Pain Update

Just a quick update.

Oh my god. Talk about pain. Big. Lots. Intense. Way bad hurting, up to my limits and way beyond. I was pretty crazed. I didn't sleep Friday or Saturday nights. Not at all. I got the strongest vicodin they prescribe from the immediate care place on Saturday morning and then took double the dosage. It barely took an edge off the pain. The pain was coming and going at the rate of 3 minutes on, 3 minutes off. Something like that. When it was off it wasn't gone, just less intense. All day.

By Saturday night I was in a trance. Pain and vicodin, wow, what a mixture. I was in the midst of deep spiritual practice. I cried and screamed a lot, yelling "no", "fuck", "please god make it stop", "it hurts, it hurts, it fucking hurts". Things like that. That was my resistance to the pain. I also tried really being with the pain and experiencing the sensations (duh, no way around that) without resistance and during those times I would be chanting "yes, yes, yes", "oh, oh, oh", "it hurts, it hurts, it hurts", "yes it hurts, it hurts so much". On and on it went.

I was experiencing all these insights about being in the moment as the place where acceptance resides. I was continuously inspired to move out of my attachment for the pain to go away, to stop resisting it and just accept it. It had arrived and didn't seem to be going away anytime soon. It was there and letting itself be known. Living in the moment was a beautiful experience and I got all excited about the next Love Intensive I will be participating in, intending to experience love in the moment. Think about it, a weekend of love, rather than pain. I'm ready. But Jerry was so good to me all weekend. He loved me a lot. I think he was in almost as much pain as I was, just being there for me as I went through it all. Poor baby. He's a good man.

I was also contemplating transformation and translation. This is something I read a bit about on Andrew Cohen's blog and it really struck me. I may have taken his concept and run with it in a bit different direction than he was meaning but I'm not sure, I read so little. But it got me going and my interpretation of what I did read is a huge portion of what my spiritual practice is about this days. He was also talking about living a non-dualistic life. This is where our intentions, our life's purpose match up in our daily life. This is what I'm doing continually. I know what my intentions are and then I witness myself in the moment and fully experience where I am. Oftentimes, rather than integrity, a harmony of sorts between what I intend and where I truly am, I find a discrepancy. What I do with this discrepancy is experience the truth of the moment as fully as possible while moving into a translation process. I start calibrating myself back into balance. Just remembering my intention is powerful. It takes me half the way there. I know that my intention is my true path. It's a sense of belongingness. Beingness. Then I do some work with my mind and the stories it attaches to, and my body is part of the process too. I watch my emotions follow suit.

Jealousy was one of the issues I was translating this weekend along with my pain. I kept bringing myself back to my intention of polyamory. It's a deep practice for me.

Tranformation happens while we move on, living our lives intending to grow, love, understand, and experience the truth. Tranformation is evolving spiritually in the big picture. Translation is the choices we make moment by moment. Working to actually live our intentions. Good translation work brings about tranformation.

One powerful meditation while I was in the midst of all this was when Jerry put on a Herbie Hancock video of him playing music with all these different musicians. It was incredible. Live, spontaneous jazz. At one point Herbie said, "jazz happens in the moment", you can't practice it in advance. This hit me on a very profound level. Jazz as translation. Creation in process.

Sunday was another difficult day. Pain, pain and more pain. I was worn out. The pain would go away for brief moments and I would do a little yoga or dance. I was hungry and hadn't been able to eat much. I was drinking liquid acidolophilous culture and taking lots of goldenseal along with the vicodin. I made dinner and tried to eat. Big mistake. Every nerve in my head set off dancing. I had a network of stabbing, jabbing pain--molar to eye, jaw to temple, jaw to ear, jaw to back of neck. The nerves of my front lower teeth were so sensitive to the air I had the urge to knock them out. Christ. I was writhing on the bathroom floor, screaming and crying. It was so pathetic. Jerry wanted to take me to the emergency room at the hospital. I wanted a shot of morphine to make it all go away but I have no medical insurance so that pretty much settled that.

After my nerves settled down a bit I laid on the bed and Jerry massaged me. I fell asleep and actually slept half the night, on and off until the pain set in again early in the morning and I sat in a bath tub full of hot water. At 7:30 a.m. we were at the dentist again. They took an x-ray of the opposite side of my mouth from what they had x-rayed on Friday (the side with no pain) and they found a tooth that needs a root canal. After that, for some odd reason I felt well enough to go to work, amazing what 4 hours of sleep can do for you! I worked all day and then went to both my women's financial group and my juicy women's group last night. I came home at 9:30 feeling nauseous and exhausted. My whole face hurt--jaw, eyes, everything--but no tooth pain. Jerry massaged me for awhile and I took one of those extra strength Motrin and went to bed. I slept all night! No tooth pain!

I'm on the emergency list for a root canal and also to get a small cavity under an already capped tooth fixed. I have an appointment with the doctor on Friday to see what shape my sinuses are in. I'm still taking the goldenseal as an antibiotic and drinking the acidolphilous but I can eat again too. And no more vicodin. There is a god and she is merciful.