Tag Archives: surgery

Hope Opens Doors

Posted on by

 

Photo courtesy of Pixabay

Photo courtesy of Pixabay

I’ve never suffered from depression, but very recently, I found myself teetering on the edge and I wanted to share this story because lots of people suffer from depression. You see, two years ago, I had surgery on my ankle to repair a shredded posterior tibialis tendon (the tendon that goes under your arch and up the inside of your leg). It was a traumatic experience and the recovery has been long and painful.

A few weeks ago, I went back to see my doctor because I still have pain and swelling in my ankle. She told me that the surgery had obviously not accomplished what we had hoped, and asked how I felt about having more surgery, the procedure we should have done the first time, but because it was even more extensive with twice the recovery time, I opted for the less invasive one. It was now apparent that I had made the wrong choice.

Sitting there in the doctor’s office with my swollen, bare foot dangling off the edge of the table, the thought of having to undergo more surgery instantly plunged me into a suffocating darkness. I’ve had surgeries before, and my body does not take kindly to being cut on and stitched back together. It’s always a traumatic experience for me. Besides, there were no guarantees that the more extensive surgery would correct the problem either.

Returning home from my appointment, the crawling, bleeding, agonizing darkness sunk even deeper into me like thick black tar invading my soul. For days, I cried. I drank too much. I slept too much. I ate all the bad food I could get my hands on. I became lethargic. I couldn’t think. I felt very, very sorry for myself. I just knew that I was destined to be a cripple for the rest of my life. All I wanted to do was divorce myself from this rotten, messed-up body that keeps failing me. On the other hand, I had enough foresight to realize that if I didn’t watch it, I could slip into a bonafide clinical depression and I could see how easy it would be to go there, because the bad news was just one more addition to an already long list of negative and serious issues I’d been dealing with, so this new information didn’t just cause me to focus on foot surgery, it caused me to view my entire life through a lens of how terrible everything was. And I teach workshops on how to live the life of your dreams! How could I be an effective teacher if I was seeing nothing but the things that were wrong with me and my life?

But I was so down, I couldn’t see any way to pull myself out of the darkness, plus all those thoughts about not being an effective teacher only made me feel worse about myself. I needed to get my shit together somehow because I was sinking. Fast.

A friend then recommended a physical therapist in Boulder who specializes in foot and ankle issues as well as scoliosis. I knew I had scoliosis, and I wondered if perhaps that could be exacerbating my foot issues. My foot doctor concurred.

Photo courtesy of Pixabay

Photo courtesy of Pixabay

Yesterday I went to see the new PT. She looked at the x-rays of my spine—curved in two places—nice. She checked my flexibility and told me that my foot issues were likely caused by my scoliosis, and even if I were to have more surgery on my foot, it probably wouldn’t solve the problem. She said that we needed to treat the whole body–not just one area, and very likely the foot issues would resolve themselves in the process. Wait.  Seriously? A small light went on inside my heart. Was she saying there was hope?

She told me that my tendon was good and strong, which was encouraging because my initial thoughts had been that the surgery had all been for nothing–a total waste of time, money and pain. But the surgery didn’t go so far as to determine the cause, which was now becoming obvious—scoliosis was causing me to put pressure on the arch of my foot, hence the pain and swelling. Ah ha! An explanation that made sense!

The PT gave me a few suggestions to try in dealing with my posture and they helped instantly. She told me that she was optimistic that their unique program for scoliosis patients could help me live a normal life again because it had helped lots of people from all over the world. It helped my friend.

I felt hope rise inside of me like a gentle kiss of summer rain—a kind of hope that had previously seemed unlikely at best. Suddenly, the world looked brighter and all my problems, not just my foot issues, but all my problems and fears seemed manageable. Tears ran from my eyes—tears of hope that I could be pain-free again. Oh my gosh! What pure joy that would be!

Hope. Opens. Doors. Hope gives us the tools to keep going when all seems lost.

I can’t remember when I haven’t had pain, and just to have hope that that day is coming, for real this time… I can’t even begin to tell you how much this means to me, especially when I saw myself spiraling down into the quicksand of depression and all because I didn’t realize there was another option besides more excruciating surgery.

Sure, it’s easy to think positive when things are going fairly well; it’s a lot harder when suddenly the ground gets pulled out from beneath you due to the unexpected death of a loved one, a serious health issue, or any number of other things. Hope moves mountains. It gives us the strength to take another step.

Please know that no matter how terrible or dark things may seem, there’s always another option, and that’s the reason I wanted to share my story. Because although it may not always be apparent, if we keep looking and don’t give up, we will find the perfect solution, maybe something even better than we ever could have imagined and perhaps in a place we never thought to look.

There’s hope for everyone. There’s love for everyone. There are good things for everyone because there’s enough for all of us; the Universe (and our minds) are only limited by our thoughts. Please don’t ever give up.

 

The Healing Power of Music and Mysticism

Posted on by

Nov. 29, 2009

If my mammogram had been normal, I wouldn’t have found myself in the tiny room with the radiologist that day. As she brought up the round white cloud on the black screen, I sat erect in my chair. Slouching would have been like admitting defeat.

j0182790

“You have an abnormal spot on your mammogram,” she announced. “We need to do surgery.”

There’s a lot of cancer on both sides of my family, so I was scared. I wondered if I might lose my breast or if it would be deformed from having tissue removed.

As I scheduled the surgery, I prayed. I also contacted my friends and asked them to send positive thoughts.

Then something remarkable happened.

I have a friend who practices Sufism. He’s also an incredible professional drummer. We’d lost touch over the years and I’d tried contacting him, but never had any luck.

For the past two weeks, though, I had a feeling I should try reaching him again.

I sent an email and he responded, inviting me to his concert the following night!

After the show, I told him I’d been having some health problems.

“Do you have any friends who can do a healing with you?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“Would you be open to that kind of thing?”

“I’d be open to just about anything at this point.” I felt a sense of comfort even then.

He introduced me to several people and told them to arrange a healing circle dance with me. A week later, I received an email telling me where and when the dances were held and that Sufi master Shabda Kahn would be making a rare appearance at the next dance.

I went.

Entering the building, I became instantly aware of the fact that I was wearing jeans and a Harley-Davidson shirt while everyone else wore dresses or nice slacks. This made me want to make myself very small or invisible so no one would notice me.

As the dances began, the musicians—my friend with his djembe (drum), a woman on acoustic guitar, another on flute, and the Sufi master playing a round, stringed instrument, sat in the center. Three rings of people surrounded them.

Shabda demonstrated the first dance and gave us the words to sing. Holding hands, we moved in a circle.

dancingarmsaround

Although most of the words weren’t in English, the song was about our connection to God, the Divine within.

At first I felt as if I’d been transported back to the ‘60s: women in flowing skirts, people of all ages and colors holding hands, dancing and chanting a melody of peace and love. But as the dance progressed, I saw that my fellow dancers’ eyes were filled with kindness and I felt myself letting go: melting into the music that washed through me like water through a sieve. When I’d stopped concentrating so hard, I found that my body “remembered” the movements on some primal level.

After the first dance, while everyone closed their eyes and stood motionless, I felt energy pulsing in and out of my body in all directions and I experienced a tremendous amount of love and acceptance. It became increasingly apparent that the initial disapproval I had encountered upon entering the room had come not from those around me but from myself. No one there was judging me. My soul began to settle within itself.

When the dances ended, my friend suggested I tell Shabda about my surgery.

“Uh, okay.” I felt self-conscious all over again. I wondered how one was expected to behave around a Sufi master, a person whose superior spiritual background I had no clue about. All I knew was that everyone was bowing to him and yet, he looked just like an ordinary man to me.

My friend approached the master and sat down beside him. He waved me over. We sat facing one another as I told the master about my upcoming surgery. He said some kind words and told me that he would think positive thoughts for me, then the three of us joined hands while the two men began to chant.

“You can join in, if you know it.” The master smiled reassuringly.

But I had never heard these words before, so I sat with my eyes closed, trying to absorb every hypnotic syllable, every inflection of the foreign words. The sound of their voices soothed my soul as I was swept into the warm embrace of MYSTICISM AND MUSIC. I suddenly felt empowered.

On the day of my surgery, the radiologist scheduled to do the procedure was a different doctor than the one who had first interpreted my results. Before taking me into the operating room, the new doctor ordered more mammograms. He then called me into his office to discuss the films.

“If this is what the other radiologist was concerned about, I don’t see it,” he said pointing at the screen. “This is benign. There’s no reason to do unnecessary surgery.”

Was it simply a matter of two different doctors’ interpretations of the results? Or did the healing circle dances I’d attended days before, along with the prayers of my friends from many different beliefs cure me?

I choose to believe in the healing power of love.

j0430858

SIDEBAR: Dances of Universal Peace are a means to revivify our love and joy, and integrate ourselves with the power of Peace through the practice of meditative circle dances and walks, with singing and chanting of Divine Names and sacred phrases from many spiritual traditions.

The Dances are all-denominational and everyone is welcome. For more information, please visit http://www.riverrock.org/peace/index.html or http://www.dancesofuniversalpeace.org/