Judi B's Blog

11/9/19

I am back at Kendal in the rehab area of the nursing center that encompasses my own room in the Assisted Living wing. The surgery went well. Four and a half days in a small local hospital was hard, and I experienced the worst physical suffering of my life for two of those nights. Off the chart post-surgical pain, nausea, and a pounding headache created a harsh mix of sensation. Drugs both helped and didn’t help, but it is what I had to work with. After my last surgery, a Kendal friend of mine who used to be a nurse gave me a get-well card that said, “People who say that laughter is the best medicine have never tried morphine.” I say, first the morphine, and then the laughter.

There is something very pure and clarifying about undergoing intense pain. The urge to disassociate from my body was strong. It was not a “near death” experience, because my pain was not signifying life or death. Nonetheless, I had to summon something that insists on life not usually called upon from deep within. It happens during childbirth, on the battlefield, extreme athletics, or at any time the body is threatened at that level. I kept breathing, and the pain receded by degrees. I know I went through an ordeal, but the body memory fades it from view as soon as it passes. I remember sobbing on the toilet (sitting up at all was hard) with a nurse calmly standing by without judgement as I wailed, “I can’t take this anymore.”

My pride was in shreds. I wanted her to know that this is not my usual reaction to pain, that I am very strong, that I am not some flaky wimp. I calmed down and staggered back to bed with my rollator. I was glad she held neutral ground. My pain meds were adjusted, and then I could laugh at the picture of helplessness of me weeping all exposed in that hospital bathroom. That reassertion to live is a gift and, I begin to realize, so is the pain that precedes it. I have worked on embracing chronic pain for many years. Though I never would call it my favorite teacher, I see now that it is, in fact, a gifted teacher. Pain is an immediate humbler of the ego. It is paint stripper to the personality, creating an opportunity to see what else you are made of beneath the carefully cultivated images we strive to maintain.

At Kendal, the nurses here know me, and I know them as well. They know me as a person, not just a patient. We work together as a team and exchange helpful dialogue where my personal perspective counts as much if not more than theirs. That atmosphere in and of itself is healing. I do not need to push for self-advocacy. We all need to be truly heard and seen. It is Love in action. Hospitals are filled with professional strangers and do not provide a nurturing environment. Nurses run from room to room filling out endless paperwork, running meds, checking stats and have little time to give compassionate care. For the last three nights in a row I asked my three different new young night nurses how they liked working at Kendal. All three gushed that they loved it. Here they get to care for patients as people. I am beyond lucky to be here.

I learned something else. In my humbled vulnerability while waiting for the ambulance to transport me, I couldn’t wait to come HOME. I hadn’t realized how significant that thought was until I was back in my rehab bedroom. Once I was settled down, people kept dropping in to see for themselves that I was back. Some were friends, some were members of the community I know only a little, but everybody knew that I had been gone and had now returned. I hadn’t been wishing to go to back to my former house and home. I wanted to be here at Kendal with my community. These people are my home now. The transition from my former life has already happened. Home is not a particular room or a house, or a specific time of your life. It is the interactions of the heart cultivated with others around you. Corny, but true- home is where the flexible, spacious heart is. Home is not a static location. It includes all friends and family, the beloved old ones, and the shiny new ones still to come.

10/27/19

Exile is such a brutal word. Many of us have decided that self-imposed exile is the best choice to disentangle from an impossible situation. We may exile ourselves from toxic families, spouses, jobs, a former community of colleagues, or friends. Wavering between the context of cowardice or courage, we finally may choose self-exile as the better part of valor. To be exiled by others is that much harder. To forcefully lose your home and the country of your heart through catastrophes, natural or manmade, is heartrending. When your reasons for wishing to return to the country of your origin are benign, but opposing forces conspire to prevent that from happening, it appears as grossly unjust.

Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist monk from Viet Nam, experienced political exile for forty long years. I read his lovely book of short stories and essays, At Home in the World. After practicing Buddhism since the age of sixteen on his way to becoming a monk, he credits this painful obstacle of exile from his country for helping him to attain his True Nature. There is a Buddhist saying, “The obstacle becomes the path.” Most of us search to find meaning in our own obstacles, and acknowledge the growth required to have met our challenges. In the end, gratitude arises when we find that we can now bear the apparently unbearable.

Where have I experienced self-imposed exile? Most of my struggles have been placed within the geography of my own body. I was another sexually abused child. Growing up in my small world of dance, I was once famous for the fastest footwork known to young females, unconsciously trying to escape my body. Later I endeavored to transcend my unidentified suffering by living with my spiritual head high up in the clouds. I choreographed, and performed in, potent dances highlighting separation and wholeness. I wrote songs that spoke to the unfulfilled longing of the human heart. I tried to ground myself in my body and heart while I tried escaping it through artistic expression at the same time.

I finally understood how much damage was behind the need for these semi-successful strategies and spent years in therapeutic practices and spiritual searching to uncover and heal my wounds. I seem to have laid down neurological tracks utilizing my genetic inheritance of MS to erase my bodily sensations from the ground up. That I also had degenerative disc disease was not identified until recently, when stenosis and bad arthritis in my spine began to cause the kind of pain at a younger age than is usually the case.

Honestly addressing causes of lifelong stress does not necessarily lead to a cure. In my case, I have applied and studied a wide variety of therapies and disciplines, including both allopathic and Western medicines to heal my mind/body issues. I have long been actively returning from exile, welcoming the tattered refugees of various bodily ailments into my loving care. I now see myself as a co-creator in the country of my life. I see that I am responsible to, not solely responsible for, what occurs within my boundaries. I love this home which life manifests within and around me. I respect my past choices for survival and current choices for revival. The spaciousness of unbounded spirit as I know it, is one and the same as my citizenship of this planet. Exploration and celebration of the full range of the human condition feels like Love in action. I, too, am slowly learning to be At Home in the World.

I will have a laminectomy on November 4^th. The surgeon will be fusing vertebrae L 3-5 which means he will drill through the presenting lamina bone to reach behind into the interior area. He saves the bone dust to fill in the hole later. The interior is where my discs should be cushioning between each vertebra. But they are not, resulting in bad arthritis. The discs are disintegrating, and one is bulging out causing pressure on a root nerve, which is responsible for much of my pain. This arthritis also allows one vertebra to slip back and forth over another which increases the inflammatory pain with the slightest movement in the wrong direction. The discs will be removed and I will have new titanium springs to replace them. I never imagined that I would be someone with double sets of metal in her spine. A metal cage will hold the three vertebrae in place. I am assured I will not lose too much range of motion and anyway, I am barely moving my back now.

            It is amazing to me that modern medicine can clearly see inside the human body to address this problem. It is further amazing that they now can fix it with only two small incisions on either side of my spine, which is why it is called Minimally Invasive Surgery. MIS it may be but having undergone my cervical surgery, I understand that while reducing the impact on healing cut muscles and nerves, MIS does not change the internal assault on the spine. I know it will be excruciatingly painful for a few days, and in a week’s time it will be tolerable with fewer and fewer painkillers. I am willing to trade my never-ending unstable back pain for a different temporary pain that should totally heal within a few months.

            At first, I had no idea how to time this operation against the reality of becoming a grandmother in late December. When I walked into my doctor’s office last week, he said that he had just gotten a cancellation for the 4^th and did I want it. I figured it was my sign to go for it, that the timing was as good as it could get. I should be fairly functional by Thanksgiving, and free of still anticipating a medical intervention after the baby is born. I can’t quite remember what it is like to be free of constant pain in that specific area in my back anymore. To deal with a pain that is always changing as it heals sounds like a wonderful alternative to me.

            I like my surgeon, I got cleared for my pre-operation testing yesterday, and I have a new primary care physician whose office is right next to my surgeon’s. They even like each other, which is a good feeling. I am confident the outcome will be successful and am practicing staying in the moment when I start to spin out into fear of further pain and “what ifs.”  

            I only need to stay in the hospital for one night. Kendal is the right place for me to pursue healing my body as best I can. The rehabilitation nursing staff is just down the hall from my room. As I need less medication and care to see that my wounds are healing, I should only be there a few days before I return home to my own room. My daughter, pregnant as she is, will confer with the doctor when I am in recovery from surgery at the nearby hospital. Back at Kendal she can visit with me when she is done teaching for the day just across from the Oberlin campus. I have many Kendal friends to look in on me. The nurses already know me, and physical therapists know me well and how my body works. I am entirely grateful to feel cared for in all these ways.

            My friends, near and far, shall also be with me in spirit and I am blessed.