This story came from Robin Yaklin, who sent it after reading our post on Nancy Pickard. It’s one of those synchronicities that illustrates the power of a vision that may not come to pass tomorrow or even next month, but perhaps years from now. It also addresses something else we’ve discussed on this blog – birds as messengers.
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Something went pop in my head and then came the pain like the devil slowly inserted a knife. Pressing my hands on either side of my head, I rested my forehead on my desk and prayed God would make it stop. And, then it did, suddenly like it had come.
A note card lay open with half a sentence composed. I kept looking at it, waiting for the pain to resume. Nothing happened so I began again on the note. I came to the word ‘and’. I could not get the correct order of the letters in that simple word. Then began the dizziness. Long story shortened, medical referrals were made until I ended up with a neurologist and a prescription for anti-drepressants. I didn’t like the medication. No, I hated it. I complained repeatedly. No one listened.
Acupuncture was a last resort. During a treatment I had two visions. First a round bubble shape, brilliantly red, with white outlining a swan’s wings. The wings were stretched out as though the bird would take flight. Beautiful. I wanted it to last, but it faded and another image came – this time, the cross section of a brain. I knew it was my brain. It was divided crosswise so that it had four quadrants. The front two were blue as well as the back left. Only the right back section was red. The acupuncturist, an internist from China, was troubled and he suggested I follow-up on this since, in Traditional Chinese Medicine, blue means stasis. “Just a hunch,” he said.
I didn’t know what to do. I had to think these visions over. A few weeks went by. Driving home one day from an appointment with the unyielding neurologist, in tears, I resolved to take this into my own hands. This was hell. I called a friend who has MS and she listened and came to the same conclusion I had—find a new neurologist. She offered hers and I pursued getting an appointment.
The second opinion neurologist was friends with the former neurologist and a bit testy about my questioning her. He demanded I reveal her diagnosis. I refused and demanded back that he begin his analysis with a fresh perspective. We glared at each other. He wanted to know what tests she had performed. I said, “None.” He announced that I needed blood work and other tests to eliminate easily determined diagnoses. This made sense. I was willing to do it, but his tone bothered me. His announcement was like a challenge, like he wanted to see if his long list of to-do’s would discourage me. Maybe I’d go away, dontchaknow. Last on his list was an MRI of the brain.
The phone call: “Put everything down. Don’t lift even a purse or grocery sack. I don’t want to hear you went mall walking for four hours. You can walk your hall to the bathroom and that’s about it. Your have aneurysms. Call these surgeons.” I had five little lethal bubbles. Pardon the pun, if I say it was breath-taking.
Four surgeries were needed. In a crazy attempt to make believe life was still normal, my husband and I would go to the grocery store each night before the surgery and stock up for my homecoming. I think we were making believe there would be a homecoming. By our house is a lake. The night before the first surgery, a beautiful swan settled on it. A few days later, he was gone. He did this each night before the operations. Who could help saying, “I get the message, God.” I bought a silver charm and hung it around me neck.
During the last surgery, I had a very small stroke, but a stroke, nonetheless. I’m a writer. My language skills were affected. The beautiful Persian carpet on our floor became a towel because that was the only word I could access for it. There were other problems. I was still dizzy. Typing floundered. Handwriting stopped. My right side was weaker. Healing has taken years. I’m almost fully recovered and, as a reward, I signed up for BONI – Breakout Novel Intensive, a writers’ retreat/workshop.
My hotel room had a view of the river and some rocks on which a cormorant sat. One sunny windy day, he splashed around in the water, then hopped onto the rocks and spread his wings–glistening, beautiful, powerful wings exactly in the shape of my vision.
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I think the sighting of this cormorant bodes well for Robin’s full recovery.
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I think the sighting of this cormorant bodes well for Robin’s full recovery.
