Committed to Being Stubborn

Here we have Sherlock owning the newspaper.  He was stubborn, but then he was a male cat.  They are perfect just as they are, but I think the rest of us can do a little better.

I had another opportunity today in Kroger's to practice patience in the checkout line.  I stayed alert to the environment, and after a while saw that this could take a very long time, put my stuff back in my cart and went to (gasp) the self-service.  Since I had three kinds of produce that had to be weighed, I learned how to do that.  Yes, I am modestly proud.

I also got a writing prompt from the situation:  a very old lady was holding everything up, and still might be, as she was attempting to count out some $74 in ones.  When she thought she had it, the checker told her "There's only $35 here.  Your bill is $74."  That was when I moved on.

The lady looked very elderly, maybe 90, fragile-looking, tremorous and bent, and dressed in many shades of purple, down to her handbag and wallet and chiffon scarf protecting her hairdo; she knew what her favorite color was.  Watching her I thought, You really need to let your daughter come shopping with you.  I don't know whether she has a daughter, so what follows here is all my fiction.

The lady in purple does have children, a couple of them right here in town.  A son and a daughter, all you need to navigate old age, if they're decent people, and let's suppose they are.  They have had to take her credit card away because she was drawing money from ATMs and giving it to scammers, and then they had to take the checkbook away because she was constantly bouncing checks.  They have begged her to let them go shopping with her.  But she can shop alone, because she's still driving. You'd be surprised what kids will let their parents do, rather than make them mad.  It's sad.

Her kids have begged her to let them do the shopping - not a chance.  They need to insist, but they have.  They say, "She's so stubborn."

There's a lot to think about here (like, how are you going to handle your old age?) but I set out to write about being stubborn.  In my story, the old woman can't shop alone. Her endeavor was making her anxious, and the checkout lines were all backed up because she was effectively disabling one of them.  She needs to relax and accept the reality of aging.

The moral of the story is this:  Stubbornness is not a virtue.  In fact, sticking to the way you want things to be, no matter who it hurts, is a spiritual flaw.  Yet, people who would never admit to other character flaws (like having no impulse control or being mean) don't hesitate to say "I'm stubborn."  And they have trained their poor children to think it's an okay fact of personality.  "Oh, he's always been stubborn."

What follows from this, if you think about it, that a stubborn person is going to stick to being stubborn.  In a weird way, it makes perfect sense.

Warning: Major, Prolonged Whine.

 [images: my dining room, after Tom cleaned up some of the paperwork pertaining to his parents' finances.  And that's not even what I'm complaining about.]

Today air quality is "moderate," which translates to bad for people like me (elderly, and on immuno-suppressants).  Worse, weed pollen (ragweed, for example) is high and forecast to be VERY high the next two days, because it is not going to rain and tamp it down.  Mold activity outdoors is low, that's good, but it will soar if it rains.

What this means is that I can't go outside.  I can't sit on a porch or patio with a friend for half an hour.  I can't walk through the rose garden taking pictures, or go out in my own yard and mess around cleaning stuff up.  If I am outside in this weather, I get so much congestion that I develop the kind of ear ache that makes babies scream with pain.  Then I can't wear my right hearing aid, and have to use hot and cold compresses to get it to drain.  In case you're wondering, I hate that.  All of it.

I haven't meditated yet today - and I hate that.  But I got up late, and I hate that, but I hate waking up to alarm clocks, and I haven't been able to sleep until 2:00 a.m. for several days, despite the best pharmaceutical interventions.  And it's 3:00 pm now.  So I am going to stop this and, as we say in Zen, sit down and shut up.  I don't feel like doing that.   It takes discipline.

But before I go, I want to mention that I'm pushing water right now, meaning drinking down whole glasses, because I have to drink 4 liters a day to prevent bladder infections.  If you think that's nothing to whine about, do it for one day.  Go ahead.  And BTW, mine has to be room temperature water, not ice water, not water without ice from the ice water tap in the restaurant, which puts me into painful esophogeal spasms, just because I am old.  Go ahead, try to get simple room-temperature water in a restaurant.  You will learn, like me, that you just have to carry your own water.

However.  Water is one more thing to carry.  I have a torn rotator cuff on my right shoulder; the one on my left shoulder is relatively healed because I had to use it heavily when I broke my arm last fall in weather like this.  No, it does not have a good chance of being repaired, and PT was just making it too painful.

So if I am bringing in groceries and I carry a five-pound bag with each hand, and my purse with water in it, pain shoots down my right arm and up my neck on that side.  This is not my fault.  I have to carry stuff sometimes.  Tom is always willing to help, but he is handicapped.  He has to use a crutch to walk; that occupies his one good arm (he had polio).  He is not in a position to carry things.  So I carry what I think I can, or use my wheeled walker (from when I had bone edema in the left ankle, which still hurts every single moment of my life).

Before you offer me a solution, like get a neighbor to help carry groceries in, I want you to try it yourself.  Go ahead.  See what it takes to round up a neighbor, see how much time it takes.

If there's a point I'm making, it's that nobody knows the trouble I've seen, and therefore nobody should attempt to tell me how to solve the insoluble problems of old age.  Because, you know what?  I also have diminished capacity, because I'm old, and process slowly, and get tired, and can't figure things out.  And I'm in a bad mood right now because it's August, and this time of year I have depressed days that alternate with pissed-off days, because I am bipolar with SAD.  That's just my bad luck.  My good luck is that today I managed to shop and get in and out of Kroger's parking lot, which was all torn up, and not get in an accident. 

Contemplating chin lift while relaxing with a facial

Old age is one damn thing after another.  You are putting patches on a vehicle whose drive train is outmoded and whose transmission clanks and balks.  The tires are bald and can't be replaced, the hood is tied down with string, and at least one window doesn't work anymore.

In old age, a new problem doesn't mean an old problem got solved and went away.  It's just one more part going bad.  Oh, and yes:  Monday night I had what I am pretty sure was a gallbladder attack, characterized by intense pain and nausea.  I had one of these last year, and I've known a couple of people with gallbladder problems, so I recognize it.

You want me to go to the doctor about it, don't you?  You would.  But then, you might not be sick and tired of doctors who have nothing to suggest but one more surgery.  I hope you live long enough to have this tremendous growth opportunity.  If you do, all I can recommend is, cultivate your sense of humor.

Okay.  Now I'll meditate.
p.s.  I did, and it helped.

The Whole World is Medicine

Our house in spring, star magnolia in bloom

I'll start with the story.  I was in the Internet Cafe (TV room) at Manor Care, where Tom's father is now resident, fixing myself a cup of coffee.  The little refrigerator was empty, but there were packets of that creamer mysteriously made from corn syrup.  Well, it was still sort of cream, and would soften the gastric hit of the coffee.  As I tore open the package, looking at it for collage possibilities, I thought of Yunmen's koan, which I learned as, "The whole world is medicine. What is the illness?"  (There is a different version by John Tarrant here.)

Students of Zen just finished that thought, I imagine.  It is a famous statement that is considered a koan.  The one everybody knows is "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"  (I know the answer to that one. :)  [by the way, smileys are addictive, especially useful in texting, which is economical]) 

later -
This morning's NY Times has an article on the discovery of the microbe that gave us streptomyacin, how a lowly lab assistant was finally given credit.  I loved this quote, though, from his journals: the microbes were found in "leaf compost, straw compost and stable manure" on a farm near their lab. I said, "The whole world is medicine."  Tom told me then that his BP medicine is based on snake venom, which kills you by reducing your BP to zero.

But that's not the deepest point of the koan, which goes like this:
Unmen said, "The whole world is medicine.  What is the illness?"
My response is, the illness is not perceiving the world. The illness is living in and grasping at your delusions.

And here's my example.  Tom and I are respectivily 63 and 69 years old, but sort of older, really; he has  post-polio syndrome, and I am, you all know, a sort of musculo-skeletal wreck, and on meds for kidney transplant, BP, arrythmia.....the usual.  Body wearing out, sooner than some people's.

His parents are 90 and 93.  His father is in nursing care, went there two months ago septic with untreated infections and long ago mentally disabled by stroke.  His mother is now living with brother Dave and his wife, but constantly trying to go back to her house.  She is bent with arthritis and can barely walk with a cane, but wants to drive.  Tom and his siblings and grandson are trying to straighten out a really horrible mess of their estate, much of which has disappeared into the hands of scam artists while they clung to their idea of staying in their own "home," the house they bought fifty years ago and have not maintained.

What is the illness?  Clinging to the delusion of never growing "old."  Clinging to the delusion that she can be independent all her life, it's only a matter of refusing to see reality.  In there was her own susceptibility to flattery, which she would never admit to, which has led her to meet strangers who call her on the phone and ask her to meet them in a parking lot and give them money.  And by the way, your home is not that house you live in; it's the world.  And your body, and you don't get to keep that.

As for us - we don't want to ever put my daughter in this position.  We spent this morning talking with a Realtor about what we can expect to realize on this house.  We are not going to move into a condo either; it's straight to retirement home for us, because realistically, we love our house, but we want to relax and enjoy whatever time we have left.  Realistically, that might be a year or ten years or a day. 

The Realtor wore flip-flops.  You have to love that.

The Problem of Mother

My life is flowing past me like a bad movie back in the old days, when you went to a theater to see a movie with other people, and no one was texting.  And everyone just sat there, no matter how boring the movie was, how idiotically violent, just to see what the creature from the black lagoon looked like (not much).

My morning started with an obdurate computer. Windows open, the weather is freakishly warm again, and the computer doesn't like this natural world either, the moisture perhaps.  Waiting, waiting I realized the depth of my dependence on it.

There is a natural transition here - the word dependence - to The Problem of Mother.  Yesterday we spent two hours on phone conference with Mother, Good Sister, Gentle Eldercare Attorney, me and Eldest Brother, that's Tom, all trying to convince mother that she must go into assisted living.  She has dementia, has given lots and lots of money and stuff away to the evil scammers that pop up out of the dirt where there are supposed to be bodhissatvas.  Yet, all concerned were trying to reason with her.  She is very good at pretending she hears (oh no, no hearing aid) and deflecting decisions, has been doing it successfully all her life, and she's not about to make a major life decision now.  Someone is going to have to tell her, This is what we're going to do. But I can't convince them of that.  They want to believe she is reasonable.  So not only is she crazy, so are they. 

I feel that when it comes to crazy people, I know.  And it is a special dispensation. I have been crazy (a long time ago, quick to add), and in hospitals with other crazy people.  And somehow those experiences alienated me from the delusions shared by much of the world - or maybe that's what being crazy is, come to think of it - not sharing in the general delusion.

Why do these things with mothers make us all so insane? That is, why do we not see the reality before us, that Mother is very old (90) and not able to remember to lock the door or say no to people who try to take advantage of her.  (Dad is in skilled nursing, and likely to be in it the rest of his life; and not able to be part of decisions.)  Therefore, we must take over and move her somewhere where she is not in danger.  And it will be nice.

Well, just hone in on the question:  Why do we not see the reality before us?  Because it feels better not to.

As a kid you're pretty stuck with TV and games.  As an adult you can do that feeling better-denying reality-thing a lot of ways:  Ativan, gin, running breathlessly from one social event and one responsibility to another, hey, reading and blogging and painting - What's your favorite hedge against reality?  It's the curse of these much-larger-than-necessary human brains - they can be used to evade reality in a great many complicated ways.

Now, specifically onto mothers: all this took me back ten years to going through this kind of hell with my own mother and my siblings, who simply would not see the obvious truth of our mother's impairment, which included fecal incontinence.  Why?  I did not understand - I thought it was because they were drunk.  That was true, but something else is at work in these things.  And that is that the idea of a motherless world is quite frightening.  I found that out when my mother died.  Suddenly the sky was vacant.  My mother was not a kind, nurturing person.  Yet, or because of that, her death was a huge blow to me.  Maybe it's an energetic thing, that we are included in some sphere of home.  I doubt that it's all in your mind.

But it was and is a motherless world.  If you believe in or experience a caring God or universe, I'm sure it's easier to accept this.  Even so, the only thing you can count on is that the world changes constantly, you have nothing to stand on.  No security.  No assurance.

You can't count on anyone you love being here tomorrow, as much as I also hate to think it. You can't count on having the body or mind you have at this moment.  In fact, it is all a day older and more worn down today than it was yesterday, and this is true whether or not you're paying attention.  And the problem Mother is having is that she simply will not acknowledge the reality that she is old and forgetful and impaired.  My goodness.  Just like the rest of America, which was explored by a man looking for the fountain of youth.

Many spiritual people talk about a state of enlightenment in which we just dance with the flow, in which we have a quiet, consistent joy all the time.  If I find out where that state is located, I'll let you know. I think it has to do with understanding that nobody else is enlightened, either.

Meanwhile, I was struck with this lovely white-seeding grass (not photofixed).

Change, change, what else is new?

Tashi watching out for change

This has been a really tough, emotional week, starting last Thursday with having to call the squad for Tom's father, and now all the things that can arise with elderly parents have arisen, so Tom and his siblings are putting many hours into working the problems.

This morning we finally met with the kidney surgeon, the same guy who took a kidney from my donor, Laurie Brown, and with whom we met last year.  This year we were ready to tell him to schedule the removal of my native kidneys.  A big decision.  It might stop these increasingly dangerous UTIs; there's no way to be sure.  But it is sure that well-evolved e-coli kills people every day - bacteria that are outstripping our ability to invent antibiotics. And don't ask - we've done everything, talked to everyone from ID to our private kidney doc and our transplant center kidney doc and our family doc, done scans, and this is what it comes to.  Taking a chance.  If you follow this blog you know I've had something like 15 UTIs in 16 months.

I knew I was anxious about this meeting when I had acid reflux last night, then when I woke up at 5:00 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep.  Yet I was surprised to find myself exhaling as we walked out of the transplant center.  A lot.  And then, in a comic touch, burping several times; apparently my stomach was holding its breath too.  I still feel good, almost high with relief.

Who did I tell? Maybe yesterday I talked a little with my physical therapist about this, and said, "I've been sick most of the time since 2005," and felt tears well up.  It's true.  And I had to laugh this morning when the nurse asked me the various screening questions they do before the doctor comes in:  "Are you in any pain today?"  Well, the usual, left ankle, right rotator cuff, flare-up of the sciatic nerve.  Nothing significant to them, as long as my abdomen feels good.

Change, change.  It's really weird to be a carbon-based life form.  It could be good to be silicon-based next time, or a tree, or a river, the kind made of water.

Death is Nature's Way of Telling You to Slow Down

Here I am, wondering whether to call the kidney doctor and let him know about this breakout of cold sores, which Mayo Clinic says can be serious in immune-suppressed people.  But I've had this before since the transplant.  Maybe see how the day goes.  It is uncomfortable and my nostril is affected on that side, and it isn't responding to l-Lysine the way it usually does.  Boy, I would hate to have the shingles flare back up.

Stress.  It elevates cortisol in your body, which then gets sort of exhausted and isn't available to fight infections. Ayurvedic medicine understands this as excess Pitta, which is, roughly, heat or fire unbalanced in your constitution.  I am a Pitta-Vata, an air person whose fire gets aggravated by lots of change.  I also "have" fibromyalgia, which you can feel respond to the kind of big weather change we've been getting, from way too hot to freeze warnings.  And too bright. Here's an old picture of me in the blue sunglasses I like to wear when it's like this.  I have a better haircut now, except that I need a haircut and my beloved hairdresser is on vacation.  Stress

Right away I found this online -

Reduce Pitta-aggravating foods such as sour tasting foods, pungent spices and nuts.
Eat lots of sweet juicy fruits--they are both cooling and cleansing.
Soak a handful of raisins in water overnight. Drain and eat them the next morning. 

I don't mind that. I remember now that I have a recipe for balancing tea, must do that, too.  In fact, I have two Ayurveda cookbooks.  What I have already done was the six healing breaths I got years ago from yoga teacher Kit Spahr - the link is both to the description of how to do this sound-breath exercise, which is derived from Taoist practice and to her blog.  I wish I could do yoga with her now, but I am just barely able to get up off the floor these days, and have a bad knee, ankle, sciatic thing - enjoy yoga while you can.  I still do stretches though, and I learned to relax. Usually.

Nothing for relaxing like sitting meditation, resting in the breath.  Did that, too.  Otherwise, I get it, I need to slow down and stay cool.

You don't want to know all about the stress, do you?  It has to do with aging parents suddenly in crisis in more than one way.  Even poor Tashi is feeling it, so I really must calm down. They say it's the natural way, first the parents get old and die, then the children get old and die.  It's still hard, and a real challenge to practice.