health – Page 10 – One Woman's Quest

Lachrymose

A dear soul slipped from life’s grasp this week, leaving a hole in many hearts. Diana’s words, here, say so much more than I could have, still raw with grief.

The Wandering Armadillo

so frail now

your fingertips in mine

supported gently

parchment paper skin

venous rivers slow, tepid within

as the sand slowly sifts

i squeeze

i try to halt the final grains, yet

this maudlin hourglass only drains

to somber clock tick

sentry gated soldiered seconds fall

the war is over

all is lost

that is all

a last dawn

this last day

as curtains part

your light slips away

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Investment Talk

It’s all about investment, really
life, I mean – make a deposit,
withdraw – hope that in the end
the gain is worth more than
the cost – a healthy balance.

Have been running deficits,
too focused on serving others,
practicing the art of giveaways –
incentives to capture attention
(affection too, if I’m honest.)

I’m every marketer’s dream –
impulsive, in the moment,
disbelieve that time is money –
illness having dumped time
on my lap in massive dollops

I’d say energy equates with
income, begets funds – all
redundant now, overdrawn
as I am, no safety deposit
securing balanced health.

Intuition

The body has a voice –
not silent, nor harsh –
it is a knowing.

When ego drives hard –
screaming ambition
demanding to be heard –

Block it out!

Let your body speak –
waves of understanding,
gut feelings, truth.

Logic has no place here –
book learning seldom serves
the needs of the soul –

Set it aside.

Listen to your body –
that pounding in the chest,
that sudden surge of vertigo.

Intuition is cellular –
ancient, ancestral instinct;
trust the voice within.

(I originally wrote this in October of 2014, while contemplating how I let myself become so ill. Admittedly, I had for years ignored my body’s signals. Be well all.)

#TimeForUnrest

Anxiety, like fog, closes in
suffocates, I gasp, fight for air –
this disease so pervasive, lungs
spasm, panic multiplies; help!

Tests, drugs – all speculative,
experimental – symptoms persist
absent treatment protocols, a cure;
so much ignorance, uncertainty

Lie down, they say, refer me
to psychology as if immobility
and exhaustion are tricks of mind,
an overactive emotional imagination.

I am sentenced to seclusion, sensory
deprivation, muscles, nerves, immunity
all defunct, cells failing to produce energy –
a lifeless, inert blob, cognition failing.

But I am not alone; millions of others,
also missing, untreated, abandoned –
but not giving up – Can you hear us?
grief oozing from our pours, unwilling

to be further shamed into silence –
our suffering may be invisible, our
voices weak, but the warriors among us
are beginning to speak – please listen!

(ME/CFS is a debilitating disease that affects millions worldwide. Absence of funding restricts much needed research. Not enough is known about this disease to help the many bedridden or homebound. It affects people of all ages, including children. In Canada, there are no treatment options, and often medical personnel are not educated about the disease, which can lead to harmful interventions.

Jennifer Brea has become the voice of ME/CFS due to her recent documentary, Unrest. She can also be found on TedTalks, discussing the implications of having a disease not recognized in medical circles. Unrest is an awarding winning documentary that sheds light on this disease. It is apparently being shown on PBS Monday, January 8th. It’s also available through iTunes.

Please watch. If you or a loved one suffers from this disease, or any other mystery illness, the film may just trigger new understanding. If you are a medical professional who has not heard of the disease, the documentary is very informative.)

Idle Mind and All That

What I wouldn’t resort to –
just to get away – meals
prepared by others,
cleaned up, too…

but really, is there
any coming back once
it’s all handed over –
I’d be afraid I’d lose

my identity, come up empty
embarrassed by how little
of value I have to give –
and the guilt would taunt

slap my silly ego, criticize
me for laziness, acting all
privileged; worth is directly
linked to service…isn’t it?

And my shadow self would
appear – just break in uninvited –
and threaten complicity, beat me
down further, hope doomed

no way to justify my absence,
to keep the critics at bay,
I need to work, need to lose
myself in the routine of endless

chatter, a blanket of small talk
to keep me safe – busy noise
to drown out the thieving voices
and help me find myself again.

A Plea for Awareness

There is anger in dis-ease,
an impotent railing against
the injustice of biological
systems bent on breaking

souls; this relentless drag,
this mournful existence,
it is not pity that we seek,
nor charity that appeases

but answers, pragmatic
protocols, procedures to
dissuade the onslaught
of symptoms, unburden

our suffering – none of us
weak, yet disheartened by
medical abandonment,
many confined in isolation

our embers, seething
beneath bedclothes,
burning behind eyes
that have lost focus

forgive us if we rant,
if our conduct reeks of
self-righteousness, but we
are missing, millions missing

plagued by a condition
long ignored, misconstrued,
dismissed, we are angry
unapologetically maddened

have been blighted by
an illness without definable
diagnosis, pronounced only
by elimination, overlooked

by insurance providers,
disability claims, as if we
have construed an alibi
for opting out of society

if we lash out, speak out
express our discomfort
in uncomely ways, well
then listen, reasoning

guides our hands, our
voices, our rampages –
we are disappointed,
frustrated, unheeded

and very much alive
and individually, and
collectively we wield
our ire as a cry for help.

See us, feel us, find
the resources to seek
for a cure, reinstate
the lives of the missing.

Absence

A year ago, my husband was in hospital, having suffered a heart attack and awaiting bypass surgery. I wrote this in his absence. ( Image from http://www.meredithtowbin.com)

One Woman's Quest

Slippers, perched at night stand,
twitching impatiently,
mark the absence of feet,
cannot appreciate the meaning
of unruffled bed covers.

Abandoned, a coffee mug
bemoans its curdling contents,
complains of thick brown lines
contaminating its porcelain shine,
has not noted absence of hands.

Chair, pushed back from desk,
in partial rotation, sits awkwardly,
commanding attention, disturbed
by its misalignment, has not thought
to ponder absence of body.

House, uncomfortable with silence
creaks unnaturally, loudly voicing
objections to the absence of footfalls,
automated machinery and incessant
rings, beeps, and chimes of technology.

I try to reassure them that the absence
is only temporary, that the man whose
presence so strikingly fills this space
will return, hope they cannot read
the apprehension in my tremulous heart.

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Solitudes

Solitude, I dream
of expansive landscapes,
crave your panoramic
silence, thrill to the ideal
of your boundless sanctity

Solitude, you wrap me
in separateness, strip away
my cardboard walls, tear
at the corners of my instability;
no refuge from the stillness

Solitude, I am smothered
by your starkness, by my
starkness, cries of madness
reverberating through vast
canyons of aloneness.

(Image: serendipityteam.wordpress.com)

Bureaucratic Dystopia

Bureaucratic automatons
privy to personal dilemmas
fuss over delegated tasks –
vessels sans initiative –

policy makers overriding
common sense,
common decency
paper pushers passing
verdicts condemning

downtrodden, unable to fight
whose day-to-day living –
questionable at best –
lacks the necessary survival

guide – procedural forms
dehumanize suffering,
cubby-holed egos void
support, icily authoritative

dystopia is no future construct
no fantastical presupposing
for those trapped in the maniacal
system of disability claims.

(Image: threatquality.com)

Missing Lessons

No point hanging onto past –
education is not preparation
when illness decides to drop in

neither Algebra, nor Social Science
offers clues for solving the equation:
Life minus ability equals: what?

Curriculum based on harsh realities
would instruct how to tie up loose ends,
gather what’s important, remain calm

while filling prescriptions and countless
paperwork; and how to fight for validation
when funding is fraud adverse and society

would as soon forget than support; and
how to continue to battle when good times
are confined to snapshots: other people’s

hopeful beginnings and celebrations; and
how to push on when in the lotto of life
disability is the winning card – no certainty

of aging, vacation days no longer apply;
and how does one grieve appropriately
when no one wants to hear, project fear

and misunderstanding; cannot fathom
the depth of the daily battle – need a
curriculum of their own in compassion.

(Image: www.everydayfamily.com)