Week #3

It's 3+ weeks since the surgery. Initially the retina specialist said that I'd be out of work 4-6 weeks. I thought -- not me! I'll be ready to go back in no time. Boy was I wrong. And has this been humbling! I bounced back really quickly after the other surgeries -- the lumpectomy, the mastectomy, the parathyroid removal. I was on my yoga mat the very next day, pushing to recover strength and flexibility. This is a totally different animal. This is all about patience and doing the minimal amount. Not my strong suit!

Mark has been cooking every meal all this time. Tonight he said that it's take-out from here on out. That may be an exaggeration, but he's tired of this, too.

The best thing about this experience has been my red electric guitar. Mark bought it kind of as a joke, but we've both had a lot of fun with it. His goal is to be able to play "Crash Into Me" by Dave Matthews by the end of next week. He signed up for some online guitar class and is learning that song! I continue to pluck away, 2 strings at a time, in the classical style.

Tomorrow we will be in the city for a night. I have 3 private patients to see, then the surgeon on Tuesday afternoon. I hope that the eye has continued to heal and that he will ease some of the restrictions. I keep wondering if there's any chance of doing the Pan Mass Challenge. But probably not. I feel dizzy when I stand up as I am sitting or lying down so much. I am like an over-sized lap dog.

How will I ever return to my former activity level?

Eye Candy

Mark and I are out West this week and next.
He's on vacation and I'm -- on medical leave. Completely dependent on others to drive me around...
Given that my activities are extremely limited, I am grateful that we are getting all the windows and doors replaced in our house. Why? Because the crew is absolute eye candy. On Monday there were 5 guys here, yesterday there were 6, and today there are 4. One is more ripped than the other. And they are really nice guys, too, so it's been fun having them here.
I wish I was allowed to be in the kitchen! I wanted to bake for them. But alas, that's not on my "allowed to " list, either.
This afternoon Mark will drive me down the hill, and Lucy/Rick will pick me up and drive me to their country place. I'll stay overnight there, and spend the day.
Tomorrow I am taking a guitar lesson which is exciting.
I've been practicing daily and am making some progress. I love playing "classical" style, reading the sheet music and enjoying the sound of a few strings at a time. It's kind of like studying foreign language.
And today Trish is taking me to lunch at a place nearby.
I spend a lot of time doing meditation. And listening to Narayan's dharma talks from dharmaseed.org.
And listening to New Yorker podcasts, contemporary writers reading a short story from the New Yorker archives then discussing with the fiction editor.
So I'm trying to make the most of this challenging time.
Mark has been amazing. I'm eating lots of hamburgers and chicken, but am grateful to have someone cook for me every day.

"Nothing"

Some friends from Hartford, Jeanne and Lynn, came to visit us on Sunday. They are always so generous and come loaded with food and gifts. So this time I asked them to bring NOTHING. Shortly after their arrival, they brought in a HUGE cardboard box and asked me to open it. I'm thinking -- you promised! and now you brought me something!

So I opened it up... and began to pull out the wrapping paper... and at the bottom, found a sheet of paper on which was written "nothing". So they really gave me "nothing"! We got a big laugh out of that.

At a certain point in life you have so much "stuff" -- and the biggest gift is spending time with dear friends. Mark wowed them with crepes, savory and sweet, as well as greens and radishes from our garden.

I continue to lie around... and sit around... and am mostly patient with this forced inactivity. It's been almost 3 weeks post-surgery and it is so surprising how long this recovery is.... I'll see the surgeon a week from today.

Slow Recovery

This will be brief.
Today is the first time I've been able to open my own email for 2+ weeks!

All I can say is -- wow.
This has been a really difficult 2 weeks.
I saw the surgeon on Tuesday and he said that I'm healing well. I'll see him again in 2 weeks. He eased my restrictions somewhat -- now I'm allowed 30 minutes of reading per day. And can take short walks outside, like 20 minutes. My sister returned Sasha to us on Wednesday. We are so happy to have her back!

What, you may ask, am I doing with my time?
On Saturday Mark brought me the most amazing gift -- a cherry red electric guitar with an amp! So I've been re-learning guitar, listening to Narayan's meditation podcasts and watching endless hours of cable TV. Mark hooked up cable for the month. And guess what? It's absolutely dreadful. Although I do enjoy watching the Dog Whisperer and Bones.

I'll be out of work at least 4 more weeks.
I can see out of my right eye but my left eye is extremely blurry. I use drops multiple times a day to keep it dilated. He thinks that I will make a full recovery.

Absolutely everything is on hold. All the curatorial projects, studio work, training for the Pan Mass Challenge.

Narayan just called and it was so great to speak with her. I am learning the lesson of no-self. The way I define "me" is no longer. All those labels that I would use to describe who I am ... I am a psychotherapist... gone... I am an athlete... gone... I am independent... gone. Etc. It's been really humbling. I am forced to slow down, to go inside. To learn this poignant lesson that we all get sick, our bodies age. Nothing is permanent. Other than mindfulness. Being with life just as it is, moment to moment. No matter how boring, painful, whatever.

Mass Eye and Ear

Coffee's on... and I'm not having any. Today I'm feeling pissed off about this. We will take the "T" to the hospital, then a taxi home. And how I love coffee in the morning! and reading email. And reviewing portfolios for curatorial projects. And living my busy, fun-filled life. I keep thinking about all that I can't do, which is a long list. As a cancer survivor, my life these almost-5 years has been all about savoring every moment and living large. Doing what I like, as I like.

Post-surgery I am relegated to sitting in front of the TV. Literally. I despise TV. I hate watching movies at home as it seems depressing. So that will be the next 6 weeks. God this sucks.

We even sent Sasha to my sister's. Amy came and picked her up last night. I spoke with her this morning and Sasha and her dog Pebbles are having a blast together. The Angels were awakened by a cold wet nose which delighted them. I could hear them shrieking in the background, a big doggy love-fest. and here I am. Let the boredom begin!

No exercise of any kind. No reading, writing. No computer, text, art-work, cooking, gardening, studying Russian. I can eat whatever, but then I'm afraid of putting on 20 pounds. I'll become a pale, fat, flabby depressed mess.

So there it is.
I tend to "make lemonade". Hopefully I can re-frame this experience into some kind of spiritual opportunity, a chance to move inward, deepen my meditation practice. (Did I say no yoga, either?) But I'm not there yet. I won't be able to write in this blog, either, but I'll ask Lucy or Christiane to be a scribe on occasion.

til soon!

Pre-Op Visit Today

So, it looks like lots of you still read this!
Thank you SO MUCH for all the emails that have been pouring in.
Everyone has been so thoughtful and supportive.
Many have suggested books on tape, DVDS from the library. And today will be about all of that! Downloading as many Narayan dharma talks as I can find, taking out as many DVDs as the library will allow. And making a "plan" about how to manage this upcoming forced captivity. Anyone who knows me at all can appreciate that my life is all about activity and communication -- the things that I will not be able to do for a while.
And yes great strides have been made in eye surgery. The retina specialist Mark and I saw yesterday was fantastic. I trust him. And if you are a friend of mine, you know that I am a good judge of character.

Here's all I can say about what led up to this. A few weeks ago I noticed some flashes of light out of the outer edge of my left eye. It happened mostly at night while walking the dog, or if I got up in the night to pee. It didn't concern me, much, as many years ago I had a few experiences of "aural" migraine headaches; the only symptom was a weird visual distortion when I experienced bands of color in weird patterns. It went away and I was assured it was nothing to worry about. So I figured that the flashing light was something like that. Those flashes stopped after several days. Then I noticed a lot of "floaters" in the left eye. I've always had those but it was different now, smaller and darker and more of them.

Claudia and Otto were visiting us from Berlin since Friday, and although in the background I was increasingly worried about these symptoms, I wanted to enjoy our time together. So I promised myself that I'd take care of this yesterday when they left. And did we have a wonderful time! They are serious bikers, and we spent 4 days on bikes. Friday and Saturday in Boston, then we took a ferry overnight to Provincetown on Sunday. And it was glorious! We enjoyed seafood at Legal Seafoods Harborside - raw oysters, the whole deal. Then we pedaled to the North End for cannolis at Mike's Pastry. Followed the Freedom Trail back to the Boston Common. Absolutely wonderful.

I called my PCP office yesterday morning, and was told to call the opthamologist immediately. I called them, described the symptoms, and they told me to go in right away. So I biked there. Typical, right? The doctor dilated me (that always sounds sexual to me!), took a look, and got right on the phone. She said I needed to see a retina specialist either at an office or the ER of Mass Eye and Ear. She offered a doctor who worked Tuesdays in Taunton, which is about an hour south of Boston. I called Mark (where would I be without him?) and he said he'd take me. He literally dropped what he was doing, leaving an uneaten salad on his desk to rush to pick me up.

Then we spend some hours in the Taunton office. The retinologist (I think that's a title) dilated me again. By this time I look like a drug addict with huge pupils. Now both eyes. He found that the left retina was detached but there were lots of smaller tears on both eyes. So he gave me a laser treatment on the right eye to take care of the biggest tear. Hopefully it won't detach and I won't need surgery on the right eye. But it will need more laser treatments. He just went after the most threatening one.

On the drive to Taunton, Mark commented that my behavior and affect are always so consistent these days. That's largely true but of course not entirely. He asked if I was upset. In that moment I was fine, but at the office I lost it a few times. Very tearful and scared. Especially when the retinologist asked me to sign a consent form with really scary potential outcomes. Halfway through I told him I could not listen anymore, but he said he had to tell me everything. Wow.

I don't like to follow rules unless they are my own and then I do what I set out to do. So this is going to be a real challenge. I really have to pay attention or I could go blind in that eye. So if you see or hear of me doing things I should not, please kick me! Last night Mark already started his care taking. He made dinner, cleaned up, took Sasha walking.

Narayan's homework for the summer was, "can you relinquish your suffering". This will be the summer of relinquishment. Letting go of my identity as an active, bookish, healthy person. Letting go of it all, including my fear and anger about this happening.

Namaste.
May we all be free of suffering.

Of all things - a detached retina

I have some really bizarre news.

The last few weeks I've had some visual disturbance (flashing lights, lots of floaters) and went to opthamologist today.

Turns out that I have a detached retina that needs emergency surgery. I actually had laser surgery on my "good" eye today.

I am going to be completely sedentary for 4-6 weeks and may not walk or exercise, or really use my eyes. I am not to read, text, email, anything. All I can do is sit in front of the TV. That is like a torture for me. I can't garden, walk the dog. Nothing. Of course the Pan Mass Challenge is probably not going to happen, either.

I'm still in shock.

So am trying to tie up any loose ends between now and surgery on Thursday.

As of tomorrow I'm off-line for weeks.

I can talk on the phone only.

What is the lesson to be learned with this one?