“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(I brought Jane back home from St. Joseph’s hospital in Elmira, New York at about 4:15 PM yesterday. Her doctor, Marsha Kardon, had had her admitted at supper time the day before [May 20, Thursday] because the middle finger of Jane’s left hand had begun to turn blue from the last joint to the nail.

(Very kindly nurses quickly helped settle Jane in the room, which was very pleasant. Two of them were taking blood for some nine separate tests almost before we knew what was happening. Two of the blood cultures would take at least 48 hours, we were told, so I envisioned Jane being in the hospital for at least a few days. The nurses awkwardly put Jane in bed after sitting her on the commode. A thick foam rubber pad had been placed on the bed beforehand, however, and Jane found it to be very comfortable. Then at close to 10 PM a technician wheeled in a portable X-ray machine to shoot Jane’s chest. I placed the cold film holder under Jane’s back as she lay propped up on the mattress, but the whole task went quickly. Evidently Dr. K wanted the picture to check on blood clots perhaps breaking loose near the heart.

(When I arrived at Jane’s room at 1 PM on Friday, I was quite surprised to learn that she was going home that afternoon. Things shut down over the weekend, more or less, and no blood-test results were available yet. The nurse, Joyce, who was head of the treatment for decubiti at the hospital spent a lot of time going over the proper treatment with us, and gave us a quantity of sterile water, Silvadene, sponges, saline solution, etc. We could tell she was enamored of her work and very sincere in all of her suggestions. Our own ideas were that treatment was all the better the simpler it was.

(Dr K., being still concerned about Jane’s finger—which had improved somewhat, but was still markedly bluish in cast—decided to prescribe a drug to dilute the clotting ability of blood somewhat: Persantine, in tiny pill-like form, to be taken three times a day. Dr. K. said this treatment had to be balanced against the added risk of infection of Jane’s one open bedsore on her coccyx, for the Persantine reduced the body’s ability to fight infection to some degree. This at once set up barriers in our thinking, but especially in Jane’s. Jane had also learned that everyone at the hospital was against her smoking, and had been told that nicotine helped restrict the blood flow in the tiny capillaries. In other words, one would be better off not smoking. When Jane said that Dr. K had said her lungs were okay while she was at the Arnot, Dr K. defended that analysis by reminding Jane that she’d said her heart was good, but that through the stethoscope she’d heard various “wheezings and gurglings” in Jane’s lungs. Not that the lungs didn’t look okay via X-rays.

(Today, Sunday, Jane’s finger looks slightly improved, but far from cleared up. In this session I haven’t written about the negative suggestions Dr. K. gave Jane in the hospital concerning the finger: ulceration, losing the joint, etc.)