Spirituality

I have been a practitioner of Buddhist Vipassana meditation from the Theravada forest tradition for some time now. I was inclined to see how the practice will effect the diagnosis and treatment. Here are my findings in this journey.

First time experiencing mindfulness - I remember long time ago when I first had general anaesthesia I was lying in the hospital room waiting to be  taken in to the theatre I was observing the design in the ceiling cladding. There were no other thoughts, no panic no emotion, just the white and black dots of the regi form and steel on the structure. I remember very clearly even today. I was totally in the present moment. Only now I realise that is what it was. 

Have I done enough with this life - When the doctor first said that there was cancer cells in my body, the first thought that came to my mind was that cancer is a terminal illness and I was going to die from it. So have I done enough with my life? The main goal of life is to attain nibbana. And that is what you need to strive to do every day every minutes of your life. Have I done enough with this extremely lucky life I have been given? That was the question in my mind. I suddenly felt an urgency to do more, and then realised the craving in it. With it came the realisation that now I can use the practice to see how this goes.

Observe anesthesia - someone told me that because I have practiced observing body sensations,  I should be able to observe how the anesthetics take effect as it goes through the body. I was mighty ready for it.  Alas but it wasn't to be though. They said they were giving me an injection and that was it. Didn't feel a thing !

I am alive; I have time - Waking up in the post op care, the first thought in my head was. I am alive. I made it. I have more time now. I was so chatty because I was a high. Really. My vitals were way off. Nothing was good. But I wasn't feeling a thing. No pain. And I was happy I was alive. I have time now. 

I have Options - post op someone asked me once, "How does having a practice help? " The answer was very simple, it gives you options. When there is a pain, you can do a couple of things. You could either complain about it to anyone who would listen, you could observe where the pain is and what it does, or you could leave it be and do you practice around it. Without the practice you would only have the first option. Complain. But now you have other options. What to do about the pain.

What is pain - The pain post op was strange. Initially I didn't feel a thing. I was alert. My vitals were low. The nurses actually use a watch to check my pulse and used an old instrument with the hand pump to check pressure because they thought the equipment were broken. 

Then they gave me blood to bring the vitals up and then lo and behold the pain came. So technically while the body was weak, the mind was strong and was operating independent of the body. But as soon as the body got its energy back (from the blood) it started making all sorts of demands. I couldn't be in one position, I had to move every so often, pain was every where all at once. 

When they give me the pain killers they always ask me to give a rating of the pain in a scale of 1-10. I always say a higher number because that was what I felt as well as that would get me the stronger medication that would stop the pain quickly. At the same time I knew that I when I went home I didn't want to get addicted to pain medication. So the next time a wave of pain came, I began to analyze it to compare it to a normal pain I would have and if I was at home what I would do about it. When doing that I realized the rating I quote to the nurse was actually not the pain rating, but how much I didn't like the pain to be there.

Taste is craving - losing appetite and strange tastes in the mouth is a common symptom. When I do get it in the first week after the dose, I make sure that the food I eat is nutritious. So that thought alone helps me gobble down the food knowing that even though it is not tasty it is what the body needs ( Matrix style ! )

Later I also realized that taste is a craving, something that you feel like you need to eat the food. But it is really not necessary. The more you crave something the more disappointed you get. I realized this first hand many times when I ordered food for takeaway craving a taste or somethin different. But then when the food actually came and I began to eat it, it didn't taste at all like what I was craving for.