After looking after patients on a spinal unit, recently, some of my life measurements were significantly altered. I realised that any personal tears of frustration were indulgent, once I had discovered that I have measured my whole life by the wellness of the vessel that carried it. If I may call our bodies vessels, permit me to say that on that day, I was in the presence of two "perfect vessels"…one fat one and one with a rather extraordinary bee-hive hairdo. I was also in the presence of four damaged vessels, one who had lost the use of every limb, and whose chest had been crushed in a car accident. Part of her mangled hand had been removed and she had a pacemaker implanted 16 weeks ago. In a few moments, she had lost her partner and, like her hand, someone's mother had her son torn from her invisible umbillical cord. She hadn't yet been home since her car accident, whle a life of tremendous battles hadn't even begun. This was a "surviver-vessel". I was merely an insignificant little vessel that sometimes looked for parking and a chair for my morning tea.
