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WHERE TO FROM HERE

The Healing Process:

A Lesson Learned from Your Blood

By Teresa Samson

There is a lot we can learn from the way our bodies heal. worthy to approach
So often when we are experiencing spiritual injury, be it emotional this destruction
exhaustion, physical fatigue, or unspeakable heartbreak; we seek as a foundation
sources of instant relief. Understandable. It gives us a sense of con- for newness.
trol to pull ourselves from sadness and take an active part in healing. The havoc
Healing is, after all, an active process. The part we may be missing, sparked by
though, is that it also requires an element of stasis — remaining the novel
where we are, slowing the constant influx of distractions, and al- c o r o n -
lowing our injuries to become a scaffold for healing. a v i r u s
Recall the last time you nicked yourself shaving. You probably f o r c e s
grabbed a towel quickly to apply pressure and help stop the bleed many of us
before your bathroom looked like a scene out of a horror movie. to slow down,
Action taken. Situation controlled. Right? Maybe, but what about which undoubt-
that scab that appeared a day later? Despite your active role in heal- edly feels more
ing, the reason your wound has become a site of new growth has painful than helpful.
little to do with continuous movement and scrambling for ways to Yet, no one can deny that this
control the tiny bleed. In fact, let’s be reminded that it came about stagnation of life is the most necessary step to healing (#Flatten-
through the headache of a process we call hemostasis, heme= TheCurve), and that the ways our lives have changed give us struc-
blood; stasis = state of inactivity. ture to build new and better things for our futures. Is it just me or
are phone calls less uncomfortable now? There is nothing passive
We all know how hemostasis works, but allow me to about the healing of ourselves and our communities, but for it to
refresh your memory: happen, it requires stillness.
1. A blood vessel gets injured, blood escapes. Your shower floor I am not necessarily using the process of hemostasis to make a
turns bright red. political statement. I am just a medical student in the throes of ded-
2. Your blood vessel responds by constricting, narrowing its lumen icated board prep, recognizing that there are lessons to be learned
to slow the flow of blood through the site of injury. on every page of life… and of First Aid. My mind, probably much
3. Platelets aggregate and bind at the site of injury. like yours, is frustrated having been stripped of the foundations it
4. Proteins are synthesized to help stabilize the clot. once relied on (e.g. stability and safety in work, availability to friends,
freedom to explore, closeness to family). And more than likely, we
There you have it! What was once a wound is now a scaffold for both feel stuck in this period of stillness. But with what knowledge
new tissue growth. I have gained through my study of hemostasis, let me remind you
While the clotting proteins get all the credit for its final product, of this:
your scab, it is the relative stillness surrounding the wound site that The healing, the building, the growth, the newness – it is all hap-
is the first and arguably most fundamental step in blood clot for- pening right now.
mation. Your being and all your cellular components can be stirred We need only to tune into ourselves to discover it.
to action in an environment conducive to an instantaneous initiation
of healing. But first, things must slow. Teresa Samson is an OMS-II at UIWSOM, is a member of the BCMS
In this despairing season, it is tough to believe that becoming Publications Committee and a member of the Bexar County Medical Society.
couch potatoes will bring forth healing to society, and it’s cringe-

32 San Antonio Medicine • July 2020