Kōan

Pain through roof again all week.  Bit of a short break Monday but those breaks are far too few, far too far between and give me very little relief when they do come.  But you take what you can get, right?  A friend and her adult daughter (both of whom I haven’t seen for ages; daughter lives in another state now) were just here.   I felt bad because I’m in so much agony and wasn’t a very good hostess.  Hang in there, I surface again.

I medicate, meditate, use oils and call in every damn possibility for help, spending money on CBD and anything else that just might make a difference.  But to no avail.  I have long talks with my dead cat, my dead dad,  dead mom, aunts and grandmothers.  Are you seeing a pattern?  I yell at G-d and plead with Him (if He’s real, if He listens, if He cares….with all the destruction we have rained down on this planet, I would imagine He doesn’t hear me at all) to make it go away or please, please, please take me.

I have these conversations often.  I never use to cry but now I do, often.  I pray and work hard on making my stay here as meaningful as possible, often.  But all I want to do, is let go and leave.    What am I missing?  What have I overlooked?  What can I do to make the world a better place?  What can I do to expedite my exit?  It’s getting harder and harder for me to put words together.  Hmmmm.  Okay.  Surfacing.

Here’s a  kōan  for you (if a tree fell in the forest and nobody heard it fall would it make a noise? kinda thing)  A person (say me) lives for 15 years in pain that cannot be controlled anymore.  Opiates, marijuana, meditation, oils, blah, blah, blah,  NOTHING works.  She’s miserable unless she’s “out of her body (meditating, etc.) which is impossible to achieve 24/7, at least for her.  But the key, is “out of the body” right?  She can’t sustain it on her own and only gets to that level for a short few minutes every few hours and has used every trick she knows.  Short of a coma, how do you stay in that state?

And then it hit me.  I suddenly started thinking of my mother and the fact that she died of an Alzheimer’s related illness.   I thought, shit, if I end up with that, I’ll be out of it AND in agony, how will I communicate my needs and will they be met?  And then I thought “I wonder if being unaware of yourself if you’d even be in pain.  Or whatever other ailment you might have.  Now surely, it doesn’t mean those who are paralyzed can suddenly walk.  So suddenly being out of pain doesn’t make sense, especially since it is so obviously a physical manifest of a tumor disorder.  But has there ever been a study done on this?  Makes you wonder.

Here’s the thing.  No one, not especially your loved ones, wants to believe it’s as bad as you (are attempting to) describe.  People start to think “it just CAN’T be that bad” because it’s easier to deal with thinking your loved one is starting to lose it that to think the torture they describe is real.  How can you be alive with it like that? They may wonder.  And conversely, you DO laugh. You DO still walk around some (I do.  I guess being in this kind of agony and dependent on others for your mobility would be even more hellacious) therefore it CAN’T be that bad.  Like anything else, you have to experience it yourself, and trust me, I would wish this on nobody.  Not. One. Soul.  Not because I’m such a good person but because …. because, that’s all.