Is this what death is like

Not that anyone who has actually died , would be able to give me an answer to that question, obviously !

So yoga has been coming back since the pre Christmas hiatus, finally doing Kapo again and getting some control of the dropbacks.

I saw the hospital doctor 10 days ago to discuss the CT scan and lung function test, again said not cancer, but there is something going on and put me down for more bloods and a bronchoscopy, which would be scheduled in the next few months, I actually received a follow up appointment for July, so figured I could forget about it for a while. Suddenly last Wednesday afternoon a call from the hospital, they want to do the bronchoscopy at 9am the next morning, wtf . Nil by mouth from midnight because of the sedation, ok let’s get this done.

8am next morning I’m checked in, dressed in a nifty gown and a lovely French nurse comes to insert the cannula after attaching me to monitors for BP , pulse, oxygen etc, only problem is I’m dehydrated from 12 hours NBM and every vein collapses after she inserts the needle,,I’m fine with needles, I give blood and love watching it fill up the bag. Suddenly I feel really sick and feel myself sliding down the bed and then the lights go out and I’m completely unconscious, is that slipping away what death is like?

At some point, no idea how long, I’m vaguely in the room, there’s a light flashing above the bed and an alarm screeching, I’m surrounded by 10 staff and the crash team, I’ve no idea what they did to get me back on the planet, but I’ve got a pain in the side of my rib cage, the nurse tells me my blood pressure and pulse went through the floor and she hit the “All hell let’s loose button” by the bed , I’m glad she did.

So finally the canula is in and I’m wheeled into Theatre for the Bronchoscopy job, a Doctor called Fred, huge tall guy stands over me and smiling says, “you scared the crap out of a lot of people”.

Well it’s done now, I just hope they find an answer from the all tests to what’s going on and don’t keep me waiting too long for an answer. But the more I think about what happened the more aware I’m becoming of the vulnerability of living home alone, if my lights went out at home like that, who is going to hit the button and come running to my rescue.

Thé Rollercoaster

After getting over the eye surgeries and surviving the 8 weeks of rehab inactivity I finally got back on my mat in early December. I can’t lie , it’s been a slog, it’s felt so much harder to get going again after surgery.

A lack of energy, a real fall off in my general fitness and touching my toes was difficult. Eventually mid January I started to get some feeling of improvement, L said to take it easy, one Sunday she actually stopped me after Primary, she’s never done that before, I was laying prone on my mat considering my options. L said it’s always harder to get going again in the winter when it’s cold and body’s are stiff.

February I’m finally off the ground in Urdva Dhanurasana and doing some intermediate,then I get a call from my GP requesting my attendance to a 5 yearly health check. A surprise , a young, enthusiastic nurse who gets that Ashtanga isn’t just sitting going ommmmmm, she tests everything, BP, BMI, diet, exercise and takes a load of blood, cholesterol hasn’t changed in 30 years. She picks up on my never ending cough and after she’s finished torturing me makes me see a GP about the cough, who sends me for an chest X-ray, 3 days later they call to say they found a 17mm nodule on my right lung on the X-ray and that I need an urgent CT scan for cancer, I only realise how urgent when the radiologist calls the next morning to call me in.

To say it’s been a fraught, sleepless 2 weeks waiting for the results and the potential consequences of surgery, chemo and who knows what else is an understatement, googling nodules hasn’t helped quieten my mind either. Monday there’s a report been added to my nhs record, its full of medical jargon which googling doesn’t help to translate, I’m invited for a telephone consultation to discuss the results, but there are no appointments available for 3 days, I’m going out of my mind, I’m not sleeping with worry

Finally this afternoon they call, the good news is no cancer, but there is some thickening of fibre in the lung and a renal cyst, so I’m not dead yet, as Phil Collins once called his tour, but it sounds like I still have a way to go.

Thanks to those who have been in my corner the last two weeks offering an ear and support, Janie, Vanessa, Michelle and Jayne and Suzanne

The time of No!

I am now in the time of post operative “NO”, which after having the two eye operations on consecutive Mondays means doing nothing that raises blood pressure or pressure in the eyes. No lifting, no bending down, no shopping, no garden stuff, and obviously no meaningful Ashtanga, oh and no flying, so I can’t even rest somewhere sunny and warmer than here, where it’s turned bloody cold and wet.

The surgeries went ok, I’m just left with a right eye that feels gritty and a left eye that feels sticky and needs coaxing open every morning with careful use of warm water, then it’s just the 4 times a day eye drops, my strike rate isn’t good on my own, sometimes it takes 3 attempts to get one in, any friends who visit get the honour of trying to score a bullseye, as they can see what I can’t.

It’s been a weird year, the highlight was dancing with Florence and 20,000 Paddies on a wet night in Belfast, the rest of the year has seen pneumonia, two jobs go through no fault of mine and two totally unexpected operations.

I’m now a stir crazy Ashtangi with excellent distance vision, but relying on a pair of cheapo ASDA reading glasses until the surgery follow up and sign off 6 weeks post op, when I can see the optician. Weirdly I’m allowed to donate blood in the interim but not go to the Dentist, no idea!

I can’t wait to return to the shala, though what my body will make of that is another matter.

After the ping

Thanks to diligently doing the Physiotherapists exercises and not doing things that piss the wrist off for the last 6 weeks or so, it’s definitely getting there.

However the older I get the more life seems to be one step forward and two steps back. The (relatively) new job requires me to read lists on paper and use a computer with an ancient excel type program, reading both has been a struggle. I went to the optician expecting new glasses , I came away with referrals for a laser surgery on the left eye and a cataract operation on the right, so now I’m in Rishi’s backlog of 7 million and struggling. Once a cataract is confirmed you can’t not see the bloody thing and however many times you close and open your eyes to try and clear the mist it’s still there.

It’s becoming unsustainable at work, despite the Boss kindly making the fonts as big and bold as possible. I’ve actually had the initial hospital consultation and now I’m in the queue for round two, then wait round three when surgery happens. It’s looking like I’ll have to can the job fairly soon, I’m only part time, but after 4 hours I’m going home to a splitting headache and streaming strained eyes, not sure I can manage this much longer with the surgery so far away.

Practice is erratic, but without my glasses on at the shala it’s always been a bit of a blur anyway, so the eye issues don’t make any difference. I’m not looking forward to what I know will be an enforced 6-8 weeks off practice and much else post op, I remember the list of things not to do from last time, no exercise, no yoga, nothing to up the blood pressure, no bending down, no grocery shopping, nothing where the head is below the heart, no rubbing eyes when you wake up, which is such an automatic thing to do and as for trying to do the 3 times a day bloody eye drops on my own, that’s another nightmare.

What went ping

6 weeks or so ago I did the Saturday led class at the Shala, Louise led is nice and steady. Steadily I went until I got to Utita Hasta balance at the end of standing, as I put my leg outwards on the second side, suddenly a gun shot sound emanated from my left wrist and a pain that went right through my arm.

Ive left it a while in the hope that it would just get better on its own, but UHP is impossible, as is lifting the kettle, which is obviously even more serious! My pinky finger and the one next to it aren’t working either, so C at the local Shala advised me to see “someone”. Luckily our local shala has an occasional Assistant in the shape of local physiotherapist Rachel, which made explaining how I did it a lot easier.

After a very thorough and pretty uncomfortable examination she came to the the conclusion that I’ve managed to rupture my Flexor Digitorum Profundus muscle, which also explains why my fingers have stopped working.

I now have exercises plus a tub of therapy putty plus a load of “don’t do’s”, as in no pulling ie doors open, no holding my iPad in my left hand like I usually do, no asanas that pull on the hand. She’s given me 2-3 weeks to see if the regime improves things, if not apparently I’ll need a scan and possibly a small surgery to re attach the thing.

Surprisingly most of practice is still doable, pushing on the hand in down dog or pushing up into backbend is fine, as R says I’m not using that muscle much, it’s binds where I’m grabbing on, the bum balances that I need to avoid.

It’s such a stupid nonsensical injury

Missing things

Practice has been a struggle, the thing in my lower back/pelvis is driving me nuts. Most days I’ve only managed primary and a dodgy Salabhasana, what follows became impossible even with Rumalaya and Alex the massage therapists magic fingers and thumbs. It’s deeply frustrating especially with the warm humid mornings that have finally arrived which usually makes my body looser and bendier, Louise said once Easter to October is when practice expands and can be worked on, as opposed to the cold winter months, when it’s about maintaining what you have.

I’m missing being able to do the part of my practice that gives me the satisfaction, the intermediate backbends and the closing dropbacks. The thought of just Primary only doesn’t give me the mojo to crawl out from under the duvet, sleep or primary? If it wasn’t for the zoom shala sleep would win more often, but it’s felt like going through the motions.

At breakfast at the local shala the other day C , who is suffering badly with long covid and only joins us occasionally noted how many things in the town had changed while she’s been stuck at home, but also how the world and the people continue on with their lives and not noticed her absence. We got chatting about who would miss us after we tic Toc into the 6ft hole and the headstone is placed, the world would carry on, maybe her kids would miss her. It got me thinking if I croaked at home how long would it take for anyone to even notice, how many unanswered what’s app messages would it take before anyone realised something was amiss, I get so little post these days the postman wouldn’t notice the old fashioned pile of post behind the door. I don’t have a huge circle of friends and virtually no family.

So I came to the conclusion that in the short term just one person would mourn my absence, Greml my little black cat asking who is in charge of the Dreamies now.

Connection

I’m not sure if H came to Conference with a theme or plan of what he would talk about. He started off by talking about what the word yoga means to him, “Connection” and “Community”, he said yoga can also mean yolk, but he said that’s for eggs! How the practice isn’t just the near two sweaty hours on our mats, but how it relates to our lives off the mat, how we treat other people, how we treat ourselves, if we forgive those who we see as wronging us, or as he put it, putting the loo roll on the wrong way round!

H said one of his latest favourite saying was the Japanese term Ika Gai, the meaning of life. Finding the right balance, what gives you a sense of purpose, a reason for living.

H talked about how we should Practice detachment in our practice , life needs to work around it, work, family etc all have a bearing on how much effort we can put into our practice on a given day.

He finished with a quiz, his list above, calling out Sanskrit words and we had to say what they meant, when he said “asana”, he added if we don’t know that one we’re fucked! It’s surprising how many you kind of know without realising, when he said “heyum” I immediately thought of “heyum dukam anagatam” , so heyum = Avoid. He passed the list around for us to take a picture, wonder if he will be testing us next week!

Practice is painful of late, the new occupation involves quite a lot of standing and my lower back is seriously pissed off, the practice I’m managing is only thanks to opening my final tube of Rumalaya. The massage therapist did her best, but I think it’s going to take time. In the right conditions with Rumalaya, heat and help Kapo and dropbacks are possible, but at home with only the Rumalaya it’s a frustrating mess.

All change

Well some things do, Kapotasana is where it is, but it’s fun trying, not expecting change in this lifetime, but I can dream about catching sight of my feet. It is easier at the shala where it’s much warmer and my body is more open. My dropbacks have become a bit hit and Miss, though I usually manage it and after assisted drops L was squashing me when there was a huge crack from my lower back, to which she said “that’s an £80 crack at the Osteopaths!”

What has changed is I finally did what I needed to with the part time job, it shows what happens when you make a decision and start trying to do something about it. I needed more hours, money, but I also needed a job that was nearer home and to work with people more my age. I saw such a job a few weeks ago, applied and forgot about it, as usually you never hear anything. But the very next day they asked me to have an interview and two days later they offered me the job and I started last week. Who knew a tiny town like this would have a company making seismic monitoring equipment and would need a part time stock controller. It’s much more my thing, 4 half days a week, Fridays off and Donuts on Thursdays, what’s not to like.

Easter in Boston, see you after the chocolate fest

What’s next

I love it when the shala is busy, the collective energy and focus are amazing, but there’s still time for smiles and waves across the room.

The shala is so much more than just the bendy stuff, it’s the community and the effort Hamish and Louise put in to make it a community where everyone is included and supported. I’ve needed that support over the years and will be forever grateful not just to the teachers, but also some fellow students who have looked out for me over that time.

Conference is one of the ways the community is supported. Somehow todays seemed to be aimed at me, with the potential changes I’m likely going to have to make to my very part time working and what could come next.

H said as we get older everyone reaches a point in the asana race where they get to an end point, that last ever posture, thinking Kapo in my case, it’s usually an age thing, we lose the flexibility, the stamina, illness or injury take longer to recover from, at which point L helpfully added we start to lose poses.

Once we reach this point then the practice should change from being quantitative to qualitative , it should be about our quality of concentration, that 90 minutes should be about being mentally present where you are, “be here now” as H put it.

Find your strength through your humility.

It feels like I’ve been on the cusp of the Q to Q change for some time, both in my practice and my life. Getting Kapotasana added at 58 is just down to dogged persistence, of not having the sense to know when Im done and a mad determination to make up for the years of illness and injury that blighted my practice, a sense of now or never, (ab)use it or lose it.

As I alluded to in my previous post I think the very part time job is ending, luckily I don’t need it from a financial perspective, but I do need something other than yoga to get me out of the house. When I (semi) retired 3 years ago Louise told me I should teach, but I felt unable, unready and mentally I wasn’t stable enough, still struggling with the shit of the previous years and still receiving counselling. Then the you know what hit and I hadn’t thought about it since, the 2nd lockdown had me considering jumping under a bus I was struggling so much, luckily the buses weren’t running. But today a friend at conference again said I should Teach. I wonder Is it the right time now where it wasn’t before.

Caring less

Now I’ve got to a posture, Kapotasana, that I can’t do from the get go for the first time since Pasasana I realise I’m happier with where my practice is than I have been in a very very long time. To be honest I never expected to get given Kapo. It’s given me something to work on without the expectation that I’ll ever be able to do it. I try, I try very hard 4 or 5 times a week but really it’s only at the shala with help that anything happens, heat sure helps too.

In some ways Kapo feels like an end point in this particular project, I can’t see me getting the “Billy no mates” next posture this lifetime. There has been a minuscule improvement in my Kapo attempts , L actually managed to get my hands flat on the mat today, but honestly I have no expectations, just a strange satisfaction with where I’m at.

The Gym club job also seems to be coming to an end too after 4 years, not that anyones said anything, but there have been murmurings about wanting to change my hours in a way that I’m not interested in taking up, watch this space…..

When I retired originally I had ideas, nothing concrete about what I wanted to do, I really just needed mental space and physical rest after the stress and tribulations of my parents deaths. I’d discussed it with the counsellor, who stopped me going over the edge and not being here to write this, I’d be retired, mortgage free with a cat , well that all happened but we didn’t get into what would fill the time, then covid hit.

2 years of covid later, which feel like two wasted years. With yoga being in a good place, I’m no longer pushing for progress, the very part time job probably ending I feel like it’s time more than ever for me now, at 58 a need to finally start to live before it’s too late.

Tthe Shala lies on the boundary of HS2.