What is Important In Life

I promise to write more about my story later, but there is one gem, one thing that means a great deal to me, that I want to write tonight.

The day before I left the hospital, I had to go down to radiology to have a pick line put in. It's like a permanent IV located on the upper arm. They actually use an ultrasound machine to slide a tube into a vein towards your heart so that the medicine gets spread through your bloodstream very fast. It's done in a very scary room, and the whole idea of it had me quite terrified, to be honest. They rolled me into this huge room with all of this equipment and I was very scared. I asked them to explain what was going to happen. They said I would feel a prick when they gave me a shot of Novicane, and that I should not feel anything after that. They were exactly right. I decided to close my eyes so I couldn't watch the ultrasound, and laid there repeating my favorite morning prayer/chant to myself until it was done. It didn't take very long, and like I said, compare to how scared I was, the whole procedure was nothing. Painless. I was worried for nothing.

When I came out of that room, there was a woman in a wheelchair waiting to be next. They had to clean the room and equipment before she could go in. She was about 10 years older than me, and her lip was quivering. We made eye contact, and she asked me about the procedure. I told her what they had told me, that I closed my eyes, and that it really felt very much like getting a normal IV started. She still looked scared. I asked one of the technicians to move my chair over by hers. I reached out and put my hand on hers, and told her that it was really going to be OK, and that I had been scared too. Then, after a pause, she started sobbing. I put my arm around her, still holding her other hand. She tried to stop herself out of embarrassment, but I told her it was OK. She cried for several minutes, and then began to collect herself. One of the technicians had brought over a box of tissues by this time, and I felt like a mother soothing a child for a moment.

Then she began to talk, interrupted by more crying, and told me that she was a recently retired school teacher. I told her that I had taught school, and we talked about the miracles of touching the lives of students. Then, she told me that she was in the hospital because she has colon cancer, and that her husband was in the waiting room, and all of this time, she has never broken down and cried in front of him. With that, we both started sobbing, and I did my best to put both arms around her. After a few more minutes, she again composed herself, and asked me my name. I asked her name. I asked her if her faith was supporting her through this time, and she told me that it was the ONLY thing that was supporting her. I told her that I had been saying a prayer while they did the procedure, and suggested that she do the same. I told her that I would be praying for her, not only through this procedure, but through her surgery and beyond. And I have.

They came and wheeled her into the room for her procedure, and someone else came and took me back to my room. But I was not the same person who had left the room just 45 minutes earlier. My heart was broken open with the humanity of another person. I don't mean to sound dramatic, but I'll never be the same. As I thought about what had just happened, I realized that I had just had one of the most important moments of my life. Maybe in the grand scheme of time, it won't make the top ten moments, but I had reached out to another person in a time of need, and offered the full compassion of my heart to them. It didn't matter that she was previously a stranger to me, and that I will most likely never see her again. What matters is that my heart touched another heart and we were both comforted.

I've thought for many years that my basic life priorities were pretty good, that I was pretty much on target. Of course, there are always adjustments, always blind spots, and always new things to learn. But my hospital stay, and the realization that I was near death when I was rolled into surgery, have adjusted some of my priorities. Some of the changes I can talk about, others are gut-level reactions that happen at the oddest times, or so it seems to me. My new priority for my life is the quality of my daily living. Am I making the most of the moments that I have before me? Am I taking care of myself? Am I finding a balance of work and fun? Am I open, and is my heart available to the hearts of other people, even strangers? I'm sure you will find me writing about these changes over time as I continue this blog.

My parting thought for you: Are you taking care of yourself? Do you live a daily life where you are being the person that you want to be, where you are balancing the demands placed on you? As you wrestle to figure out how to do this, know that I am over here doing the same thing.

Sick of Being Sick

I'm having a hard time being patient with myself. I'm not a very good sick person. I'm usually so busy and so productive and so full of new ideas that this whole thing of laying around, being too tired to do much more than sleep, and not even feeling like talking with people is really frustrating me. To make it worse, my Dad is starting to complain that I'm napping too much, and that I shouldn't have been so weak tonight to cry when I was in pain. So when I'm being honest with myself, crying when I feel the need for that release, or napping when I'm too exhausted to keep going, now I've got to defend myself. He means well. But I told my Mom this was going on and asked he to talk to him about not trying to manage me so much. I expect that he didn't like hearing me cry because it hurts him to hear me cry, and not for the bullshit reason he gave me to stop crying. It's not like I spend my day wiping my face with tissues. I'm not one to feel sorry for myself -- in fact, I drive myself harder than anyone else. Hmmmm maybe I learned this little "trick" from my Dad while growing up.

I don't mean to complain about my living arrangement. I'm damn grateful that I have a place to be where people love me and want to help me. I would have made it work if I was living alone at home, but my goodness this is so much easier on me. I know in my heart, though, that I won't be really back to normal, back to myself, until I'm back home, sleeping in my own bed, and living my own life again. But for now, I'm learning to be more patient with myself (and with my Dad) and to listen, really listen, to what my body is telling me. I've been so driven, so productive, especially in the last year, that I've not heard a lot of messages from my own body. Even with the great health project/goal I've undertaken, and even with the fabulous success I've had, I can see today that I'm learning even more about how to live a healthy lifestyle while I'm recovering from my surgery. Not to mention the time I've spent thinking about what happened to me over the last 6 weeks.

Like most people, I learned my eating habits in my childhood, so you might imagine that being back at home, Snack Heaven as I've started calling it, has been quite a challenge for me. At first I completely resisted the snacks, mostly because I didn't have much appetite. But as I'm exercising more and getting stronger, I've started to discover that my morning fruit salad doesn't seem quite as special or delicious compared to the breakfast junk food that literally covers one part of the kitchen counter. I'm finding that my taste for unhealthy, high point and low nutrition foods has returned very quickly. While I had said that I wasn't going to worry about points, the last two days I've made a real effort to eat as close to healthy as I can. I'm going to give my mom a grocery list tomorrow for her next trip, and I hope by the middle of the week to really be back on Weight Watchers. The temptations are strong here, and if I don't get some healthy stuff around me, I really will start to gain back some of my lost weight. It will take a bit of willpower and determination, but I'm still as committed to my goal of creating a healthy lifestyle TODAY as I was when I first started this journey... and perhaps a bit more since my recent illness. It's a little sooner than I had thought because I'm not feeling great yet, but I can't ignore the fact that I've noticed that I'm choosing snack foods when they are offered to me. Time to reign things in and follow my heart again.

Thanks for bearing with me during my recovery process. I wish I had more to say, I wish I had more interesting things to say, and I wish I had more encouraging things to say. I'm hanging in there, and I hope that some of you are finding something honest and helpful in what I'm experiencing.

Pushing Myself, Maybe Too Much

On Sunday, I was walking laps inside my parent's house which got really boring. I don't like a treadmill -- I like to get out and walk the streets of my neighborhood. So, I decided that I would take a walk around my parent's house. I ended up walking around the block, which I found out later was just under one mile. Way too far for my first real walk. About 2/3 of the way around, I realized my mistake and decided that I should be taking a cell phone with me so I can call for help if I need it. I made it fine, walking very slowly. But when I reached my parent's front sidewalk, and had to step up one step, my whole leg quivered and I knew I had pushed too far. I immediately went inside, confessed my indiscretion to my parents, promised to take a cell phone in the future, and TOOK A NAP.

Tomorrow is my sister's birthday, so the whole family was here tonight. I was way too tired for all of that activity with my four neices and nephews, my bro and sis, and the in-laws. I had to take a break in my bedroom in the middle of it all -- too much noise, too much activity, too much conversation. I don't even take every phone call that comes in for me! So it was a big day, a huge day, and I'm looking forward to having both parents go to work tomorrow and have some real quiet time, at least in the morning.

I do have some unofficial news for you. While I had lost a lot of weight in the hopsital, according to my parent's scales, I've now lost 50.5 pounds. Since I'm not really resuming Weight Watchers for at least another week, I realize I may actually gain a bit this week. But I'm just so glad to be breathing in and out, and glad to be eating solid foods (after three weeks of full liquids), and glad to have an appetitite, that I'm not one bit worried about what will happen to my weight before I resume my program.

Chapter 3

Thanks for bearing with me. I am trying to pull the story together and I've noticed that I'm not telling it in chronological order. If I repeat myself, I'm sorry. I'm trying to be expedient, but I'm not fully myself these days.

In the midst of waiting for the muscle relaxers to work, my friend Christine, the massage therapist who was working on me, recommended another doctor that she adores, and so I went to see him. He's also an ND (Naturopath), and he gave me a series of homeopathic injections in the sore area around my buttocks which had started to develop. I liked him, but overall, I didn't think this treatment was accomplishing anything. The sore spot continued to grow until I had something that I called a boil on my backside.

By the time I got to my second appointment with my regular doc, he took one look at my "boil" and told my friend to take me to the ER because it was more than he could take care of in his office. Not being familiar with the hospitals in my area, I took my friend's recommendation of Phoenix Baptist without asking any questions. I was in too much pain to argue, anyway. We arrived about 2 pm, and went through the usual ER waiting room stuff. Except that this one woman insisted that I sit on this hard white plastic wheelchair. I tried, I really did, but I couldn't even get all the way down. She argued with me, that other people with similar problems have been able to use the chair, like I was just being uncooperative. My solution was to lay face down on the waiting room floor in front of a row of empty chairs. It was the only option available to me. After a few minutes, a nurse came and got me and put me into a bed in the back. It didn't change my position in the triage, but I was much more comfortable. I was grateful to be shown this compassion.

After a while, a sort of technician came to work on me. He wasn't a doc, and honestly, I'm not sure if he was a nurse or what. He was friendly, and I learned that he had been working in that ER for just over 20 years. He apologized that he couldn't give me much in the way of pain relief, and that he would have to lance and drain my "boil." Yep, I screamed. A lot. I asked him to give me a wet towel to bite and I grabbed to the underside of the bed with both arms so I wouldn't move around on him. The pain was horrible, but it didn't last that long, maybe 10 minutes of working on me. Then, other people came by, and I left with prescriptions for antibiotics and pain killers, and instructions to see my family doctor in two days for a follow up. I was never so glad for pain pills in my life.

Tired, will write more later.

Today's update: I'm alone in the house for a few minutes (they don't leave me alone much) and I went for a walk. My brother lives 2 doors down from my parents, and I walked down there. I was hoping that he would be home so I could rest a bit, but no one was there. I had to turn around and walk back. I was so tired about half way back, I thought I was going to have to sit down along the road for a minute, but I made it all the way without stopping. Total walking distance: perhaps 200 yards.

Chapter 2

In the middle of August, I was feeling tired and knew something was off. I thought I needed rest. What was actually wrong with me didn't make itself obvious for quite a long time, so there was a series of explorations and, quite honestly, missteps in treating me, causing the delays that actually put my life in danger. I want to tell the story, but I want more than anything to tell the story of the miracles that happened. The facts are not as important to me as the examples of extraordinary kindness and compassion that were showered on me during this time. So please continue to bear with me as I pull together the story for myself and share it with all of you.

I'm feeling much better every day, and today has been a very good day. I slept for almost 12 hours last night, and my day has consisted of 2 hot baths (mostly to soak my incision), a shower, some unpacking (I'm staying with my parents for my recovery), some short conversations with my nephews and sister, a short walk around the backyard, and a nap. And now a few minutes using my brain and fingers writing here.

All of these things are getting much easier because it has been several days since my IVs ended. I was receiving an antibiotic call Primaxin prescribed by an infectious diseases doctor during my hospital stay. I was on it for just over 2 weeks. While I was in the hospital, it was much easier because the nurses would just come into my room and I could basically sleep through the process, which I learned that they call an "infusion." Once I came home, it was up to me and my Mom to set the alarm for 7 am/1pm/7pm/1am, prepare the drug, and infuse myself, a process that involved saline and heperin, an blood clotting agent. Of course, if you are familiar with IVs, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's not brain surgery, but for a sick person who is already exhausted, it is a bit to learn and take on at first. Once I had done about 4 of them, I was not nervous or skittish about doing them. The good thing is that each day that I'm further from the end of the drug, the clearer my mind is becoming and the easier it is for me to do complex motor tasks, like typing.

The illness revealed itself slowly, showing symptoms that lead me in many other directions. If I had known from the start what was wrong, I would have acted very differently... but at the time, and given my bent towards natural and wholistic medicine, I made the best choices I could at the time. Mistakes were made. But fortunately, there was enough time left at the end that they could save my life.

You can see from my journal entries in the middle of August, I wasn't doing well. I thought I was working too much, and had been working too hard too long without a break. All of that was true, but it wasn't a factor in what was going on inside of me. My first real symptom was that I realized my hips were out of alignment. I knew this because when I would lay on my bed and move, they would pop and crack a bit. Then, I started to feel some pressure in my colon right above my hips. I thought the two were related. I suddenly found that I couldn't sit down without pain. I could only lay on my stomach across my bed. By Saturday morning, Augusut 17th, I knew things were serious, but still just through I had a back/hip alignment problem that was impacting my colon. Early that morning, I called my yoga teacher to ask for some advice. She recommended a natual product that would help my colon to relax, and offered to have one of her early morning students drop a few capsules at my front door about 9 am.

About 9 my doorbell rang, and there stood a woman I had never met. She not only dropped off the pills, she came in to help me for a few hours, and ended up staying for a week. Her name is Mirna and even though she is flesh and blood and has her own life problems, to me, she will always be an angel. She would fix me a breakfast of fresh fruit every morning, my Weight Watchers routine, and would bring me various soups and other liquids throughout the day. I had put myself on a liquid diet until the colon issue resolved, thinking it would make things easier. Meanwhile, I started calling my doc's pager service. I never got a returned call the whole weekend (which later really upset my doc, but more on that later) and I continued to lay across my bed for two more days, waiting for Monday morning when I hoped to get an emergency appointment. Mirna never left my side during this time. My hip got worse, my stomach pain got worse, and the capsules didn't seem to help. The only position that didn't put me into immediate sharp pain was to lay on my stomach. Even laying on my side or back was nearly impossible for more than a few minutes at a time.

Monday morning, I reached my doc's office and they fit me into their schedule for later that morning (the 19th). I've written about that visit in Chapter 1. During the next few days, my colon pain got worse, and my body got more tense, even with the muscle relaxers. I had a friend come by daily to massage me to help my body to relax. I was determined to do anything I could think of to help this situation to clear up.

Getting tired, will have to write more later.

Chapter 1

My story is very long and my energy level is still very low, so I'm going to try to post bits of it every few days.

First, let me say that the 8 months or so I spent on Weight Watchers improving my overall health has been a big factor in my nearly miraculous recovery. At one point, while in the hospital, I had lost another 15 pounds, but that was due to the illness and surgery. I haven't officially weighed myself since the last posting on my weight progress chart. And I don't plan to do so for several more weeks, because right now getting my health and strenght back is more important than points. Althought I am somewhat watching them, and am eating very healthy.

It's strange to me to see that my post on the 15th was about my illness. I scheduled my first doctor appointment for the following Monday, bear with me because I am having a lot of trouble with numbers (thanks to the drugs I'm on). By that time, I had a pain in my lower intestine, almost like being constipated but different. And my hip and back were out of alignment -- I could hardly stand up and couldn't sit down. By the 15th, I was only sitting up for short spells, and spent most of my time laying across my bed on my stomach.

A friend took me to that first doctor appointment (the friend's help is one of the many miracles I'll tell you about later), and the doc gave me pain pills and muscle relaxers so he could adjust my spine and hips a few days later. He's a naturopath, and ND, and I adore him and natuorpathic medicine. During those few days, I kept getting worse. I had someone come to give me some massages to help me to relax so my doc could fix me. But nothing was working. When I went back to the doc, I was still a mass of tight muscless and he couldn't adjust me. At that time, we thought that was all that was wrong, and that the intestine problem was related to my hips being so out of whack.

During my entire illness, I have received help from real friends and total strangers, receiving more help and compassion and information that I ever believed was possible. I've always worked to be self reliant, so being ill and helpless was a tough experience for me, teaching me a lot about what is important in life and surprising me so much by the kindness of other people. It's made me realize that I don't have to live my whole life like such a warrior -- that I can ask for help and I can work with other people to fill in the places where I'm not so strong. This may sound simplistic, but after laying for two weeks across my bed, being fed and assisted with every little thing by other people, I am forever changed.

Gettting very tired... ending for today.

What's Up

Hello cyber friends and visitors. I've not posted because I've been very sick. I've been in the hospital and I nearly died two weeks ago. I'm doing much better, I've glad to be alive and have have home health care nurses here in and out all day. My mom in Ohio dropped everything to come out and take care of me.

My illness is NOT related to my dieting. I'm exhausted writing just this, but I promise to write more of this story as I have the energy. I can't retrieve emails yet, so please don't write to me. I am still gratefully breathing and present on this planet. Remember me in your heart or your prayers