Pills For Enlightenment

It would seem impossible that I could live a life without painkillers at this moment. This morning was a bad one that required one morphine pill, a Xanax and three Vicodins to get the pain to a somewhat bearable level, but I can no longer stand what these medications are doing to my spirit.

As I felt the pain battle for supremacy in my face and jaw (despite the meds), I decided to just lay on the couch at one point and give in, to not fight, to boldly tell it to get as bad as it wants to get--that I can take it.

It's always remarkably relaxing when I do this, as I suppose in these moments I can compartmentalize the pain, set it aside, and live with it instead of fighting it. But for some reason, I seem to do this only when I arrive at the point where I'm realizing it's winning handsomely, and the only way to win the war, so to speak, is to surrender the battle.

When I do this, the pain does ease up somewhat, and I wondered this morning if this tactic would be successful if I went off pain medication altogether. It seemed like such a shockingly bold move, even stupid, but the idea intrigued me.

Yet when I significantly decreased my pain meds in an experiment last week, the pain skyrocketed, and it took two days to get it down again. It's actually been pretty bad ever since.

But I literally can't stand this medication fog anymore. As I've been so isolated and sedentary for most of the past year, I joined a gym this week, and man, what an effort not only to exercise, but just to walk over there! My malaise fought me every inch of the way, and the depressing thought kept creeping in, "Why am I bothering?"

What's keeping my hope afloat, though, are the memories of more joyous times, when, despite my problems and issues, life could also feel electric and exciting, and I would be wildly filled with creative ideas that gave me more than enough fuel to execute them.

But my days are so very different now. And I have to wonder how they fit into the overall pattern of success/defeat defeat that has defined so much of my life. If everything around us is truly connected by some kind of universal web, where past, present and future are illusions of our three-dimensional world, and if I go on the assumption that I'm here on this earthly plane to learn deep truths via the gift of free choice, then what is the lesson?

Of course, my malady may be nothing more than a freak occurrence of bad luck, but for the sake of argument, if this ordeal does somehow reflect a bigger picture, what in that picture am I missing?

When I think along these lines (which always seem to effortlessly surface during these moments of surrender), it all feels so profoundly obvious to me--that of course this is all connected, you numnut, but you just don't want to go there. You don't want to face the sheer terror of the wild blue yonder before you, and instead would prefer to stay in your hovel of pain and medication, where the space is oh so small, but oh so familiar.

As I've written about before, most of my adult life was devoted to music, to being the best singer/songwriter I could be. Those were heady times indeed, but when one is so singularly focused on JUST ONE THING in life and that thing no longer exists, it's hard to feel anchored to the earth anymore, despite my other artistic endeavors.


And why was my life devoted to JUST ONE THING? Because I felt so incapable of succeeding in love relationships. Time after time, I made such poor choices in men, which had less to do with them and more to do with my low self-esteem. And let's face it...a life without love, or even the potential for love, is hardly a life at all. I dare say my fear of intimacy borders on something pathological, and I am the less for it.

Of course, now that I'm so ill, in such pain and on so many medications, I continue to feel myself unworthy of a love relationship, but of course this is just more of my bullshit. I'm aware that I'm actually quite good (for the most part) at handling extremely difficult physical conditions, and I'm also aware that no one is perfect; that we all have our proverbial crosses to bear and baggage to unload. Pain and illness does not deem me unlovable, but in my own mind, it gives me an excuse to melodramatically retreat, which is made all the easier by the fatigue created by the meds.

It's a vicious cycle indeed. Pain and fatigue keep me isolated, yet isolation keeps me away from any possibility of love, which would restore much-needed balance in my life, whether the pain was there or not.

It's certainly no easy thing to wake up with severe pain in the morning, and would be harder still to take a stab at not medicating it, but something has got to give. I've become frozen in time, remembering the person I used to be, yet only vaguely seeing the person I could become. And therein, perhaps, lies the rub.

With all previous definitions of myself shattered, who am I now, and who do I want to be? Where do I go from here? I can't see it, and this terrifies me, frankly. And with pain taking up so much real estate in my brain, it's difficult to formulate a new vision for myself or for anything...even some nutty creative endeavor.

Before all this happened, I was actually feeling okay about setting the music aside for awhile, by exploring new paths, by venturing forward full speed ahead in faith and love.

But of course, my faith was shattered, too, when pain exploded onto the scene. God not only vacated his co-pilot seat in my life; he actually hit the ejector button, leaving me to crash land in some foreign sea all on my own. I've been trying hard ever since not to drown.

And so my present is now largely defined by reruns of Criminal Minds. Nothing soothes the tortured soul, it seems, like stories of sociopathic serial killers.

I watched a preacher today during a Sunday morning TV program, and he talked about faith, about putting our troubles in God's hands. He focused mainly on the recession and the joblessness that many of his followers were no doubt experiencing, noting Bible passages that basically said to quit worrying, have faith that God will provide, and just enjoy your life.

When it comes to money and my freelance work, I can get with that. But how those parables apply to someone in chronic pain still has me stumped. Maybe they don't apply, or can't. Once again, I'm reminded of Buddhist teachings that say there will always be suffering in life; the trick is to rise above it (no matter how harsh the circumstances), relinquish your attachments, and enjoy the bliss that ensues.

But I'm told by this one Buddhist sect that I'll have to chant two to three hours a day to attain this enlightenment. Huh? What? Is this a joke? I get impatient with how long it takes to walk to my kitchen. Can't they just make a pill for it?


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Note: Watercolors are some new entries in my illustrated journal. I'm using them as inspiration to get back to my flamenco classes!




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The Taming of the Blue

It's been a little over a year since I wrote my History Repeating post about the plague that engulfed Europe in 1347. Like a number of essays on this blog, it was inspired by a show on the History Channel, which just happened to air again yesterday.

I was just as fascinated with the program as I was 13 months ago, but what was even more intriguing was my very different response to it this time around.

Last year at this time, I was in such a state of profound questioning about God, railing against life's unfairness, and feeling that I'd somehow been singled out by my creator to suffer extreme and unending pain for reasons known only to him. My intellect grappled with this daily, on the one hand clearly seeing that I was just an unfortunate victim of circumstance, but on the other, feeling some deep sense of deserving this punishment, and maybe more hopefully, feeling that this was part of some divine plan designed to teach me something profound.

In hindsight, no matter how you look at it, any response I was having was tremendously self-centered, and I say that not as a self-criticism, but as a simple, if uncomfortable, observation.

Of course, it's natural to focus entirely on oneself when physical agony sets the tone for the day, but all that grappling with profound questions has led me to a curious state of being indeed, and one that I didn't at all expect, for in all my questioning about God, the place I'm being led is not to the heavens, but back to earth, upon which I feel like I'm walking for the very first time.

I've always been somewhat of a heady character, and in fact used to joke that my body was the thing that simply carried my head around. In being a creative person absorbed in the arts, I was always writing songs or painting pictures, and when I wasn't doing that, I was pondering the after-effects of therapy in order to unravel a more happy existence. In short, my head was in some very stormy clouds nearly all of the time, and the world around me was something I witnessed but kept at a distance, as I was the star of the show, so to speak, slightly removed and certainly above the mundane world of ordinary folks.

In short, I suppose I was something of a snob, albeit a nice one, but my niceness in no way affected my ambitions to be bigger, bolder and better in nearly everything I did.

What a moron.

I can see this so clearly now, and while a little embarrassed by it, I couldn't be more thankful that this old crusty cloak is slowly disintegrating all around me, and I do have to wonder if this horrible, awful, painful ordeal has had anything to do with it.

Two weeks ago, I had yet another surgery on my jaw, and by all accounts, it seems that my attempts to rid myself of pain have failed yet again. In fact, I may have even made matters worse, as the wound and bone refuse to heal.

This landed me at a local hospital's wound center last week, where I'm on deck (if Medicare approves it) to receive treatment in a hyperbaric chamber, which will be six weeks of being locked in a pressurized glass tube three hours a day. I'm told that this will force more oxygen into my system, thus destroying all bacteria and fostering growth of new blood vessels. Apparently, my chances are 50/50 in terms of pain relief, which before might have depressed me, but now...well...I'm not sure it matters which way the wind blows.

I felt this same way just before my surgery, in fact, which was in such stark contrast to so many of the other surgeries these past five years. I used to pray so hard for a positive outcome, only to be devastated when those prayers weren't answered. In many ways, I felt exactly like the plague victims, who turned to God and their faith for relief from their terrorizing torture, only to be ignored and left to their own devices. Clearly, the god of their understanding became irrelevant when it really counted, just like my own understanding of God and faith faltered when the going got tough.

When I take a closer look, I can see now that I was asking all the wrong questions and focusing on (and praying for) all the wrong things. While it was certainly appropriate and understandable for me to rage at my fate, I can see now that this ordeal has taken me completely out of my head and landed me squarely on my feet, where I now feel the dirt and sand between my toes in ways I never have before.

What's so startling is how I now move in my world. Despite the pain, no matter where I go, I seem to laugh and talk with just about everyone, and I'm quick to help when I see someone in a jam, whether it be a mother struggling to get her baby stroller up the subway steps, or an old lady waiting in the rain at a bus stop, who I pick up and drive home. I hate to think that I didn't help in these ways before, but what I'm guessing is that I just didn't see these situations, as I was too blinded by heady concepts and my own ambition.

In a waiting room the other day, for example, I began playing with three little brothers as if I'd known them my whole life, and in short order had everyone in the room laughing with our antics. The connection was instant, strong and barrier-free. I complimented their mom and dad on their beautiful family, and was warmed by the very thought of these three little devils for the rest of the day.

This may not sound like a big deal, but I can't really remember this ever happening before. When I say I talk with and smile at everyone, I mean everyone, and this glorious, bustling city I live in provides ample opportunity to flex my new friendly and outgoing muscles. I crack wise with cops and politicians, I have coffee with artist friends at local cafes, and I thank my bus driver after every single ride.

Oddly enough, as I write this, I'm actually having a very bad day. The pain is as bad as it ever was, which often leads to combustible outbursts of tears and long periods of sleep.

In a sense, the malaise and sadness about this condition haven't changed, but what has changed is that I don't expect to not suffer anymore. When I look at the world at large, either now or in the past, great suffering certainly isn't anything new, or anything unique to me. Maybe the trick to my ultimate contentment will be to be at rest with what is and to use that as the stuff of glorious, creative absorption, which is, of course, the ultimate painkiller.

It sounds so simple, but it's quite hard for me not to define myself by my accomplishments. No wonder this pain has caused such suffering on so many levels, as it has forced me to sit still and think, to rest, to just be. For so long, I felt like my accomplishments had to be huge in order for them to matter to the world, to make a difference. I'm only beginning to see that a smile exchange with just one person can light a spark for us both that can illuminate an entire hour, or more.

I should know in a day or two if Medicare will approve the hyperbaric treatment. If that does happen, I'm not expecting much, other than some claustrophobia and maybe some nice encounters with staff, who I suspect I'll get to know quite well. Maybe there'll be some kids in the waiting room.


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Chaos Theory

I have a piece of paper taped to my wall next to my drawing desk, on which I long ago scribbled the definition of chaos theory: "The more complex the pattern, the simpler the underlying reality."

I heard it on TV once, and I read it often, as science and the human condition always seem to be so relative. Truth is truth, whether it be a mathematical formula or a divine insight. I find comfort in this definition of chaos theory these days, because deep in my soul, I do feel that there is an underlying truth in all this pain, and it's my job to figure it out.

Of course, I'm sick to death of trying to figure it out, and often come to the conclusion that I'm just unlucky--that there's no grand design to all this--I'm just a single human who drew the low card and nothing will change until I get a lucky break--when I'll find the right treatment or the right doctor who will help me get well. And that'll be that. No divine involvement whatsoever.

But then another one of those strange interventions happened again the other day, which challenges my notions of nothingness. I've talked about them in previous posts, where I'll get a strong premonition or warning that alerts me to danger and alters my behavior to the extent that I actually avoid disaster.

Here's what happened this time: Every day I get a digest post from the online blood support group I joined years ago. I read it faithfully for years, but as the posts tend to get repetitive, I haven't opened or read any of them in a good six months or more.

Last week, though, something made me open the email, and in the list of topics was a warning about a drug that I'd been taking for nausea--Reglan. It said that new studies had shown that Reglan can cause permanent damage to the nervous system when taken in high doses or over a long period of time, the latter of which applied to me.

As the drug cocktail I take every day can sometimes bring on nausea, I was taking Reglan every morning whether I had nausea or not, just as a precaution, so that I didn't find myself out and about somewhere and suddenly need to vomit.

Yet when I read this warning post, I was shocked at the damage Reglan can do, and immediately stopped taking it.

Later, I thought it extraordinary that of all the posts to open during the last six months, that was the one I chose, and once again, I felt like something "other" had intervened. I suppose I could just call it a coincidence, but when similar coincidences happen over and over, a pattern emerges that challenges logic.

I feel like there is something out there keeping me alive, which frankly feels somewhat cruel, considering the state I'm in. In the last few weeks, the pain level has skyrocketed to the extent that it's there when I go to bed and there when I wake up. My despondency feels like a ten-ton weight, and thoughts do cross my mind lately that I could always just end things. I do have that choice, and I know things are bad when I begin considering such a move as an option.

I love life so much though, and then I think of my little nieces who adore me (and who I love more than words could describe), who would be left without their nutty aunt for the rest of their lives. And so I hold on. These "interventions" are keeping me around for some reason, and I'm trying to have faith in that.

I'm still swirling in a state of chaos, though, trying to believe that there is a simple underlying truth to it all that will set me free, as truth always does.

But my energy is fading, to the extent that I've completely lost my appetite. When eating feels like a monumental task, the other things I know I must do to try and get well feel like lifting cement boulders.

It's time to reach out for help. Friends have offered assistance constantly, and I know they mean it, but I suppose it's tough for me to admit that I'm actually this weak right now, and that I can no longer do this alone.

I don't know that that particular truth is the simple one that can explain all this chaos, but it's the truth today. Time to make some phone calls.


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Fractured

Am I really doing the best I can when it comes to this pain mess? My pain meds have been changed, from Vicodin to OxyContin, and if I screw up with Oxy (if i take too much as I did with Vicodin), I'll be in serious trouble.

Last night, I took an extra pill, not because I needed it, but because the addiction was screeching in my head. It took hold and completely obsessed me, which is the bitch of being hooked. You're battling your own brain chemistry, your own desires. I didn't want to take it, but like the person who can't resist having one too many, I crumbled and didn't feel very good about it afterward.

I've been researching a lot of alternative theories about addiction other than the 12-step approach, which is very deity-centered and touts the disease model of the condition. While recovery folks will say that you can be an atheist and still work the program, I'm not sure that's true. When notions of a loving creator are profoundly challenged, all the talk of God working in everyone's lives can sound like chatter, even delusional. I don't go to meetings as much as I once did (I used to go every day, now just two or three times a week), not because I don't want to get sober, but because the spiritual words ring hollow.

I must say, I do love the friends I've made there, I like the social aspect of getting together, and I love the experience of such genuine love and compassion.

But in my case, I'm going to have to find either an alternate or supplemental treatment that will resonate. I have to get to the root of my problem, which I suspect runs deeper than I imagine.

On the surface, I'm suffering from an organic, latent infection in my jawbone that has only partially responded to surgery. But on a different level, this disease is a continuation of something very familiar to me, which I've written about in other posts. I'm used to battling as far back as I can remember. There's always been some evil force keeping me down, oppressing my fundamental nature, my desires and my outlook.

It's easy to just escape into pills and television. The harder road would be to explore the metaphors, which I've been doing most of my adult life. It's been a tough, meaningful journey, but when the pain crippled me in '04, all bets were off. When I became suicidal, the pills were necessary in order to buy me time; they also provided a type of comfort that chemically was impossible for my own brain to generate.

But what about now? This past week or so, I've been asking myself, "Am I doing my very best today to get out of pain and get sober?" The answer has painfully been "no" each and every time. I could do better. I could write in my journal daily. I could go down to my art studio, where there is silence (unless I play music) and creative materials all around me. (I tend to create in silence, for some reason.) But in my studio, I'm alone with me, myself and I. I don't want to be alone, perhaps to avoid loneliness, but also to avoid the issues I don't want to think about.

I know what I should be doing to help matters, but if I went off the pills, there are feelings there I don't want to deal with...or perhaps I should say, no feelings at all. When it comes to certain problematic areas of my life, I've hit a brick wall, even with the years of therapy.

Yesterday, I stumbled upon a web site that used language I've never heard before, about what happens to someone with post traumatic stress disorder. It talked about dissociation, feelings of unreality, hypervigilence and loss of identity. While I've overcome a lot of this and have gone on to live a relatively full life, there are gaping holes that I still don't know how to fix.

I was encouraged by this site, as it so precisely described what I experienced as a teenager...what happens when a psyche splits into a type of duality as a means of coping. While I've improved tremendously in this area, I still avoid the pain of the fractures that remain.

How in the world will I ever get better if I think that "going back to life" will be fraught with this low-level psychic ache that never goes away, despite all efforts to resolve it?

This site gave me hope, as apparently there are therapists trained in this precise area. I've been in touch with the site's owner who will try to help me find someone in Manhattan.

Fingers firmly crossed.


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