How I learned to stop worrying

Mandala

 

I think the artistic creation above is more attractive than a photo of my ankles, so you will have to imagine my peripheral edema.  Peripheral means on the outskirts of your body, usually your lower legs, as they sort of hang down all day, which encourages fluid to accumulate in them.  Edema is the visible swelling caused by that fluid.  I only make a point of this because I know many of you have a grandma in your life who has to go to the store in bedroom slippers, and you don't understand it.

Here's the thing:  it's not good when both ankles swell, but when just one is swollen, everyone worries.  So several weeks ago we saw my primary care doctor about it - this was on a Thursday - and he scheduled the soonest possible ultrasound, the next Monday, to rule out blood clots.  You really don't want a blood clot to form and travel to your heart or lungs.

But Friday night we noticed how bad the ankle looked, and Tom called our doctor's clinic about it, hoping for reassurance.  But the doctor on call said, of course we should go right to the ER and get it scanned, and not end up suing them for negligence. 

So we did, and this is getting to be a long story.  So I will skip the part about how they shut the ultrasound down at night and those people go home, so it was spend the night in the ER, having many other stupid tests done.  And finally the scan in the morning, and finally they said it was just fine.  I did not have a blood clot.

I'm trying to wind my way to now, several weeks later. We went back to primary care doc yesterday, because the damn swelling hadn't gone down, and I also suspected another UTI.  And this led to a thorough review of all the stupid tests done in the ER, which are right there on his laptop (!).  Blood draws, liver, kidney, and so on.  And everything looks fine.  This was a huge relief to us.  Nobody had told us to see him for a follow-through. This is modern American medicine at its best, unless you are very rich.

He explained that with age the arteries and veins can grow slack, and edema happens.  We could see a vascular specialist, but it was clear enough that the only thing that would accomplish would be to assure us further that nothing was wrong.  I should wear my compression stockings.

But most interesting, he had gone to some computer program with the extensive list of my medications, and returned with three pages detailing which meds are most likely to cause - guess what - peripheral edema.  When a doctor does things like this, you don't mind if he's wearing bespoke pants and Italian leather shoes.

And guess what?  One of the immunosuppressants (Rapamune) is a HUGE culprit in this, causing it in over 50% of the poor transplant patients who have to take it.  And furthermore, it commonly, their word, causes half a dozen other things, some of which I don't have yet, like headaches (but I'm thinking about it).  Nobody tells you these things.

You may have come to this post hoping I had a clue about how not to worry.  In a way, it's implicit in the story.  Identify the problem, take steps, get information, don't push it away.  It is easier to face your worries when you meditate; in fact, it is impossible not to, eventually.  Sometimes it's when the anxieties start to break through the bliss that people drop the practice.  But that's when it's started working.

[The image is me having fun with a recent photograph.  Now we're down to it - you can do so much with photography, the only reason to paint or draw is that you enjoy the feel and smell of the materials.  Which is a good reason, after all.]

Your one wild and precious day

[The title of this post is taken from Mary Oliver's "The Summer Day."  Oliver is a nature-mystic and the favorite poet of many people I know.  The image is my valiant African violet, which has survived Tashi's teeth, and my neglect, to bloom when it thinks it is spring. It's spring for me right now, too.]

When I am depressed, I have no motivation, no desires except to not be in that emotional pain - and, oddly, the flatlands are as painful as what Holly Golightly called "the screaming reds," that irritable, hypersensitive depression that hits me in August, season of decaying fire.

Just a week ago, on Saturday night, watching a rerun of House and playing Words on my iPad, I felt the barely perceptible lifting of the big February depression-with-shingles-and-UTI that meant I didn't post much.  "Lifting" is the word, as if some invisible bricks have been on you, weighing you down, and they are lifted off one by one.  The next morning I felt somewhat better.  Got all dressed, went to church, and there found I was so cold, cold to the bone. Cold.  Different than chills.  It's making me feel cold to try to describe it.

Left the worship center, wrapped up in my parka, sat around Fellowship Hall drinking decaf and being uncomfortably cold. Couldn't go out for lunch, had to go home and dive under my electric blanket set to 5.  So it was a dumb, very flat day.  Not exactly painful.  More, nothing.  And the next morning I woke up and my first sensation/thought was one of relief.  The damn thing was gone. I felt good.

If you are not bipolar, you may never have experienced this - your depressions or miseries may be situational, and relieved by things that happen to you or things you do, like exercise.  But I am describing this because you have a relative or spouse or friend, or you will, who has this illness.  I wanted to write "suffers from," so I will, despite thes Buddhist truism "Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional."  This is bull, when it comes to these times of serious chemical imbalance, though I completely understand the truth it expresses, that we cause our own suffering by our thoughts and actions, by sticking to stuff and desires. I could write a book about how we cause our own suffering, based solely on my own experience.

Day after day this week I have felt good.  Not the swirling manic-high terrific, God forbid. But fine.  Loving, peaceful, calm, enjoying everything I do.  It is the perfect mood.  For my Buddhist friends, it's that mood you can have after a retreat, or even at the end of that first long day of meditation.  A day in this mood has that "wild and precious" sense to it - the silence of the house after the dishwasher has run is as pleasing as music or flowing water.  The laundry basket half-full of socks (depression leads to sock calamities - no motivation, you know) is amusing.  A good friend's invitation to an art-and-coffee day is delightful.  So is Tashi when she climbs up on my shoulder, descending to curl on my heart and purr, which I answer with imagining the identical vibration of Mu.

I've known a lot of bipolars, so I know that this mood is not entirely a chemical blessing, for we can tangle ourselves up thoroughly in our neurotic ideas and impulses and never enjoy a damn thing.  This mood is also the blessing of years of practice - meditation, prayer, writing poetry, paying attention to others, letting go of one fantasy after another.  Suzuki said we meditate so we can enjoy our old age.  It's true.  It's like a retirement saving's account that is going to be your salvation when the time comes.

I hope you have a wild and precious day, too.

Recover from Your Speed

I am dumb this morning - this state began yesterday after or during nap. Or dull, the opposite of sharp, high, inspired, en-lightened. This is a matter of the senses, of feeling nothing.  Anyway, reading Trungpa this morning on Practice and Intellect, here is something I highlighted (learning how to use my phone):

. . . by providing some sense of space and openness, meditation is good preparation for reading.  If you allow yourself some gap or space to rest by sitting down and doing absolutely nothing, you recover from your speed.

Don't you like that?  Recover from your speed.  Why are we - why is Wun - so boneheaded stubborn reluctant to sit down and give up speeding around?  I have given this a lot of thought over the years, usually projecting my own reluctance on someone else, but it always comes down to this: understanding all your motivation and causation and history won't really help you act.  You have to act.  Sit down.  Breathe.  Relax.

My wish

We just watched a documentary on TED conferences.  Speakers were asked to talk about their one wish that would change the world.  Since I was an educator, mine came to me like this -

Teach every child to meditate.

What can meditation do for children?  Help with impulse control, anger management, enduring pain, self-discipline, sleep, stress control, focus . . . put them in touch with who they really are.  Help them slow down and make choices thoughtfully.  Help them learn to listen (not just "listen to" adults) and see.  I don't think I could list all it has done for me, all of which ends up increasing well-being.  I believe the most important social benefit is the taming of personal and cultural violence. 

How could daily meditation become part of the public school curriculum?  Where can action on this begin?  How else can it be offered to children?

I would love to hear your ideas.

Pain Hurts

I am confounded right now by a cascade of problems with pain.  Not just a torn rotator cuff that looks like it would not be amenable to surgery, and besides, I have a more important surgery to do.  Back pain. Sudden physical limitations.  Limited use of left arm.  Limited ability to pick things up off the floor.

I was almost unable to get off the floor today when I lay down to meditate in the most painfree position, flat on my back. Driving hurts the shoulder.  Typing hurts the shoulder.  No wonder I'm depressed.  Here's from Wikipedia on the subject -

Experimental subjects challenged by acute pain and patients in chronic pain experience impairments in attention control, mental flexibility, problem solving, and information processing speed. Acute and chronic pain are also associated with increased depression, anxiety, fear, and anger.

So at least I'm normal.

And about pain medications . . . There is a whole raft of things I can't take as a kidney transplant patient.  No Nsaids, no fancy things like Celebrex.  No steroids since these problems seem to be weakened tendons.  I have opiates, limited Tylenol, limited Neurontin.  I am willing - grateful - to use things that help.  But I was still awakened early this morning by pain.  The more you hit pain with opiates, the wierder your mind feels.  I like a crisp, clean mind, able to perceive, to think.  This is a strong preference.

In my fashion I have done things I could think of to do about this.  Ordered a big moist heat pad for my back.  A hot or cold pad for my shoulder.  Figured out a way to wear a bra for a limited time without further hurting the shoulder.  That's progress.  Made an appt. with my wonderful acupuncturist, the doctor who brought me flowers in the hospital, he and his nurse.  All excellent things.  Oh, and joined a health board where a forum on pain looks promising.  Yes, and wrote my transplant e-list and figured out that my new hot flashes are probably caused by the Vicodin. None of these actions have lifted today's depression.  Which may in fact be caused by the Vicodin.

I certainly know more than I did about chronic pain and deep pain and disabling pain.  This is serious.  This is aging.  It happens to everyone who lives long enough.  I don't know any guidelines to offer other people.  I am walking in the dark, one step at a time.  And I guess all I have to offer today is my experience.  I could say some Buddhist things about it being an inevitable part of life.  I still don't like it.