DIARY OF A MAD WOMAN ON THE PATH TO ENLIGHTENMENT 091712

CHAPTER 27: What Happened?

September 15^th, 2012
 

No Chi treatment with Shifu after all.  Hoisted the white flag and surrendered to the hospital 09/14/12, with great self-disappointment.

CHAPTER 28: A Leap of Faith

September 17^th, 2012

What happened, you may be asking?  I’m still not sure myself.  All I know is that I seem to have traded my third chi treatment with Shifu for a whole lotta pain the AMA approved, old fashioned, traditional medicine way” otherwise known as “conventional Western medicine”.  I’ve been giving this subject a lot of consideration since my last chi treatment with Shifu; perhaps because of the conversation we had afterwards. 

He sat me down and told me several stories of miraculous healings facilitated by his chi treatments. These were not “made up” or “imagined”; no, they were very visible and substantial miracles that saved or prolonged life and were well outside the expectations of contemporary Western medicine. In the course of our conversation I sensed his frustration that patients who are critically ill only come to him for help when Western medicine says it can do no more.  By that time, the clock is ticking, and there isn’t time for a “learning curve”.  Shifu gives off an energy that even the most ‘un-savy’ of chi-ers (namely me) can actually feel.  I could feel his sadness when he talked of these patients, perhaps even alluding to me.  (I am forever taken aback by the Grand Canyon sized communication gap between my Western mind-set and Shifu’s Eastern translations.)

I sensed (this is by no means what he said) that he was telling me to stop all the medicines, and put my faith and trust in the body’s natural ability to heal itself via the stimulation and manipulation of “chi”.  Now mind you, as we were speaking I was still feeling the tremendous effects of the chi treatment he had just given me.  I was finally relaxed and not anxious about working for every breath, enough so that all I wanted to do was sleep. I was in positive spirits even though I was still deathly ill.  I breathed easier than when I had wheezed my way into the studio an hour before, and feeling all of this even though my throat and bronchial tubes were still being strangled by ligament spasms that inevitably took my voice away. Take a moment, won’t you, and think about what you would do if you were me.  Go ahead, “DIARY” will wait!

If you are up to date with “DIARY” you are already familiar with the enormity of my health conditions; if not, allow me to summarize what I really am considering when I “make the leap”, and step outside the realm of “Western” and into the realm of “TCM” (Traditional Eastern Medicine which Shifu has a degree in).

·        I have no adrenal function so my body does not produce the approximate 7mg of cortisone daily that it absolutely must have to function at the cellular level.  Adrenal Insufficiency is a horrible thing to endure (I’ve been there several times).  Adrenal Crisis is almost always fatal.  I am fortunate enough to have survived one “Adrenal Crisis” in 1996, but it nearly killed me, and I came through it significantly worse for the wear.

·        Three weeks into a serious asthma crisis, there is so much swelling in the bronchus and bronchial trees that air cannot get through to inflate the lungs, and if by chance it does, it cannot easily escape (respire) again resulting in rapidly rising carbon dioxide levels in the bloodstream and death by poisoning.

·        I am on an enormous amount (unheard of in the endocrine community) of insulin daily to keep my blood sugars under control because 21 years of steroid dependence comes with a whole TON of “insulin resistance”.

·        When I get down to my daily “maintenance dose” of Prednisone, I am often crippled from the pain of the severe osteoarthritis in my spine and in my joints, which is a function of my disease NOT corticosteroids. By crippled, I mean barely able to get out of bed and when I do, unable to function beyond my own self-care.

      I could go on, but I won’t.  These are the primary issues that stand in the way of me taking the leap. 

          Some of you might be thinking, “She’s an idiot for even considering it!”  Others of you might be cheering, “Do it; do it; here, I’ll push you!”  And somewhere out there are a handful of people who have faced catastrophic health issues who know exactly what I am talking about, because you have been there too.  No matter where you stand on this matter, I can only listen to me, to that little whispering voice inside that I know is always right, which I now call the voice of “chi”.  So “Chi”, I’m listening.

PS: If you are interested, I have started a blog journaling my often comic experiences and giant epiphany’s that can only occur in the hospital setting.  The blog is also on Google Blogger and can be accessed by typing TamrasWard@blogspot.com into the Google+ or Chrome search engine bar.  As much as possible, these will be daily “funnies” about my hospital stay and my subsequent recovery, because everyone knows that when you are sick or in the hospital you can always find something to cry about. It is finding the things you can laugh about that sustains you through it.  Thanks for reading, and as always, Be Well!