Black Feat: A Personal Walk to Open Heart Surgery Where There Is No Foe to Fight Except a Contracted Self

By Louella Rosie Jones

Caressing the spirit of African-American women both domestically and globally, Black Feat, through the power of story, offers a cultural perspective on medical impressions in black women and identifies duplicity in health care delivery.

Based on the authors true events during various stages of her open heart surgery processes, Black Feat uncovers a larger conversation about hospital/ health systems abuse of power and indifference in terms of acceptance. It presents the theory that healthcare provider attitudes are direct affects of institutional life on people at those organizations funded largely by big Government. It reveals epistemology of disease from a biopsychosocial and spiritual lens posturing race and ethnicity as sacred variables.

Anchored in the scriptures, Black Feat is upfront and introspective. It unzips deep psychological and corresponding physical deterioration that occurs when depression, anxiety, post-trauma stress, loss, and developmental disorganization are left unattended. It examines most factors linked to heart disease and underscores the importance of evaluating every organ system in the body, including the brain.

Black Feat focuses on black womenwhat they go through, how they get through, how they can be better about certain matters of the heart, and how they can empower one another and thus enrich generations of young people to come.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 28, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491771471

Louella Rosie Jones

Louella Rosie Jones received her Masters of Science in Counseling Psychology and mental health care from Pace University, New York. She holds New York State credentialing in alcoholism and substance abuse counseling, and was formerly a corporate real estate finance business and investments officer at JP Morgan/Chase. She is currently a writer, psychological services/mental health counselor, and entrepreneur. She has two adult daughters and currently lives upstate, New York.

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Copyright © 2015 Louella Rosie Jones.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Unless otherwise noted, all scripture passages have been taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Biblical quotations used in this book were taken from the following Website: Christian Quotes, www.christianquotes.info.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-7148-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-7147-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015913887

iUniverse rev. date: 10/27/2015

CONTENTS

A Train Wreck without the Connection

Chapter 1: The Language of Personal Challenge

Chapter 2: Sizzle

Chapter 3: Examine Your Life and Transcend Any Fear

Chapter 4: Judgment-Based Medicine and the Necessary Integration

Chapter 5: How Great Upstate

Chapter 6: Cultural Competency in Health Care

Chapter 7: What Is Left Unknown Does Hurt

Chapter 8: Challenging the Revolution

Chapter 9: House of Tenderness

Chapter 10: Diseased Environments, Illness, and Sociologic Dogma

Chapter 11: Beauty Out of Broken Pieces

Chapter 12: The Heart of the Matter

Chapter 13: A Heart Full of Miracles

Chapter 14: The Postsurgery Recovery Climb

Chapter 15: A Lot of Power in Little Steps

Chapter 16: Love Is a Heartbeat Away

Addendum

A Conversation with Dr. Sherma Winchester-Penny

Bibliography

To Allan

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The late Dr. Zee, who always took the time to understand African American patients beyond the surface and who motivated me—in his very down-to-earth manner of speaking so that I got the bigger picture—to take control of my whole life. He was, hands down, one of the best doctors I have encountered. Dr. Zee’s ability to service patients beyond cultural barriers and social disparities provided for an exemplary level of care. He had God’s heart.

The queen of cardiology in the Hudson Valley, Dr. Sherma Winchester-Penny, a contributor to this book, whose humanity, care, and sharpness are over the top. She possesses a nitty-gritty concern over all people and an extraordinary bedside manner. She is, overall, a spirited and beautiful human being.

Dr. David Adams, who, because of his skilled hands, enabled me to rise every morning without coughing up a lung.

My two loving daughters, extended family, friends and neighbors, who took time to talk with me about this project and held me up in prayer and supported me on this writing journey while I virtually disappeared for nearly a year. Borrowed from the 2006 American-Mexican-French film; ‘Babel’ written by Guillerm Arriaga, and I quote: My children, the brightest lights in the darkest nights.

Words are less than adequate for the entire iUniverse Team without whom I might have filed my manuscript in archives. Resounding Thanks! for the coaching and watchful eyes that made this dream come to fruition.

And last things first: a humble bow to the Almighty God, most merciful and compassionate, with whom everything under the sun is possible. With Heartfelt thanks for the physical and emotional strength to handle this very difficult material and realize my dreams deferred.

LRJ

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INTRODUCTION

A Train Wreck without the Connection

M y way of being in the world had changed. It seemed to be a scary proposition. I was in the middle of an emotional crying spell when I had an epiphany: do one thing every day that scares you. Well, with the emphasis on one thing, how bad could it be, right? My one thing every day was to write a book—I always wanted to do that. But I needed a topic. I also needed a perspective.

I must tell you that this book is not a memoir, even though I share anecdotes of my life. I decided a memoir was not quite the path I wanted to take, because—who am I? What makes my life so fascinating that anyone would want to read about it? You will find the who-am-I query a prelude to the psychological narrative. It’s a query that scared me because my life seemed like a train wreck. I feared people would say, That girl’s all messed up. I wondered how, in this context, I would find fulfilling work and a committed partner, have genuine friends, buy a house with a white picket fence—you know, enjoy any and all social conforms of today’s 24-7 world—how on earth could I do all this stuff if people knew my truth.

Maybe a book is a bit ambitious, I told myself. A month later, I started to wail again as if someone had come along and pressed a cry-now button hidden inside of me. I didn’t cry that day because I was sad about anything in particular. I cried for no good reason at all. It seemed to come out of thin air! Et voila!—my motivator. I knew I had to get to the bottom of a seemingly bottomless well as I am concerned with integrative experiences more than symptoms.

Open-heart surgery was the impetus: its genesis and navigating a healthcare system for women of color, considering cultural competency in medicine as a major problem. This topic seemed to be my escape route from the who-am-I train station. I visualized passively as the wheels of life seemed to pass me by. Then my book on heart health and cultural competency in medicine started to take on another life as the train ride brought me back to myself time and again. I remembered a classic saying: Everywhere you go, there you are. To make matters worse, there were too many questions about self that were unanswered. It seemed there was no escape. I had to go deep…and I remember the resilience of the girl I was, the pride, the anger, the creativity, the hard work.

An entire wall in my study became devoted to cryptic note writing—namely, planning space—where divine inspiration happened at two o’clock, three o’clock, and sometimes four o’clock in the morning, at which point I may as well go to the gym, right? This grueling writing schedule persisted with two-hour catnaps sneaking somewhere in between. My note to myself became "Look at what doing one thing has turned into!"

Black Feat is about power, prestige, influence, adversity, resiliency, and success, all anchored by psychoeducation, and suggests that mental illness results in physical decline. It includes stories that influence family, holistic health, and basic living. It reveals organic deterioration that can, and will, lead to heart disease when brick walls of distress overlay one’s very foundation. The shift is when you discover core strength inside of you that can, and will, transform adversity into something incredible.

There’s a lot of information in this book. The information is designed to make you think, and I don’t believe you’d have this book in your hand if you weren’t a thinker. It’s also anchored in scripture for its practical benefit. You see, scripture comforts. It is forever. It is self-testimony, and most important, it is true. So if you don’t like that sort of thing, you may as well put this book down now. A big C. S. Lewis fan and admirer of his philosophy, I gravitate to his loquacious body of work because there are ways in which it shapes much of my own thinking. One of the things this former atheist turned devout Christian writes about is how people respond to close listening, albeit prayer: They tell me Lord, that when I pray only one voice is heard—that you’re not there, that I’m dreaming, and this whole thing is absurd. Maybe they are right, Lord, maybe they are right—only one voice is heard … But if they are right—only one voice is heard—this is where they are wrong—it’s not my voice that is heard—it’s Yours. I am not dreaming … You are the Dreamer … I am Your dream.

Black Feat does focus a lot on black women—what we go through, how we get through, how we can be better about certain matters of the heart, and ways to empower one another in the abysmal malaise of sociological and family systems. It is said that when you think about other people, they too receive psychological messages. I hope Black Feat will be your message and will serve as a barometer for family, health, and sustained relationships; for building new skills and perhaps strengthening old ones; and for the attainment of community life where you feel connected. Generally speaking, I want something healthy to come out of this and to use my talents to contribute to women of color everywhere. For in this world, it is not what we take up, but what we give up that makes us rich.

I hope this book resonates universally. I hope you’ll feel empowered by it wherever you walk. In the meantime, shower yourself with positive feelings like pride, respect, accomplishment, acceptance, awe, understanding, and wonder—get this all over you! Be encouraged by Black Feat. Read on! Then do the write thing, and connect with me online. Send your comments to www.louellarosiejoneswriter.com.

Gandhi said, Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment.

CHAPTER 1

The Language of Personal Challenge

C hallenge, by definition, is when we call something into question by demanding an explanation, justification, or proof; an invitation to somebody to compete in a fight or contest; or a test of somebody’s abilities. But psychological underpinnings like fear, depression, anxiety, traumatic stress, and insecurity all work really hard to undermine human demands that stimulate our intellectual, legal, and moral compass. By placing love at the center of human existence, which can be difficult for someone who has been locked in trauma, these psychological underpinnings avert human evolution that should happen naturally but is thwarted. Adverse reactions keep people stuck whe n what they really need is a springboard. A certain social integration is then needed so hurt people living in partnerships, whether those partnerships are work life, personal life, or both, have a shared reality.

Running away from any problem only increases the distance from the solution. The easiest way to escape from the problem is to solve it.

—Rishika Jain

When I was twenty-eight years old and pregnant with my second daughter, I worked full-time on Wall Street managing a multibillion-dollar portfolio of corporate real estate investment trusts and construction finance projects in the tristate region of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. This job eventually expanded nationally. As a parent, I invested my whole heart and soul in the lives of my children. I even gave a voice to women in the workplace regarding the need for on-site day care during a time when it was taboo to talk about benefits that strengthen and protect women from workplace discrimination based on pregnancy and family status.

The proposal I had written outlined how on-site child care would impact absenteeism, lateness, and sick days taken by women employees who stayed home to care for sick children even though they were not sick themselves. It also discussed the impact of stress-related illness due to the lack of quality child care for mothers who work outside of the home. My proposal was replete with charts and graphs that demonstrated how productivity increases exponentially when a provision that help women achieve equal rights and empowers them is enacted in the workplace.

Because I experienced all of the terrible isms firsthand—and not only me, but hundreds of thousands of women and their families have experienced them too—I pushed and pushed my proposal. I was eventually blacklisted (no pun intended) as a troublemaker. I was told by human resources people not to rock the boat. They seemed to indicate that my job was in jeopardy because I used the discrimination word, and the big boys frowned on that—mind games. I did not see on-site day care come to pass during my time in corporate America. But today, workplace evolution often allows for women who work full-time jobs to take advantage of on-sight day care. Actually, it has become part of corporate mainstream in the twenty-first century as women make up more than 50 percent of the workforce. I, for one, am pleased about that, as it is the kind of integration needed to spawn healthful partnerships in society as a whole where advocacy is something not to be feared. It’s a kind of social progress that helps women hone child-care stress when it shows up in their lives, veering them toward more healthful solutions in their work-life balance efforts.

Between Two Worlds

I kept my highly stressful day job all right and was eventually promoted to second vice president (2VP), but this promotion came at a very high price. Corporate titles were a big deal back in the day. They called the 2VPs a deuce. In the world of corporate politics at the time, being a deuce meant there was some sort of privileged significance to holding this role. To me, it was more of an ethical matter; it meant that hard work and perseverance counted. Certainly privilege opens doors, but in order for your success to fit right, there must be an appropriate work-life balance that works with you and not against you, and you need to be aware of where you stand on this issue.

Because much of who I am is shaped by my work experiences in corporate America where it is par for the course to wine and dine investment clients, big and small, I would like to mention a brief introspection about a great case study involving Enron, a company whose loans I serviced while working on Wall Street. It was one of my largest corporate accounts at the then Chase Manhattan Bank within a full portfolio of overrated, mortgage-backed junk bonds and securities. At Enron, company executives systematically planned and pulled off the largest accounting fraud case between 1996 and August 2001inflating profits of reportedly more than $38 billion. Billions more in hidden debt came to light as Wall Street reflected continual drops in Enron’s stock price, from $90.00 per share to $1.00 per share. This was the beginning of this company’s end.

How ironic it was that Enron was named America’s Most Innovative Company by Fortune Magazine for six consecutive years, from 1996 to 2001; this time period was the high point in time relative to corporate earnings. Enron was on the Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work for in America list in 2000 and had offices that were stunning in their opulence. Enron was hailed by many, including the workforce, as an overall great company, praised for its large long-term pensions, benefits for its workers, and extremely effective management. Despite these accolades, the company’s ability to sell itself as a valuable commodity regardless of risking public exposure was remarkable. Enron overinflated profits, created off-shore shell companies that didn’t really exist, bought up billions of dollars in mortgage operations and distressed assets globally, took unprofitable entities off the company’s books, and more—all characteristic of an exploitative orientation.

But they continued to build on this unhealthy existence as reflected in actual human behaviors. Their unethical strategy eventually failed, and the rest is history. Ferocious animals are ferocious regardless of the service industry. With big industry, I learned to swim with those backbiting sharks who, when my eldest daughter graduated medical school, ultimately touted: Congrats on raising a happy and healthy child. The sharks in corporate America were human under that tough skin after all. They showed deep respect for me in this sense, and I thrived in it. Despite workplace challenges and barriers to success like the concrete ceiling, I was able to get beyond confusing messages that played in my mind every day.

When I think about jobs in corporate America, I often reflect on experiences that give consistency to peoples’ learned behaviors, and I think of the concept of modeling. In banking, employees are indeed trained to model the behavior of the corporate machine. And so the question becomes: who is really responsible for offensive behavior that is acquired behavior?

Hervey Cleckley makes an attempt to clarify issues surrounding hidden aspects of personality in his book The Mask of Sanity. In a nutshell, he surmises that those classed as sane and competent but who, in fact, criminally deviate from norms of social structure are actually more dangerous to themselves and to society than institutionalized persons, because they are able to convince people of their perceived omnipotence, which they believe to be beyond that of any other man. Peter Gill was a vice president in charge of construction financing for projects based in Iran, as well as a few projects in New York. But his baby was a Starrett City project in Iran that Chase Corporation decided to invest in. It was a multimillion-dollar project that no one else wanted to manage because no one wanted to travel to Iran when that crazy Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi was in power. But Peter did.

He traveled to Iran to check on construction progress and was a devoted and hearty individual. He did not have a private office in the bank and failed to attend many of the social functions hosted by the department. He tended to not care about socializing after work, which is how I ended up with a lot of event tickets. He went on occasion (when coerced) but seemed uncomfortable doing so. Located at a large window seat that overlooked the long stretch of Broadway’s vehicular and people traffic that flowered the streets of lower Manhattan, Peter sat two desks behind me, and we talked about his work many times.

As an administrative assistant, I prepared his expense reports and typed up travel notes that revealed progress (or lack thereof) and political happenings at the multimillion-dollar Iranian construction site where Chase held a sizable share of the syndicated mortgage. Peter seemed very nervous most days. His hands trembled wildly as he crafted his write-ups, and he seemed jumpy. Some months later, I learned the bank was losing money on his deal; the Iranian project tanked, and the bank lost millions.

One day I placed my hand over Peter’s to help steady his nerves and alleviate suffering. But this did not annihilate pain that seemed deeply buried. You see, trauma comes back up through pressures. Evil acts are therefore traded through the strength of original memories, and a functional goal is to weaken the original memory’s hold on one’s psyche. I had read intense worry and contorted concern on his face when he handed me a stack of signed loan documents to photocopy. I asked, You okay? You seem very upset, jumpy in fact. Little did I know, Peter was a devout alcoholic, and the corporation, through its Employees Assistance Program, had tried to help him before it was too late. Peter was mandated to attend meetings, and he seemed to resent it. One day he told me out of the blue that he was worried about losing his job. I didn’t know what to say, because he appeared sound on the surface. I listened to what turned out to be a lamentation.

Peter lived on Long Island with his wife, his three children, and his mother. Two weeks after returning with all those signed documents from that previously mentioned business trip to Iran in 1984, during an argument with his mother, he bludgeoned her to death. He then killed himself. I think he had an acute reaction to the possibility of his perceived job loss. His supports appeared slim, as during our time working together, I witnessed folks who chose to whisper behind his back and shun him rather than offer a genuine hand up in a real way we call tough love. Some scanty details of his death surfaced at the workplace, but the true story appeared in a local newspaper. I was deeply affected by it. Homicide, suicide—it was all horribly traumatic. I remember I called out sick for three days hence.

Hervey Cleckley’s theory purports that offenses to the law are often carried out in order to obtain punishment for unconscious feelings weighing on the conscience beliefs of the person committing the offense. It’s like a double-edged sword, however. I think people whose behavior is judged as that of an unsound mind are less clearly understood than any defined psychosis, and the magnitude of the problem is even less adequately explained. In Gerstalt psychology, emphasis is placed on what is being done in the here and now spawning an awareness process. Awareness patterns help people pinpoint what matters to them, experience new ideas and become increasingly aware of their perception of reality—this perspective—grounded in people’s existence, acquired attitudes, and new discoveries. To understand individual behavior, you must consider all parts of the whole. I believe that in order to understand the whole person one must consider not only the sum of the parts but also the sum of his or her experiences.

Through my own wellness journey, and over the course of many years, I learned things through experience that I could not have possibly known at twenty-one years of age when I married. At that time, my experiences were incomplete. There was far too much post-trauma anger, resentment, and hurt to cut through—all those years of madness clogging up my brains, pressing; feeling like a dialectical war between social convention and individual libertarianism. The conflict caused in most cases by material needs. Let me go on record and say, however, there is nothing wrong with liking good things. Good is good. Good is love. But more importantly, we must have moral courage enough to treat people good too. Here’s the rub: money will buy you a Duxiana bed, but not sleep.

Everyone comes with baggage, and as the saying goes, we just need to find someone who loves us enough to help us unpack some of our losses, fears, and anguish. Moving through life’s rough patches, I was taught something about what I now see as the only true emotion that is powerful enough to transform anger—God-love. I discovered what that really means.

Biologically, love is stable and enduring; it’s the stuff that strengthens the immune system. Socially, love communicates unity in a so oft-divided world, so love strengthens here too, because it influences pleasing behavior. And for me, psychologically, I have always had an intense need to have the kind of love I describe to be at the center of my life. I believe that everything else beyond the emotion of love is merely a reaction: like the deep and abiding anger I experienced when I felt violated in my marriage or the neatly tucked-away pain I felt at having to wrap my little bundles in snowsuits and whisk them off to substandard daycare in the dead of winter even when they were unwell because I had to work. It felt traumatic back then. Even today, this memory still has some power over me; it moves me to tears, because I wanted time with my children during those formative years before they started school—to be 100 percent present for them and not caught up in the battle of two wolves inside corporate America.

I also experienced jealousy, another reaction that reared its ugly head whenever I’d notice other parents who seemed to have it all with their comfortable lifestyle. Oh, let me not forget the fear of lack I felt when money was low and the guilt I felt when I was out of the home for ten to twelve hours at a time as I climbed that corporate ladder. And then there was the embarrassment, shame, and loneliness I felt when I looked in the mirror and was unable to reconcile my own feelings about upward career mobility and motherhood—all indicative of a bigger picture, a deeper paradigm of exploration.

I looked to explore my passion about implementing something in the corporate climate that made life simpler and more flexible—a different type of ethos—where we’d include black women, where we’d hire them at leadership levels, where sisters matter. It seemed very simple. I had a strong desire to grow professionally, make lots of money, and be a good mother. I was on the fence regarding the wife role based on what I was experiencing. Scripture says in Matthew 6:24 (Holman Christian Standard Bible), You cannot be slaves of God and of money. My values were staring me down.

However, like a psychological quicksand, the more I struggled in what engulfed me, the harder it was for me to get out. Feeling very conflicted, I believe I was having a severe existential crisis. I searched doggedly for my sense of identity and purpose, although I was swimming against a rather rough tide.

When a woman stops having sex with a man, the relationship is over. Period. Feeling trapped by a life marred with unmet needs, overwhelming grief, and deep contrition, my eyes fell doggedly on something below the Christ-spirit. With my inner compass off, my inner voice silenced by external conditions, it resulted in ominous battles that raged deep within between sociological wants and biopsychological needs. Defiant, I did bad things, or so I was told. When I did not understand stuff, I did things society viewed as bad. In a mental fog, sooner or later, I might arrive at a more stable state of mind after looking to rid myself of lasciviousness in my life; the types of associations I’d seen in wide-eyed wonder scattered throughout my mother’s short life like some sorts of commodity. There appeared, in waters well-tested, an appealing smorgasbord of fun and folly anchored by an abiding richness that gave one’s life worldly perspective. And in the dark of starry, starry nights, I danced with the devil. I had to finally say, Husband, broken—I am not everything you need. Legend has it that we are born sinners by nature; we require morality, spirituality and other philosophical systems to keep us clear, focused, positive—and not destructive.

Devoured by Satan, life became harder and was characterized by a daily five-hour commute (two and a half hours each way) to jobs I loathed, schooling I missed, people of dubious intention—selfish people—every day, sucking the light of life straight out of my soul like killer bees sucking up their own honey. All of this paired with solo parenting and the sheer demands of basic living felt more like championing in on a white horse of survival while waving a huge white flag to summon peace and outer harmony. I lived in a world where that good stuff was virtually nonexistent. It felt like a dead person walking in darkness, and I divorced. Strong in my convictions, however, I felt as though I’d finally pushed back.

As I