, that to have a good healthcare system nowadays is a big achievement, but I hear stories like that also from countries like Germany and the Netherlands.

Don´t get me wrong. I am very grateful, knowing that Jan could have died or been crippled for his life from this injury. But the price was so high. We are falling from the other side of the horse again, like we say in Germany. Complete overcare, complete out of balance. Nobody speaks of the long term consequences and what this does for the psyche and nervous system. This is not holistic. And just this feeling of being more like an object that you can make money with and sell expensive procedures to („but it´s for free! The system pays for it all, we don´t have to worry“….), coupled with this crazy, mistrustful, far-from-nature Corona tactics, is just degrading and paralyzing for the soul.

I don´t remember if it was the same evening or the next, but like in a dream I entered the hospital again, for the last time, and brought Jan out with me. He presented himself cheerful, finally we could put the clothes I had brought on the right person, but on the same hand like a sleepwalker, not really landing in reality again. It took really quite a while for him. The whole story had been tougher on him than he wanted to admit.

I was just so happy to bring him into my safe nest. He is here, here with me again. I have bought an made so many good foods for him. In the late evening I have to run around Angra to find a pharmacy where I can get pain meds for him (also interesting how a tiny city like Angra has, what 5 pharmacies or even more that I didn´t see?? Where are we putting our faith for good health into!!), they didn´t give him anything on the way from the hospital and no instructions, just lots of papers.

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And we are just crazy, still have to learn. Running around the city the next day, like catching up on what we had missed, so excited about being free and having each other again, our both nervous systems gone a bit gaga. Walking up all the way to Casa do Jardim to the organic-vegetarian restaurant. Jan is gray and looks like he is going to pass out, but I guess there is still too much excitement in our beaten up systems. So sad that nobody speaks of this (nervoussystem)trauma aspect of such accidents, also not for the relatives. We do our best with our own knowledge and therapies to make order in our energy system and get some grounding again.

The excitement is not over yet, now we have to find out how to go home again. I could get a flight ticket paid from the hospital I find out, and they „kindly offer me“ to come and get tested, but I much rather prefer to pay on my own. Suddenly the „law“ has changed again anyway and we manage to fly without any extra complicated and freedom undermining procedures.

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In the following months we have to go back several times for check-ups. It is a good thing to revisit the place of trauma and feel how it touches me less and less every time. Jan meet many of my new friends in Terceira, the baker Tomasz, Goreti, Arthur, the merchant on the market who made the planting pot with the aromatic herbs… And we now fully go into enjoyment together of these prescribed „holidays“. It brings back a lot of flow into our lives and brings us closer together.

Part 7