Contemplating Bad (I think) Karma

Well, Gentle Readers, it's heartening to check my stats just now and see that this tiny blog gets read, even though I haven't been around much.  I've been awfully busy dealing with that statin AE (I started writing about it back here), and not back to myself yet.  Not driving because the right foot and calf are still numb.  And I don't know if I ever will be.  Even if I get back to that norm, I've lost three+ weeks of my life, days that can never be recovered, and so has Tom, taking care of me full-time.

I wish I thought someone could learn from my experience, but does anyone ever learn the easy way?  Do you?  I remember vividly learning the wrong thing at least once.

Plenty of time to think propped in bed, icing the ankles alternately.  How to handle the "friends" who didn't come through.  Keep?  Discard?  Express my feelings to?  Put them on Most Unwanted posters in my study?  Vow every morning to remember what they did or didn't do?

I don't know yet.  I do know I've revised my concepts of several people and of our relationships.  It's given me lots of practice in restraining my impulses, especially speech and online writing.  And I've had difficult spots when my raft kept bumping against rocks of vindictiveness, for even sweet old ladies are human.

I feel wronged by a lot of people, most of all Big Pharm, which campaigned vigorously to get doctors and citizens alike to believe statins (think Lipitor) work, and to minimize the incidence of horrific side effects.

Buddhism has lots of guidance on these issues, such as "Hatred is never overcome by hatred, but by love alone." That doesn't mean I have put away the idea of litigation.  Somebody has to use the courts, or the legal system wouldn't work at all, as opposed to just being a travesty, or at least a muddle. (However, I'm glad to live in a country that has one.)

How is other people's carelessness overcome?  Every mother and manager deals with this all the time.  It's one thing when it's your kids or employees, but what if it's friends and family?  This whole thing has demanded I work overtime on these questions. 

I am also putting energy into having compassion for myself in this sorry mess of a life as the designated scapegoat in an abusive alcoholic family.  This is crappy karma (I think), and you know what they say about karma.

All these years later, and most of my family dead, I keep tripping over alcoholics and addicts.  They take a lot of forms, you know.  There are many who buy the marketers' picture of the good life and are worn out partying and travelling and consuming arts and entertainments and more stuff and stuff to organize it in and expensive food and wine.  Naturally, Wun resents that other people are out doing all this while Wun sits home in a bathrobe too sick and tottery to shower, but in fact, it calls for compassion.

Perhaps fortunately for the world, this illness coincided with an opportunity to begin working with a Zen Master, which feels somewhat like the hand of God throwing out a lifeline. Every Zen Master I've met or corresponded with embodies kindness, and that's the goal.  I keep remembering that every goddamn rotten painful thing that descends on you is a chance to learn, to correct your course. I couldn't tell you how helpful it is to be on a Way.  But if you're reading this, I bet you know.

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Sick, and Tired of it, With Comments on the Spiritual Path

I was reminded this morning of what took me from trying out all kinds of Buddhist practice to focusing on Zen - I met a Teacher.  Then I met another one.

Both these men, Daniel Terragno and Ama Samy, come to Grailville in Ohio once a year from far places to hold retreats, and snagged me on my very first retreats.  I've also met another Zen Teacher, James Ford, a unique Unitarian minister, and corresponded with a few others.  Now I am gratefully undertaking to practice "distantly" with Dosho Port of Wild Fox Zen, who is extending himself to work with us solitary and destitute types via internet methods. 

Every single one of these people has treated me with the attention you would give to the most important person on earth.  Their attitude is not just about the calmness and general slowing-down that we gradually learn through zazen.  It's about the practice of open-heartedness.  You can think of it as treating everything and every little yellow buttercup as sacred.  Or you can think of it as kindness.

I thought about this watching one of Dosho Roshi's videos this morning, in which he explains the above.  It is not at all abstract to me.  I have been so ill for so long here (see previous posts), and it is frustrating to wait for phone calls from the nurse, the doctor, home health.  It is easy to get resentful of friends who are too busy to offer some homemade soup (see cartoon above).  It is easy to feel entitled to inflict on others the occasional crankiness natural to this situation.

That crankiness comes from animal nature, perhaps, but the Eight-fold Path asks me to refrain from expressing it in harmful ways.  And it reminds me that I am actually not the center of other people's universe.  Jeez.  That I am no more sacred than everyone else.  That we are all seeking happiness.  Even poor Tardar Sauce (above), the cat who looked grumpy from birth.  And maybe was and is, I don't know.  I love him (her?) anyway.

Statin adverse effect

Documenting this statin AE.  This is so common and well-known I can't imagine why that doctor gave it to me, or any transplant patient.

It also pushed up the level of cyclosporine in my blood, way up, so the clinic doctor called a little bit ago to say the blood culture shows a bad UTI that only IV antibiotics will fight.  I.e.  hospital.  No.  We will fight this with d-Mannose, which has worked before.  The women know about this.  The doctors don't.

So I thought, why not do this publicly?  Isn't this the best thing about social media that you can use it to tell on Big Brother?   Initial research tells me that many credentialed people think this is a very bad drug, useless in many cases, and the most profitable in the history of Big Pharm.  I found a study that gave people co-enzyme Q-10, so Tom is doing some research to find a good brand and will go out to get that.  

11:00 am

My feet and legs feel ice cold about 1/3 way up the calf, about halfway up the tight calf.

Very swollen.

I've had two or is it three helpless crying fits this morning. I feel confused.

I awoke early, maybe 6:30' so got about 5 hrs sleep.  

Of course my stomach is very upset.  Had cream of wheat for breakfast.

I also have large patches of cold  (neuropathy) on my back, right side, and right arm

Talked to nurse this morning who thought yes, this is a reaction to statin, and thinks the worst of it should be over in a week.  Sounds like heroin withdrawal.

11:25 acid reflux

Made it to bedroom.  Very short of breath, and right foot very painful to step on already.  It had felt not so bad when I got up.   Dr. Dapore had said keep it elevated, ice 20 on, 20 off. I'm using my phone as a timer.

I feel miserable.
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Later
Stomach still upset.  A pain pill has not made the legs feel better, but did lift my spirits some.

I'm doing this from my iPad in bed, which is much better than not having an iPad, but is cranky, and I can't get the picture function to work so I will just have to post pix of my swollen feet on Facebook. I can send them directly there from my phone.