by Bruce D Snyder
Twenty third-graders, six parents, and a teacher all piled into four or five vehicles and headed for Decorah, Iowa. The class camping trip circa 1981. Once there, we got the tents up, the spaghetti cooking, the s’mores at standby alert. The kids were into it and the parents, adrift in a fog of DEET, were taking pictures of anything that moved.
We did the camperly things: hunted for lost socks, did outhouse escorts, pulled ticks, rummaged for band-aids, and issued stern instructions to ‘go to sleep.’ Finally, the little circle of tents was quiet; we adults sipped hot cocoa by the campfire then turned in.
I have never slept very well on the ground. Foam pads and air mattresses don’t do it for me. So I was rolling over stiffly and trying to find a place for my right foot when I began to hear a sort of moaning sound. I wondered if it might be an owl but soon it was obvious some kid was crying and he sounded serious about it.
I got up, stretched, and staggered over to tent three where the halo of a flashlight was zigging and zagging. Lorraine, the teacher, and Bob, the tent parent, were huddled around a little guy in buckaroo pajamas. He was holding his stomach and sobbing.
We asked the usual questions (what’d you eat? are you nauseous?). He just cried harder. Lorraine had a note from his Mom and some medicine for him. She read it. The boy’s name was Turner, and he had a congenital heart defect and was taking Coumadin, a drug that prevents blood clots from forming in the circulation. But it’s potentially dangerous, can result in hemorrhaging. So, if somebody had punched him in the stomach he could be bleeding inside.
Short discussion. I’m a neurologist for adults so I don’t trust myself to make a good judgment about a child’s belly pain. And I sure wanted some lab backup to tell me if his blood count was okay, his clotting not too slow, and things like that. We had to find an emergency room and get him seen. And this was decades before cell phones.
We wrapped Turner into a blanket with his stuffed bear. Lorraine drove her Datsun and I held the boy on my lap. About fifteen miles away was a small town that probably had a hospital, we hoped so anyway. Turner kept on crying and holding his belly. A half-hour later we pulled into the emergency entrance.
Once inside an aide helped us get Turner onto a gurney. Lorraine called his mom and let her know what was going on. Turner was howling and kicking, really upset. The nurse struggled to get an armpit temperature. He didn’t have a fever but he obviously was in pain. Getting a blood sample was going to be difficult. We could have held him down but I hated to do that to a kid who was away from his folks and scared. So, I decided to try and hypnotize him. I had used hypnosis some for pain control in my practice.
Now, hypnosis is an interesting phenomenon. Although it seems that the hypnotist is controlling the subject, it requires a fair amount of trust and cooperation between the two; the hypnotist and subject need to have a common goal if the process is to work. The hypnotist helps the subject focus his or her attention inwardly on certain images and sensations and this creates a very relaxed dream-like state, a trance. In trance, subjects may be able to follow directions and accomplish things that they couldn’t get themselves to do when normally awake. Even though it may not seem that way at the time, the subject has to want to follow the hypnotist’s directions or nothing will happen.
There’s an anecdote about the great American psychologist and hypnotherapist Milton Erickson that I read some years ago. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of my recall, but I think the story will illustrate my point.
Professor Erickson was lecturing at a university sometime in the 1950’s when a fellow in the rear of the auditorium began challenging him and his work. Hypnosis is controversial; perhaps that’s what led to the outburst. At any rate Erickson paused and spoke to his critic. See here, he said, you can’t say those things about me. Stop it this instant! Well, of course, the fellow became more outspoken. Erickson said, look, it’s easy for you to insult me and hide in a crowd. I dare you to stand up and let people see who you are. There was some hesitation and then the man jumped to his feet and called out a few more gibes. After a moment Erickson addressed him again. Stop it at once! You wouldn’t dare come up to this podium and say those things about me.
The man looked around, hesitated, then pushed his way to the aisle and began walking toward the stage. Erickson said in a more friendly voice, if you are coming up here at least you can speak more quietly, we have microphones. Muttering, the man walked to the stage and climbed up the stairs with a show of bravado. There he stood anxiously before the audience. Erickson turned to him, smiled calmly, and said, you’re upset, why don’t you take a few deep breaths and try to relax. At this point the fellow had a problem. If he continued to confront Erickson he would appear undisciplined and rude. If he backed down he would look foolish. The only other option would be to follow Erickson’s suggestion and enter a trance. A chair was proffered, he sat down, his breathing became quiet and regular and he sat quietly onstage until the lecture ended.
I thought about that story as I held Turner’s hand. He was scared and trying to fight us off. But I knew that even while fighting us he wanted our help. He certainly wanted to feel better. But he didn’t know how. I asked him if he would rather be a Texas cowboy or a space cadet. He said, ‘cowboy’. So I put my finger in his hand and told him to grab on tight to hold a big longhorn steer he’d just roped. I described the steer, big and red, with great black horns and scary eyes, kicking up dust under a hot Texas sun. But you can hold him, I said, that horse you’re on is strong and so are you. His grip tightened on my finger. I told him the steer had been frightened by a rattlesnake and we had to pull it to safety and only he could do it. And to hang on and pull hard. After a few minutes he wasn’t crying, he was looking off into the distance and he was pulling on me for all he was worth.
The nurse quietly drew a blood sample from his other arm. He didn’t seem to notice. She told me a pediatrician was on his way in.
Turner kept pulling, and so then I told him that the snake was gone and the steer was tiring out from fighting so hard against the rope. And it sure was hard work to pull that steer in. I bet that Turner was getting a little tired too. Maybe he could ease off his pulling a little and let his arm rest. He might even close his eyes for a moment since the sun was so bright and hot. And slowly his grip relaxed and his eyes closed and finally, he yawned.
After he was examined and his tests were back it looked as though the problem was simple. He’d gotten constipated and had cramps. An enema fixed him up and I carried him back to the car in the blanket. He was sound asleep. But as I looked down at him, I saw his eyelids flicker and his eyes roll back and forth. His fingers twitched and tightened, just a little bit. And it occurred to me that in his dreams, he was back on that range in Texas, roping a big red steer.
Bruce D Snyder, a retired physician, lives cautiously near Minneapolis where zinging bullets provide a nice breeze to help with the latest heat wave. He is married with three children and various grandchildren and works on the public health effects of climate change. He writes to try and forget the news. His work has appeared in Spillwords Press, Red Rose Thorn Magazine, Literally Stories, Who Let the Stories Out, Journal for Expressive Writing, and Witcraft.
January House Literary Journal 
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