Early morning here at the Weston Hotel.  Getting light and I am up looking forward to a big day.  Thought that I would talk to you before things get going.  This whole trip is focused around a luncheon showing of Phil’s Camino at the maker of one of my chemo drugs.  They have a program where they bring in ways to show their employees the finally products of their work.  In other words we are on hand at this affair today to be proof positive of the good they are doing.

Yesterday we were talking about the meeting with the group of doctors in Seattle.  And today another medical connection for me to work on.  This is new and different from the audiences that we have gotten in the past whose questions centered around religious and Camino themes.  Still getting used to the flavor of the questions asked from this area.

I was going to give a little view into the doctor’s meeting that we had a few nights ago.  I did my best to answer questions that were sparked by the film.  One was tell us more about the difference between healing and curing.  Then questions about the walk itself in Spain and on Vashon.  But mostly it was about attitude and motivation, mine and their patients in general.  The big problem seems to be the state that patients get in after their diagnosis of lostness and paralysis.  How to get patients to start to think about function seems to be the first step before working on functioning itself.  And Dr Zucker my rehab doc covered that mostly.

I gave them a little song and dance about Hildegard and medieval medicine and the book God’s Hotel which none of them had read.  I related the story of the power outage in Seattle and the Treatment Center running on 10% electrical power when things went medieval for an afternoon.   The lights were low, the chemo pumps ran but without all their noises and alarms and buzzes.  The computers were down so the nurses actually spent the majority of their time with the patients.   It was a temporary shift that gave us all a different view, a view that favored quality for the patient and not the efficiency of the hospital.

When one is a patient and maybe a patient for an extended period things at the hospital start to be seen “through the patient’s eyes”.   It is hard to do that for others, doctors included.  This is where I have heard that cancer doctors that get cancer actually learn a lot about the whole process.  A different view appears.

Anyway, I guess I could say that it was a real get together in the finest sense.  Everyone walks away inspired with things that are new to think about and with inspiration to get things accomplished.  So, yea, maybe today will be similar.   I have to go and search for breakfast and coffee.  My Rebecca said maybe we should get room service to bring it up but that seems too weird to me.  Will be back to join you tomorrow.  Alperfect, love, Felipe.