Thanksgiving was nice and calm, I cooked all the “Mee Food” that fit with the season, Mary Alice & Cheryl came for dinner and our house was a calm and easy place. Friday for lunch was all about leftovers as it is in most households following a big holiday. Once again I filled my plate to the brim and feasted along side of my family. Around 1pm my tummy began to ache, I thought hmmmm maybe I just ate too much. At 4pm I knew something was wrong, still it’s been 18 months since my intestinal walls have completely collapsed causing a bowel obstruction so for sure I thought this not possible. The burning pain from the large ulceration has been gone for at least 9 months; I have suffered tummy aches but nothing that completely takes me out. I did what it is that I know how to do, ginger/chamomile compresses, soaked my feet in hot water to pull the blood down and circulate it, I eased on the intake of food and solids; finally falling to sleep around 9:30pm.
11:30 pm I opened my eyes and twisted with severe pain, a pain that I will never forget for as long as I live – my insides were twisted and fighting for blood – I was obstructing. I searched the room for Lee; he’d gone to help Bella through a bad dream and must have fallen asleep there. I didn’t want to yell through the house and awaken the girls so I made it to the bathroom to wash my face – however my legs gave way and I collapsed on the cold floor where I must have been for hours, rocking myself through the pain and battling the questions “Is this the time when my intestines will snap and I will no longer live in this body?” “Should I go to the hospital now?” The pain of these contractions is so severe that when I went to the hospital for my scheduled C-section with Isabella the nurses were in a panic, I’d been in labor for 24 hours with contractions 1 minute apart and didn’t KNOW it because I’ve suffered such intense bowel obstructions that my bodies tolerance for pain is HUGE.
Finally I made it up off of the cold marble floor and crawled to Lee, begging him to help me. For 3 more hours he wiped my head as my body twisted and I fought to vomit, finally I was able to throw up a HUGE amount, see that’s what happens all that is in the bowel that can’t pass has to come out one way or the other and if it can’t then you die.
I slept for a few hours, and awoke still in pain and weak…. For the past 3 days I’ve had acupuncture twice, two intestinal massages and been to see Ginny Harper (my food coach who has returned from Spain.) It seems that I ate way too much for my weakened intestines to pass and so they collapsed and I am reminded that healing my body is an on going process. The worst part of the next couple days was looking into my little girls’ eyes and seeing myself at their age – watching my mother struggle. I was sure to tell them that I was fine and that I just needed to rest, kissing them and touching them as often as possible. Reminding myself that our life is not the childhood that was mine – seeing my resilience.
Dr. Sheng tells me that the heart & small intestines are a couple, when the heart is sad the intestines break and that the intestines are a place of karma for the heart as they attempt to protect the heart.
When I went to see Gil “Happy Son Of My People”, I climbed on his table not wanting to process and passed out the minute the needles hit their spots, in my dream a window opened and I saw all this sunlight pour through, at first I was frightened. Once I looked in it was as if I was watching a movie, my life’s movie this time centered on my girls and Lee. In the movie Lola was sitting on the porch as she is now 4 years old, I was braiding her long golden hair – with each weave of the braid she aged and moved further away from me– yet I continued to hold on to her via the strands of her hair; just as my mother still does with me. Bella and Lola danced through time, I would have flashes of Lee too, sitting on the front porch of our old farm house – each glimpse of him time would show it’s face upon his until he was a very old man.
My mind raced trying to keep track of ages, places and wrinkles. Gil walked into the room, my eyes opened with tears he asked “Kapara do you have pain?” “No, I do not – I have seen time and I am a part of it.”
Just maybe my intestines break so that my heart will open and I will feel what I am too busy to move through. I’m not afraid that I am sick again; instead I understand the process of being here and healing. My resilience reminds me not to turn on myself and to fall in to the deep hole of doubt in times of struggle. The intestinal walls have 1,000’s of layers of tissue and each layer that heals has a process. I’m not rushing to the end instead I’m moving through the journey.
Yesterday I answered the phone, a call from Bella’s school. I assumed she was hurt or ill; instead it was the schools administrative assistant, she said “I’m sorry to bother you but Isabella just sang for the principal and myself and she brought tears to my eyes, she is a lovely child.” I fought back my own tears, and wanted to reach through the phone and hug this woman, telling her how deeply I appreciated her phone call and that I am grateful that my child is honored and honorable, that I am raising noble beings in a school that believes in nobility. Again my resilience was fortified.
Today I feel like my healthy strong self and I’m back in the game, but with a new perspective; a bigger aerial point of view that only comes from picking ones self up from the bathroom floor.
