Donnie Tash, a?psychic?medium, was my guest on The Self Improvement Show yesterday (May 10) and he blew me away. He said he had a message from my beloved Stephen who died in 2001 of Lou Gehrig?s disease. ?He?s very grateful for all you did for him,? Donnie reported. ?O.K., fine.? I thought. No big deal there. Donnie continued ?He talked about how you bossed the doctors around and he talked about something you wrote ? about someone named Bill and about ducks.? He continued, ?He did well with the disease for a long time and then suddenly got worse.? I could confirm that Donnie was ?spot on? about that.

I drew a complete blank. Stephen and I didn?t know anyone named Bill and I didn?t know about the ducks. I write a lot of articles and I probably talked about getting ?your ducks in a row.?? I couldn?t remember. Donnie insisted I wrote it for a magazine but I?ve never written for a magazine.? Doctors, Bill, ducks, a fast decline and a magazine. What on earth was he talking about?

Still blank, I was not able to confirm what he was telling me except for the statement about Stephen?s sudden decline and being bossy.

Well, we talked about it again last night and did some Googleing. It took a while but we finally found it. I wrote an article in March of 2009 for The AZNet News ? a wonderful holistic newspaper published here in Arizona. I also submitted it to EzineArticles and posted it on this blog. (Notice the ?zine? in Ezine as in magazine).

The reason I?m telling you this is that I completely forgot about the article, about calling Stephen ?Bill? in anything I ever wrote and about the ducks. Donnie certainly didn?t know about any of it. For a Medium to pick up on details as tiny as these but, at the same time as highly significant, is more than awesome and certainly not coincidence.? It is real! He got information!? He didn?t get the information from me so I can only assume Stephen helped. You be the judge.

The message? Stephen was grateful that I still cared about what had happened to him and that I wanted to let people know about it. He wanted to say ?Thank you.?

I have run the article in full below with the passages marked in bold that Donnie Tash talked about and I couldn?t remember:

?

The Powerful Effect of Bedside Manner ? A True Story?For Healthcare Professionals

By?Irene Conlan?-

This is about bedside manner and it is a true story.

 

He ??we?ll call him Bill?? had been ill for several months with some strange symptoms, which progressed rapidly. When he finally saw a physician, he was weak on one side of his body, was having trouble swallowing and had twitching muscles?all over his body. He was sent immediately to a large neurological center for diagnosis and?treatment.

 

After spending all day being examined in the emergency room he was finally admitted to a hospital room late in the day ? discouraged, exhausted and frightened. They woke him in the middle of the night for an MRI and a CT scan and he got almost no sleep. The next morning started very early with blood work, more x-rays and a parade of?health care?professionals. By nighttime he was too tired to eat and sleep would not come. No one seemed to notice.

 

The next day the neurologist, considered one of the best of the best, came in with a retinue of residents trailing behind. Chart in hand he looked at this very ill man and said, ?Well, we?re pretty confident that you have ALS ? that?s Lou Gehrig?s disease. There?s no known cause, no?treatment?and no cure.? He spoke in Medicalese to the residents ? words that regular people don?t understand ? and then turned to?Bill?and asked, ?Do you have any questions?? Everyone was too stunned to ask anything and the specialist and his charges, with no further comments or dialog, left?the room.

 

The next day after the last confirming test was done, the neurologist came in again with his parade of residents. After dialoging among themselves, again in Medicalese, the doctor said to?Bill, ?The last test is in and it is confirmed that you have ALS. There?s no cure. Now don?t go running around spending your?moneyon exotic?treatments?and alternative methods because nothing will help you. You can go on home and come back to the ALS Clinic. Do you have any questions?? Not waiting for an answer,?he left?the room?like a duck with his ducklings trailing behind him.

 

The death sentence had been delivered without so much as a kind word or gesture.

 

The hospital staff came and went quickly like they were just too busy to say anything (and in all likelihood they did not know just what to say to someone who had just been told he was going to die a horrible death soon).

 

Later in his?treatment?? a month or two later at the Clinic ? this brilliant doctor said,??I?m really surprised that you are not deteriorating faster.? Bill obliged him and his decline accelerated. Within a month and a half he died in hospice. (The care at Hospice, by the way, was amazingly supportive, loving and compassionate).

 

The doctor was brilliant. The hospital gave the best physical care that could ever possibly be given. The bedside manner of both the doctors and the hospital staff scored at Zero!

 

?Bedside manner? is really no more than:

o Common Courtesy

o Kindness

o Listening

o Showing interest

o Using understandable language

o Perhaps showing compassion

 

It does not matter if you are a renowned specialist in allopathic medicine, an osteopathic,?homeopathic?or naturopathic doctor, a dentist, a chiropractor, a reiki master, a spiritual healer or some other form of alternative and complementary medicine practitioner, your patient deserves to be treated like an intelligent, sensitive, competent human being. It is your job to give him information in a language he can understand, give him the bad news without robbing him of all hope and set a stage for his healing or transition.

 

Remember that your patient is more than bones,?muscles, organs and skin and that what impinges on him emotionally, spiritually and psychologically impacts his response to medical care and healing work. Your bedside manner can be used as therapeutically as the prescription pad, the adjustment and the energy work. Put yourself in your patient?s shoes and think about what you would need to know and how you would like to be treated ? then your bedside manner will most likely be what it should be.

?

There you have it. The magazine,?Bill, the ducks, and, the article doesn?t say so, but, yes, I got?bossy.

 

Thank you Donnie, for being so great at what you do and do it with such integrity.

 

Irene Conlan has a masters?degree?in nursing, a doctoral?degree?in metaphysics, is a certified hypnotherapist and an ordained minister. She practices holistic hypnotherapy in Scottsdale, AZ and the Phoenix metropolitan area. Irene can be found at?http://www.theselfimprovementblog.com.