One example of my bad attitude

A very bad stupid day yesterday, which maybe meant I hit bottom and turned the corner from the depression.  This morning coming in here w my coffee I noticed some faint negative thoughts, I mean the pissy thoughts about people whose crap makes my life even harder, but I noticed the thoughts, so there was a witness looking at my poor overloaded mind.  I wrote a poem this morning.  I meditated for the first time since we got back, briefly, knowing I had to do these things before the pain got bad and I took the first oxycontin, because on opiates you just don't care.

(I guess that's partly how they ruin lives. That, and the fact that they're illegal unless prescribed; and I suppose it is illegal to prescribe them just because someone likes the way they make you float and appreciate beauty.  It is a stupid law that has resulted in our prisons being crammed with mostly black young men who did nothing violent, just sold drugs.)

This has all involved how hard I worked these last years to stay alive, how vigilant I was, had to be.  Then what, you're walking toward the bathroom to fill your water pitcher because you have to drink 3 liters of water a day, you trip over nothing and down you go, flat, and a broken arm that is going to make every minute of your life a hassle for six weeks.  One second of inattention.

It was a second during which I was thinking how unresponsive and useless dokusan had been that morning, how I wasn't going to do another one, how I just had one *&%$# day to get through, then we could go home, thinking I probably would never come back on this retreat.  Yes, I had things on my mind.  But I don't care what you do, you can not guarantee you won't fall.  Could have struck my temple on the doorframe and been a functional vegetable the rest of my life.

It hurt, and it shocked me the way a fall can, and let loose all the misery and anxiety of these last years trying not to die.  And now what?  Almost a year after transplant and it's been a lousy, difficult year, not worth living.  I will never have another transplant, or go on dialysis again.  Done with extraordinary measures.

In all this depression there was something I decided about letting go my anxious vigilance.  I don't mind dying, people - in fact, at this point I'd welcome it.  God, gets me out of here.  I will do what I know I have to do to (maybe) keep living, take the damn drugs 7 times a day, get labs done, drink the *&%$# water.  But I'm done dragging myself through things that supposedly will protect me.  I enjoy food.  I will eat what I like.  I find exercise boring, so today while Tom did his I walked around McConnell with my camera.  Watching every *&%$# step, believe it.  Enjoyed it.  Well, there you are.  An update. Where I'm calling from.
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p.s. It's been 12 weeks now, and the arm is still a problem, not even ready for PT to get range of motion back (Wun hopes).
 

Bad luck

Thurs morning I fell - a split second of inattention inside - flat on my front, the right shoulder taking it.  The head of the arm bone is fractured, in a sling.  Had to come home from retreat, see Dr. here.   It has been 4 very tiring days learning how to do everything. 

What you do with your dominant hand, or both hands:  eat, brush & floss, drive, touch type, write, dial a phone, lock a door, make coffee, dice celery, tie your shoes - everything.  I can only sleep in a supported posture on my left side.  It is tricky and painful to change t-shirts. Have yet to figure out how to support the arm with straps so I can shower.

As for pain, the torn rotator cuff in the left shoulder is child's play compared to bone pain, and also the pain from the splint around my neck.  We have ordered a high-design splint that may help.  Sometimes you roll on your back in sleep, and the pain wakes you up.  Well, I have no wrap up on this. Dumb with pain pills.  Time for bedtime pills.