Category: health

Attack

Compromised,
scaling a steep
dangerous
cliff wall

desiring relief,
a sign to indicate
a turning point
an exit

nothing worldly
can calm anxiety
uncertainty
life on hold

kindness
warms, reassures,
cannot counter
looming reality

stifled, begging
willing to deal
response absent
pleas hollow

surrendering
to fear is not an option
strength called for
and courage

love and compassion
the only sword
of significance
battling disease.

(May 12th is Myalgic Encephalomyelitis Awareness Day.  M.E. is a debilitating disease that attacks all systems in body leaving 25% of its victims permanently bed bound.  To date, due to lack of research, there is no effective treatment or cure, even though this disease effects over 1/2 million Canadians and many more worldwide.)

Blessings

Mother’s feet scream –
agony of her miserable condition,
underlying disease eating her.
My feet, free of calluses,
paddles slightly bent and fallen,
carry on with forgiving kindness.

Husband’s knees are red-hot pokers
shooting knife-sharp volts
with every rickety step.
Mine are knots in spindly
trunks that bear movement
graciously, allot me flexibility.

Father’s back grew weak
faltering in the end, hunched,
as if he’d born a cumbersome burden.
My back, not without its moaning,
carries me proudly erect –
like the spring sapling, winter endured.

Uncle’s heart beats erratically,
ceasing despite its mechanical support,
his life a testimony to modern science.
My heart flutters with expectancy,
aches with disappointment,
and soars with each new birdsong.

Sister’s tension rises,
the stiffness in her neck suffocating,
headaches blinding her vision.
My neck, slung now like a rooster’s,
puffs around my face like an old friend,
allows me the comfort of perspective.

Brother’s mind has seized,
lost somewhere between today
and yesteryear – never certain of either.
Mine, a constant churning cog,
gathers information, spews ideas
and bends in the face of creativity.

My eyes have seen suffering,
my hands throbbed with desire to help;
yet each bears their cross stoically,
and so I watch with compassion
and gratitude for the life I might have lived,
had my own vessel not been so blessed.

(This is an edited version of an earlier post by the same name.)

Talk To Me Of Horses

Talk to me of horses,
the young man says,
thin locks of blonde matted
on a sweaty brow, flashes of blue
that fade as eyes succumb
to weariness, the constant
whoosh, whoosh of respirator.

Talk to me of horses;
the world is losing its grip
and I have no cares for
the weather or car mechanics,
but I dream of horses
and I am feeling so emotional,
help me understand.

So I come to his bedside,
wait for moments of lucidity
ponder the implications
of his questions, wrestle with
my own inadequacies –
I am merely student here.

And we discuss horses –
the power of their bodies,
their beauty and grace,
their relationship to people –
decide they are ferrymen
transporting souls across worlds –
an explanation that satisfies, then

I am seeing things, he strains
embarrassed even in these final hours
to describe what seems inconceivable –
between sleep and awake – figures grey
and frightening that hover
over my bed like body snatchers…

A chills runs over me, as if icy
fingers have caressed my skin,
and I shudder despite myself,
scramble to maintain calm,
wonder aloud if it is not just fear
projecting grey into light –
clouding his vision.

My timing is off the next day,
arrive too late to see him pass,
find his mother waiting to receive me,
with a message from her son, my kin,
says that it makes no sense to her,
but he assured her I’d understand.

“You were right about the visions,”
he’d said; “there was nothing to fear.”

I smile through my sorrow –
ever the teacher that one,
now dead at twenty-one –

“Oh, and one more thing – could you
talk to me of horses.”

(Today’s prompt for NaPoWriMo is to write about the mysterious and magical.  This poem is dedicated to my cousin Tyler, whose aspirations were to be a physicist, but for whom life had another fate.  He taught me so much.)

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Feverish

Sleep comes in great fistfuls
will not let me shake it
tosses me in seas of dreams –

a first love, teenage antics,
a mother’s toil – I am pulled
under, tossed like a rag-doll

a soft breeze like a mindful
caretaker, caresses my skin
reassures me with her lulling

sweetness, forgives negligence
of household chores, promises
all can wait; I succumb again

 

 

 

 

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.

Diana's avatarThe 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.