Made Up Medical Specialities

So I took the only action available to bring some calmness and balance into my life vis-a-vis my odd heart rhythms and skipped beats and I went to the doctor.  I don't really mind going to the doctor because they rarely find anything alarming or concerning.  My old self would imagine that I had some alarming or concerning disease or condition that was going to kill me dead in a cruel and imaginative way while not going to the doctor, apparently preferring to Imagine the Worst from the privacy of my own home.  Take action or fret myself into a tizzy?  In this current situation I did the next indicated thing.  I realized that it's going to be hard to stay calm when I can hear the Grim Reaper rustling around in the bushes outside my bedroom window, sharpening his scythe, and my years in Alcoholics Anonymous have given me great regard for calmness.  Or does The Reaper carry a sickle?  I can't remember.  Maybe he's a modern Reaper, adapting to the times, packing a Glock and wearing a bullet proof vest.  Wouldn't put it past the Angel of Death.  After all it's not like the old days when he could unleash an army of rats carrying fleas into the general populace and let the Bubonic Plague wipe out half the population of Europe.  THAT was the Grim Reaper that had some clout.

Nothing significant presented itself which wasn't surprising given the fact that my symptoms are intermittent and sporadic.  That's the good news.  But nothing definitive presented itself, either.  My doctor didn't say: "What?  Get the fuck out of here" and send me on my way with a friendly pat on the ass.  He asked me to make an appointment with a cardiologist for some further tests.  A cardiologist!  I don't think I ever had an appointment with a medical specialist before this year when I've seen an endodontist, have an upcoming appointment with an Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor to remove a growth on my tongue, and been advised to visit a Cardiologist.  Frankly, I had always assumed that those were just made up words that doctors used when they were stumped by something.  They'd send you off to the periodontist hoping that you'd be too confused and intimidated to do anything.  Then, when you came back later with the same symptoms they'd ask, with a smug look on their face: "Well, what did the proctologist have to say about that?"  When you admitted you hadn't actually seen the rheumatologist they could wash their hands of the whole affair.

Taking good action beats worrying about The Unknown.  This I know to be true.  It's comforting to know that I have health insurance and good health care practitioners.  No one is shouting: "What the fuck!  What the fuck is that thing on your tongue!?  Get away from me with that thing!"  Today I feel a great sense of calm: it isn't a critical problem but it isn't completely resolved.  Taking the action was the thing.  When I need to do something and I don't do it or when I need to wait patiently and then rush headlong into the maelstrom . . . that's when the problems arise.  So, I have a cardiologist appointment in a month.  Best I can do.

"I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect."

Gibbon

No Way, Jose

"Fanaticism describes a rigid attachment to knowledge with an excessive intolerance of opposing views.  It is driven by a need to believe in something 100 percent . . . Anything that contradicts or puts into question the sustainability of the belief is a direct threat, and a fanatic will defend the belief at any cost."

We exist in a highly polarized political world right now, one where it often boils down to Us versus Them, or Me versus You.  Every so often I get sucked into a conversation with a Fanatic who holds opposing views and - much more rarely - I try to "reason" with this person.  Hoo Dog, what a waste of my time!  I have no problem with trying to see an issue from a different viewpoint but where I get into trouble is when I'm engaged with someone who is discarding facts and reason to defend their beliefs.  The shit people believe!  There's naturally a lot of nuance in deciding whether or not a government should spend this or that amount of money on the military or social programs or health care.  That makes sense.  But some people refuse to open their minds to an opposing viewpoint, preferring instead to be spoon-fed dubious information that supports their point of view.  I'm sure I do it to some degree but Alcoholics Anonymous has suggested that my serenity will be well serviced if I learn to pause and consider, to see if my point of view is supported with facts and reason, and - guess what? - sometimes I'm living on bullshit, too.

No way, Jose.

It reminds me of my first few years in A.A. where you could NOT tell me anything that knocked me off whatever preconceived notions I had.  It was only through hard experience and repeated failures that I learned that maybe - just maybe  - my way wasn't the best way.  Shooting heroin and driving a car?  But I'm a good driver!  Drinking a twelve pack during lunch break?  But I'm a great employee!

"Everything will come and go in front of you, but you will remain the same."

The Buddha

"He lived a short distance from his own body."

James Joyce

Goddam Ducks

No one is normal - it just looks that way from across the street.

When we're in public, to fit in and be accepted, we often present an image of ourselves that we think others wish to see.  This image reflects who we think we're supposed to be and how we think we're supposed to act,  In reality, this image exists only in your mind.  Trying to live up to that image only leads to suffering.  When it's not benefiting you or the other person, drop your image and be who you are.

I normally sleep like a dead man.  Last night I slept like a dead man being tormented by a ghost and not a good ghost.  A bad ghost.  I normally can't remember my dreams, either.  I suggest that this is either because I have a clean conscience, devoid of any tormenting ghosts, or I'm a sociopath, devoid of any sense of right and wrong with consequently no guilt or remorse about past bad behavior.  My final bout of fitful sleep concluded with a weird scenario where I was trying to sleep on a picnic table close to the ocean but a large bird of some type kept sitting on my head area.  I remember, vaguely, a duck or water fowl.  I kept squirming around and shoving at the duck but it would not be dislodged.  Finally, I woke up with a shout.  A shout!  I yelled out loud!  THAT snapped me wide-awake.  I wonder if I thought I was being smothered?  A duck!  Why didn't I just grab the duck's neck and strangle the shit out of it?  What does a duck weigh?  Like ten pounds?  I weigh 185!  And I have teeth which the duck does not have!

Clearly the message that was being sent by my subconscious is "You do not have anything to write about today so you're just wasting everyone's time."

Remembering

One of the most common experiences of traveling to other countries and experiencing other cultures is to see that the practice of honoring those who came before us is a universal one.  I'm not sure in The States that we are quite as engaged in communing with people beyond the grave.  In my Quiet Time I spend a minute imagining all my predecessors sitting around a table which is nestled in the clouds, everyone relaxed and smiling, unhurried, bemused and tolerant, not doing anything in particular beyond sitting quietly together, enjoying the minute.  It has helped me immensely over the years to lose any resentments that linger over how crappy a job they did in raising me.  They did not, of course, do a crappy job - it's more that I'm a negative son of a bitch who likes to concentrate on defects and shortcomings instead of strengths and attributes.  Moreover, as we say, no baby comes into the world with a personalized instruction manual and I was a complicated, defective model from the git-go.

In Vietnam I took a walk one morning on the raised paths that separate flooded rice paddies.  Every so often there would be a small shrine at an intersection that would have a burning candle, some food treats, fresh flowers, little gifts and mementoes inside, and the villagers would stop for a brief moment and remember their forebears.  I liked this a lot.  Not flashy or complicated, not time-consuming, not a big public display, more of a "Hey, howya doin' this morning?  I remember you.  The good you.  The best you."  For me this remembering is a very centering thing to do.  It helps my perspective on life, on how it comes and goes until eventually it all goes, and I'm just the spirit in that shrine.

Brobdingnagian

There have been many instances in my life where things have happened to me that have an outsized effect on my consciousness, my awareness of who I am and where I stand in the world.  Sometimes it has been something I've heard that really struck a chord.  Seaweed's Greatest Hits.  One that has stuck with me over the years was a period of ill health I had.  One of the reasons I do a Daily Gratitude List is that I'm not by nature grateful.  I don't know . . . maybe most people aren't.  Life can be a slog and it's easy to be wary of what shitstorm is coming next.  Anyway, one of my major blessings is overall good health and I tend to take this for granted.  We do this with a lot of things when they're going well and seem stable - spouses, families, work, financial well-being - and then when life tosses a grenade into our soup as it certainly will do we're surprised at how much we enjoyed that stability, how much it receded into a pleasant background hum.

I have begun to notice an intermittent fluttering, breathless feeling in my heart.  AFib, I think it's called.  I know this because - of course - I got on the Internet and found some websites whose main function seems to be to scare the shit out of you so you linger and maybe look at the advertisements on the side of the page and purchase some goods or services you don't need.  I don't suspect that this is anything serious and I have made a doctor's appointment but, man, when your heart is changing it's tune it's disconcerting.  One can do without many things but a beating heart is not one of them.

Too much caffeine is one of the potential causes of Afib.

SuperK: "So maybe you need to cut back on your coffee?"

Seaweed (looking at SuperK with an expression of disgust and alarm):  "If the choice is quitting coffee or dying of a major coronary?  Hmmmm.  I'll get back to you on that one."

So here's the story . . .  Again . . .  Sorry.

Several years ago I caught a nasty chest cold which took a while and some antibiotics to shake off and get well.  But my worn down body was an easy target for influenza which I think I've had maybe three times in my life and once is enough, I'll tell you.  I was good and sick for another few weeks before I gradually shook off the virus but now my body was extremely worn down so I got another standard, not-too-bad, run-of-the-mill cold.  After a few weeks I was finally virus free and found myself extremely, extremely grateful that I wasn't sick.  It brought me pause, wondering how easy it is to take my blessings for granted while blowing my challenges up to Brobdingnagian size.  (Ed Note: SuperK ran into that word in a book she was reading so I had to express my love for her by working it into the blog which she does read . . . eventually  . . .  allegedly.)

It also makes me appreciate The Serenity Prayer even more and this is a prayer I have a great deal of appreciation for on a daily basis.  The constant balancing act of trying to wait when I should wait and act when I should act.  It's amusing/alarming/frustrating/infuriating/hilarious how often fear causes me to linger when I should be moving and makes me rush headlong into something that is best left alone.  Something or the other about the wisdom to know the difference.  Something I should remember because it's important.

Something . . .  something . . .  something.

Running From Pain and Problems

"It takes twenty years to become an overnight success."

Unknown Wit

If you study the human body you'll find that many of our nerve endings have receptors that give the brain information on the various threats that we may face: extreme heat or cold: sharp, puncturing wounds; crushing force; damaging sound levels; the slow misery of an infection or disease.  We surely don't get mad at these receptors when they do their job.  "Damn, puncture-sensing receptor - that hurts.  I'd rather stay here and get stabbed repeatedly instead of running away."  These dudes are called nocioreceptors and they fall not all that neatly into the categories of heat and cold; mechanical (pinching, cutting, sharpness); and polymodal (pressure, chemical threats).  How cool is all this?  How glad are we that these things exist?  They're our friends and not our enemies.  No one likes pain but we only stick our hands in a vat of boiling sulphuric acid once, I'll tell you what, we get the message.

One habit I've gotten into - one of the benefits of trying to stay present and in the moment - is taking a close look at my feelings, pleasant or otherwise.  Fear can tell me if I'm doing something stupid and dangerous.  Anxiety can help me prepare for a difficult task.  The problem isn't the hot sulphuric acid - the problem is me sticking my hand into the hot sulfuric acid.  Don't shoot the messenger.  Your body isn't your enemy.  It's not trying to make you suffer for no reason at all - it's trying to keep you safe and alive.  Listen - don't deflect, ignore, or pretend.  That vat of acid really does hurt and trying to spin it in a positive light won't work.

It's the same with fear and anxiety.  When I was anxious after the death of my parents a grief counselor looked me in the eye and said: "What's the anxiety trying to tell you?  There's a message there!"  I was so busy trying to make it go away by ignoring it or attacking it with positive imagery that I didn't learn the lesson that I needed to learn; namely, that loss is hard and it makes you feel bad and that's okay.  Quit running!

"Until now, our lives had been largely devoted to running from pain and problems.  We fled from them as from a plague.  We never wanted to deal with the fact of suffering.  Escape via the bottle was always our solution."

Step 7 P. 74.

No One Here Gets Out Alive

"While there's nothing wrong with striving to do better, as soon as our happiness and self-approval are hinged on achieving this perfection, we are endangering our own well-being."                               The Toltecs

I have a young friend in The Fellowship who's smart, energetic, not a person who needs help doing things, preferring to make her own decisions which are often successful - until a series of circumstances happened all at once and overwhelmed her (pressure at school, her husband drinking a bit too much, an approaching AA anniversary which for some reason seems to eat at a lot or our minds, a dog sitting kerfuffle) and you lose it.  For me it was Sponsor Ken, mom, and my Dad dying in short order, finally admitting that I should undergo a lengthy, painful, and expensive process to get my neglected teeth brought into fit order, and an awareness of the aging process as I hit the age milestones of sixty, sixty-two (social security benefits begin), and sixty-five (Medicare! - health insurance for old people!).

As Jim Morrison famously said: "No one here gets out alive," a line that has become a cultural expression reminding us that mortality is universal. Depending on the context, it can be interpreted as:

• A stark statement that everyone eventually dies.
• A call to live authentically because life is finite.
• An expression of existential or philosophical reflection

I repeat that I have a tendency to call on other people when I lead a meeting.  I love the terror I see in their eyes.  I love the control!  I love seeing the minds working away: "What am I going to say if he calls on me?"  In Portland the meeting leader called on folks before opening up the meeting for anyone who wanted/needed to share in the last ten minutes.  The explanation given was that this was an attempt to keep everyone "engaged."  You want to be uncomfortable?  Try sharing when you haven't been paying attention to the topic because you're thinking about yourself.  Shit gets uncomfortable fast.

"While I love spending time with others, I also love being alone and enjoying my own company.  That's good news! Because if I didn't enjoy being with myself, that would make for a difficult life, as I am the only person who is with me all the time.  Remember, the point of all this work is to enjoy life.  It starts with the relationship you have with yourself."                                                                      The Toltecs