Still not knowing

It went exactly as expected yesterday - painful careful diagnostic mammogram, long painful careful ultrasound, lady doctor coming in to reassure us and say they are referring me to a breast surgeon who "likes to feel the breast himself" and might order a biopsy.  Yes.  A few more tears.  We told them to ask my very good kidney doctor (Ronald deAndrade) for a referral, because he understands my health condition more fully than any other doctor.  Yesterday was Wednesday, and even Buddha doctors often take the afternoon off to play golf on a lovely May day.  They had a bowl of chocolates at the door to the mammogram room. I took three.  Hersheys, but good enough.

Meanwhile, I posted this on the forum at Vine of Obstacles:

a note: one of my true friends, Laurie Doerfler, stopped by with gifts  Sunday.  They included a clear glass vase with old-fashioned roses (maybe from her roommate's garden), which sits here on my desk.  One of the wild roses, streaked pink and white, is in four stages of opening this morning, from past full bloom to a bud opening.  Two nights ago, after our sangha memorial sit for Sarah, I wrote these, distracted into haiku as I tried to understand Dogen’s Guidelines for Studying the Way.  Of course, these are modern loose-form haiku; this is English, not Japanese, which I would love to learn.

It is like me
this white rose
dropping petals
~

as I sit reading about zazen
the white rose
drops one more petal

An old photo, end of a roll of black-and-white film: note the insect on the rose

p.s.  Just had a call from Polly, the oncological nurse at the Bing Cancer Center.  Dr. deAndrade is on vacation (what?!) so they made me an appointment with Dr. Lilly for June 4.  I said, "What?  We were hoping to get a biopsy today or tomorrow, because this is not feeling good."  She will see what she can do and call me right back.  Ah, this is the relative world.

A Celebration of Winter Grass

Off to a good start today.  I heard from Annette at Millhon Clinic as soon as I'd made my coffee - the nurse  knew it was wrong for a diagnostic mammogram to be scheduled there - at Riverside's Bing Center it gets read immediately by a radioligist and "you'll know right then."  Then Riverside called immediately.  For the friend who commented yesterday that she hoped the nurses would be kind and considerate, they were. 

Even at the James, they're usually not awful, though I ran into one who clearly thought I was an idiot, and did not notice how I suffered while she lectured, me standing naked under a paper towel, tired and scared.  I was afraid to say anything at the time, because mammograms hurt enough when the technician is not mad at you.  It makes me mad now, the people they let into nursing school.

That was why last year I scheduled my regular mammogram at Riverside, which now seems like good karma.  They'll have last year's image right there, and they'll be able to interface with my Good Doctors, all three of whom have knowledge of my health history in specific ways, if they want to recommend further tests or treatment.

The appointment is tomorrow at 10:30, which is perfect, because I have two important things today - a video phone call with Dosho this afternoon, and tonight the memorial service for Sarah Phillips, which will take place during the regular sit of Columbus Zen*.  Sarah was an artist and contemplative photographer.  Here is one of her self-portraits, a smiling Buddha eye -

Below is a photo she captioned thus: 

For an Impressionist, to paint from nature 
is not to paint the subject, 
but to realize sensations. 
~Paul Cezanne 

I notice, looking over Sarah's photos, that we were interested in some of the same images:  clouds, a stone, trees, the last flowers of summer, form and lines, our own shadow.

I remember being fascinated with my shadow at a very young age. And knowing a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson that has the line, "And what can be the use of him is more than I can see."  But then you read Jung and John Tarrant and listen to a talk by Larry Ward . . . at least, shadow is useful as a metaphor.  And for survival. And when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death.  I recited the 23rd Psalm over and over when I was doing radiation for breast cancer in 1997.

Grasses are a special favorite of Buddhists.  I took a number of photos of grasses during my lifetime, including some outside the hospice when Tina Price was dying.  They called to me because there are a number of Buddhist stories and poems that refer to them.  Here is one I marked in Dogen's Moon in a Dewdrop:

A snowy heron in the snowfield
Where winter grass is unseen
Hides itself in its own figure.

You can read more about this poem here.  It is part of a teisho on Dogen Zenji's "Time-Being," which I recall not understanding one sentence of when I read it years ago at the church's Labor Day Retreat.

We lost many people to death this year, including two other friends who were on the Buddha Way.

Leslie DelGigante

Leslie's blog is still up here. Like Sarah, Leslie had been a member of Zen Columbus.  It was Leslie who invited me to the meeting of the small sangha called Zen Corner that needed to leave the Quaker meeting house, and at that meeting I impulsively invited the group to meet in my church.  They meet there today, twice a week, and have grown to about 20 regulars, still peer-led.

And here is Scott, who died so shockingly a short time ago of a massive heart attack.  Like Leslie and Sarah and me, he was a diagnosed bipolar not helped much by psychiatric medicines.  I know other meditators with profound "psychiatric" difficulties, still living.  I hope to write more about this phenomenon tomorrow.

Scott Robinson Columbus

Both Leslie's and Scott's Facebook pages are still up. If you go to them you'll see how many people loved each of them and were inspired by them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*  If you want to attend the memorial sit tonight, and this will be your first time, please arrive at 7:00 pm for an informal orientation by Tom and me. There will be tea after the service.  First Unitarian Church is at 93 W. Weisheimer Rd. here in Columbus.  Take N. High to Weisheimer and park in the church's front parking lot to go in the front doors.  The church is fully accessible.  All are welcome.

Sorry, Doctor is On His Boat and Out of Cellphone Reach

Such opportunities to practice I get from the medical establishment -

1.  I got a reminder robo-call from Millhon Clinic yesterday (Sunday) for an appointment for a mammogram there Tuesday. "No," (I explained to the woman, who was the only clerk left Friday at 5:00 after I had seen the last doctor and nurse still working) "this is diagnostic and Dr. Herrigel said it will be done at Riverside Hospital.  Because this symptom is an emergency."  Obviously I would have to wait three days before Riverside even called me to schedule the test.

Now I have to get up and call the clinic tomorrow, which usually takes a 10-minute wait listening to their ads for their services before you get a human being on the phone, make sure that wrong appointment did get cancelled, more importantly, make sure Riverside got the order.

If I have not heard by, say, 1:00 (after lunch hours)  I will call Riverside, thread my way through their menus, and learn that they never got the order.  Been there. It's not like I'm looking forward to this exam.

2.  I try just now to get into my OSU Transchart, another wonderful invention of the computer age, to check my last labs before I give myself a Procrit shot (brave girl!).  Because once, following the schedule for these shots got my hemoglobin up over 14.  You feel like Supergirl when your blood is that rich, until a terrible medical event ensues.

Can't get on Transchart, though.  It assures me my password is wrong.  I try twice more.  Aieee!  I breathe. In calm, out ease.  I am grateful I started meditating the last time I had breast cancer.  I request a new password.  It tells me it won't be done until next business day. Well, I know OSU Transplant well.  I'll be surprised if it's that fast.

I contemplate reality.

Fact:  The entire medical establishment profoundly desires to take off every three-day weekend, and the whole of Thanksgiving week and Christmas Eve through New Year's Day, and they do.  (Woe betide the person who is hospitalized then.)

Fact:  You better be your own doctor and stay on top of your health, because nobody else is going to.  But I knew that.

Zen practice:  Slow down, breathe deeply, sigh audibly.  Accept reality.  Human nature.  People have to be taught compassion for other beings, and really want to be out to lunch.  And most are.  Unlike other animals.  They are often an inspiration to me.

Still Practicing

My favorite cat-not-living-with-me, Henri, le chat noir, sent me this this morning ~

I miscalculated when jumping from the floor to a chair today, and tumbled to the floor in a heap. I immediately began licking my paw nonchalantly, so I'm pretty sure no one noticed.



That's what I do when I fall, or my human version, which is running my hand through my hair to make sure it's okay.  But I am not okay from this last fall two weeks ago.

Yesterday I had my follow-up with my Good Doctor. . . .
~~~~~~~~~
Actually, that was Wednesday.  It's Friday now.  I just saw another doctor.  But before I launch into these stories, I'll just comment that I may have post-concussion syndrome from that fall about two weeks ago, and that could last the rest of my life.  However, that might not be very long.

When I saw the Good Doctor Wednesday afternoon, I got bad news from the x-rays he took after the fall.  I'll quote from the imaging report:  "an apparent compression deformity at T8 with loss of central and anterior vertebral body height of up to 30%."  We discussed this.  No physical therapy, no.  No surgery recommended, no.  He prescribed a pain pill specific to spinal nerve pain, and it helps.  He talked about not doing things that put my arms behind my back, or reaching up high.  I'd already told him about how some things like walking and carrying a purse make it hurt much worse.  So does typing.  He said meaningfully, "Don't fall again."  Rest, etc.  I felt he had a look in his eyes like he was talking to a dead man.  You know I'm fanciful.

I didn't tell him that the night before when I showered I was puzzled by a feeling of thick skin in one breast.  It looks odd too, and so on.  I knew about skin like orange peel; my sister-in-law got it when she had cancer.

Just now we saw the Substitute Internist. (Mine was scheduled up.)  He seems intelligent, did a professional exam.   He said, yes, a mass, we will schedule a diagnostic mammogram and ultrasound at Riverside, and then.  That will be next week.  Of course, we can't even schedule it until Tuesday.  You wouldn't want me to forget to complain that all the doctors will be taking a long weekend.  Monday is Memorial Day.  My peonies are in full bloom.


I almost don't want to post this because it is exactly don't know whether to laugh or cry.  I keep getting sort of silly and I love posting dumb things on Facebook and being in touch with people that way.  Went to the museum with a friend last night for a talk, and just loved it.  It's up/down anyway, you know me. Not long ago that was my worst problem.  Another thing - all my life I got through unbearable things by keeping up a front, which meant not telling anyone.  But I don't think that's a good idea, now. So in a way, posting this is practice on bearing witness to the truth of life.

A Falling-down Life

Wisdom of the Elders:

If I want your advice, I'll ask for it.

I seem to have left out something very important.  Last Thursday I fell off the second rung of a stepstool flat on my back, hit my head and one buttock. I've been generally confused and scattered since then, so much that I didn't even see my good doctor, who's a DO, until yesterday.  I was afraid I'd cracked something in my back, because the pain has been fierce, but X-rays didn't show anything new.

This doctor is good with physical exam, too, and felt that the pain is from my neck seizing up to protect the head, which he says is natural when you fall.  That radiates down my back, which already has various problems. So I have been told to take it very easy.  Heat, painkillers.  Call him if I want to be put to sleep.  I wish.

On Saturday someone I called for consolation made me angry by coming up with a stream of advice, quite outdid herself.  There are some people you just vow to keep in your life, no matter what.  So on Sunday I got over that, but then another woman made me mad all over again by calling me just as if our e-mail exchange earlier that week had simply not penetrated at all.  I won't go into that (but did have to express my feelings in a previous post). And I had to restrain myself from calling her back.  Too angry to dare speak.  Sometimes that's the best you can do.

The important thing is that my doctor diagnosed a concussion.  So. That explained how difficult many things have been.  And my inability to put up with people I usually try to understand and allow for their MAJOR huge compassion deficiencies. There.  That felt better.  And all this on top of my usual bipolar crap.  Just when I had gotten over that statin thing and felt like I was having a life.  I think some compassion is in order, and since I'm not getting it anywhere else, I'm working on giving it to myself. I know that some of you know how much we need to do that.
With a bow,
Jeanne

This is Not Just Your Life

I'm trying to figure out how to teach the world this simple thing:

Insofar as you are not managing your own life, you are not doing your job.

Let me try that again.  Here are some of the things that are your responsibility:
Your calendar.- put things on it, check it
Being.  On. Time.
noting and returning phone calls
reading your e-mail, if you choose to have e-mail.  Or don't have it.

Taking good care of your precious human body, which you were lucky to get.
Oh yeah, taking care of your mind.
Ha. [Is she talking about meditating again?  Who has time to meditate?]
Saving for old age.  Yes. It does come.
And doing the job you're paid to do, and doing it well.
And doing the stuff you're not paid to do but said you would do.  Period.

But you don't want to do that stuff, do you?

You're a minister but you don't keep a calendar.  Whoops.  You forget a party a parishioner is holding in your honor.  Oh, silly you.  And oh gosh, you don't carry a notepad either, so you forget phone calls and you lose track of who's sick and you certainly don't take time for yourself.  You just let your stress build and build until you can go on a vacation and drink your way through Provence.  I mean, it's wine.  That's not alcohol, right?

You have a lousy grunt job far beneath you, like you work answering the phone for Express Scripts (which has thankfully been taken over by Medco and seems to be shaping up).  What a horrible stupid boring job.  One thing for sure, you know what's not your job, not your problem.

Somehow you just can't seem to hold a job, either.  Poor you.  Poor me, as I try to work my way through the bureaucracy and straighten out a tiny error and get my lifesaving medications.  Or send money through PayPal.  I was once ready to get a gun (which is really easy here in America) and kill PayPal, if only I could have found them, and all over 18 cents.

I merely choose these examples out of thin air. They are everywhere.

Whoever you are, whatever you are supposed to be doing, for pay or by choice, you are not doing it well if you are not taking care of your responsibilities.  And you are screwing up the rest of us. Everywhere.  So shape up.  It's not just about silly you wasting your life procrastinating, shrugging off your failures, taking on more than you can handle, coming in late, going broke, smoking, drinking, buying crap from China made in sweatshops and factories that have ruined the air there, feeding your chickens antibiotics because they grow faster and you can make more money doing that, eating fast food because hey, who has time?

I don't want to hear your excuses.  What you do goes everywhere. So turn out the light when you leave the room. Please.

Welcoming Sabbath

The following was sent to me by Reverend Mark Belletini -
.
Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal priest and professor from Georgia is generally considered one of the best preachers in the USA of any religious persuasion.

 According to the rabbis, those who observe Sabbath observe all the other commandments. Practicing it over and over again they become accomplished at saying no, which is how they gradually become able to resist the culture’s killing rhythms of drivenness and depletion, compulsion and collapse.  And yet those who practice Sabbath, a little or a lot, know that there is another kind of resistance at work.

One of my favorite prayers in Gates of Prayer, the New Union Prayer Book, is called “Welcoming Sabbath” and it goes like this:

 Our noisy day has now descended with the sun beyond our sight.

In the silence of our praying place we close the door upon hectic joys and fears, the accomplishments and anguish of the week we have left behind.

What was but moments ago the substance of our life has become memory; what we did must now be woven into what we are.

On this day we shall not do, but be.

We are to walk the path of our humanity, no longer ride unseeing through a world we do not touch and only vaguely sense.

No longer can we tear the world apart to make our fire.

On this day heat and warmth and light must come from deep within ourselves.

If you can hear the welcome in that prayer, then perhaps you can hear the dis-ease in it as well. How is your own deep fire doing, by the way? Are you pretty confident that you have enough heat and warmth and light within yourself to get you through the night? Once you have turned off the computer and hung up the care keys, once you have decided to take one whole day off from earning your own salvation, are you ready to wrestle with the brawny angels who show up?

Dallying on the Sabbath

If you feel like dallying, here's a most relaxing folk song from my childhood.  According to a commentor, the singer is Elizabeth Guest from a CD of lullabies titled "Sleep, Baby, Sleep."  Ahh.  What I need to listen to at bedtime, since I am having the insomnia problems typical of the elderly, compounded by the insomnia that is common to the bipolar mind.

I'd like to teach the world . . . wait - that reminds me of another song.  I found a beautiful rendition on YouTube with no ads on it.

Ahh.  Naturally stoned.

I wish I could teach the world to go back to something that was a given in American culture when I was a girl, in the days before the Baby Boom upset the applecart - honoring the sabbath day.  In Ohio, which was uniformally either Christian or Don't Care back then, the sabbath meant Sunday, a day to restore yourself spiritually and physically.  A day of rest.  Almost nothing was open on Sunday but the churches.  You know what? - it didn't hurt anyone.  It meant that one day a week the alcoholics had no bars to hang out in.  Maybe church hurt some people; or maybe that was really a family dysfunction that church got blamed  for. 

It was true that in the fifties the middle-class housewife often felt obliged to put forward a big meal, a nice Sunday dinner, maybe complete with her own always from-scratch cinnamon rolls or chocolate layer cake.  But after the meal, and the dishes done, even the women got time off.  You know what people did on nice days when I was a girl?  Packed food from home to picnic in the park.  Or took a drive in the country.

What do we have now, sixty years later?  Everyone working at WalofEvilMart with no benefits or pension in order to serve those who don't have to work Sunday and are running around buying stuff and eating mediocre (or worse) food out and trolling the malls and watching expensive shoot-em-up movies.  Then those people work all week to pay for that stuff, and child care.

The learned articles about why this developed nation has such poor health statistics often talk about the toll  stress takes on people.  What do all those hardworking people do to reduce stress?  Spend money they don't have (that is, use credit cards) on pedicures, massages, trips to Disneyland, cruises, more eating out, and expensive clothes to wear to hot yoga.  As for Western medicine, in desperation it has co-opted meditation, stripped it of ethics and mythological depth, and teaches it as Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction. It costs a lot to go to the retreats at which you can get certified to teach that.

A little aside here.  A couple of years ago I applied to teach meditation in the educational arm of a local big hospital system.  My interview ended with the director telling me that of course, I couldn't in any way talk about religion.  I thought that over and called later to withdraw my application. There are already enough people teaching practices stripped of the religion that devised them.

 Oh well. It's up to each of us to save ourselves.  I was going to conclude with a photo of Tashi demonstrating what she knows about lowering stress, but my photos are ultraslow to upload.  All of America seems to be on the internet on this beautiful spring day.

Morning Coffee With Grandma: What is Zen?

7:00 Quietly awakened by morning light.  Roll over, sigh happily - nothing scheduled this morning. close eyes.
8:20  Wake up again. (In Zen this is called gradual awakening.  I've always believed in it.)
8:45  Pulling the compression sleeve on my lymphedemic arm, I accidentally sock my jaw.
9:00  Take vitals. I am alive. I thought so.
9:05  Get on Vine of Obstacles, read Forum, answer another student with a post that includes one of the few things I know for sure - you have to have a semi run into your house before you will start to meditate.  Then, if you're a woman, it's going to take twice the effort, because you've been trained to take care of everyone else, and don't get above yourself.  I don't have to go into a tirade about how Oprah and the other marketers make a lot of money by convincing you that what you need is a $100 haircut and a pedicure.  Most of us eventually figure out that that doesn't work.  Also, an old saying in feminism is "To get anywhere a woman has to be twice as good as a man.  Fortunately, that's not hard."

Actually, on one of my early Zen retreats I was walking down the residence hall when I saw that someone else had left her door open.  There, neatly laid out on her dresser, were four pairs of earrings. I thought, being new to all this, "Are these people Zen?"  Some of the women wore full makeup every day, too.  It turned out that -
(a)  Most were Catholic, drawn to this retreat because it was at Grailville and was led by a Jesuit Priest/Zen Master.  And -
(b)  Zen is not about what you wear.
(c)  Not everyone gets that.  When I went to a "real" Zen retreat, the other students all wore black and did NOT wear earrings or makeup or ever look up at the flowering trees.  Was that Zen? Now I was confused.

9:30  Done with coffee.  Time to put the post-it sign on my study door and do my practice.  Not that sitting down to meditate is the practice.  The practice is . . . umm . . .Well, sit down, shut up, and pay attention is fundamental.  But the "pay attention" part is supposed to keep going.  Pay attention all day long, every moment, every step.  That's the practice, as I understand it now.
~~~~~

In case you didn't recognize her above, here's a more usual view of the beautiful Pema Chodron, who got liberated and then got liberated.

One more thing:  I'm thinking I ought to call this blog The Dally Grandma.  Any opinions?