Whirling In Change
I spent the month of January in the hospital with a broken hip. Actually admitted on New Year's Eve and discharged on January 31. They discovered the hip had been broken for two to three weeks at the time of being admitted. In those two to three weeks I endured terrible pain believing it was due to, what is now progressive, MS. I've also had a lot of experience with pain and hospitals. I dreaded the thought of being admitted again, but over-the-counter painkillers had stopped working. The ortho surgeon who examined the x-ray delivered the good news, bad news situation: the fractured head of the femur had not shifted and was already healing. So we all decided to continue to let it heal in place. This is a long process. Unlike a hip replacement where one is encouraged to walk almost right away, I needed to remain off my feet for several weeks and not weight-bear on the right leg. A hip replacement is not ideal for me because leg spasms could dislocate the new hip. It’s the first of March now and my hip is still healing, but the pain is much less and I'm starting to wean off the pain meds. Perhaps that is why, for the first time in a couple months, a blog is percolating in my mind.
When I tried medium difficulty, I would have to send pictures to Michael for help.
During my hospital stay, I kept my mind busy with sudoku puzzles because they require frequent short bouts of focus. My memory, focus, and fatigue were such that I couldn't read or write, process my usual director tasks for the two boards I'm on, or meditate. I got quite good at easy sudoku! I took to wearing headphones to drown out the hospital noise and to explore banjo music on Spotify. A friend of mine had given me an old banjo and I hope to learn to play it over the next few years. I found some really inspirational music; I will put links to these below. One morning I was lying in bed, not able to get myself up, no one responding to my call bell, and my body in a vicious cycle of hip pain and leg spasms. I yelled out for someone to please let down the rail so I could at least sit up at the side of my bed. I needed to move to alleviate the spasms. A nurse did so and put the alarm on my bed so I wouldn't then try to stand by myself – as if! This hip fracture had no apparent cause — a “fragility fracture” — it is a sign of osteoporosis. Suddenly I am in the body of a much older woman, medically speaking. Why didn’t someone know that twenty years of steroids for MS treatment plus four years of steroids for Polymyalgia Rheumatica plus a year on the estrogen modifier tamoxifen equals compromised bones? The doctors each know their part and that’s it. FYI.
The food was fine, only not fresh. Every time this came around, I laughed/groaned. They put cheese with the pancakes and peanut butter with the croissant. Why oh why?!!!!
Back to the bedside, I put the headphones on and listened to this untitled song by Seryn. This band became a big part of my playlist; I could only tolerate instrumental music except for these guys — something spiritual about them. When someone finally answered my call, there I was in my nightgown, tears, and messy hair, shaking my head and tapping my feet. This simple and short instrumental piece really echoes the intensity of my experience and the looming lifestyle changes I was about to face. (It’s also full of joy. And like many good things, not long enough.) Over two months of no weight-bearing on my already weak right leg has left hardly any muscle tone. My walking barely recovered after the double mastectomy in 2023. I spent a month in bed early in 2024 due to a medication change and the flu. When severe hip pain started around this current fracture, my right leg was stuck in a bent position, even when I stood up. Where a body’s normal response to injury is for muscles to tense up around it, the MS response, I learned, is severe spasticity. Any attempt to straighten my right leg or weight-bear on it would snap it back into a bent position. If the surgeon says it's OK to use my leg when I see him on March 6, it will be almost 3 months. I am not sure I will walk again after this. The physiotherapist says I have an exciting month-and-a-half ahead of me. I think we have differing definitions of exciting, but he does leave me feeling optimistic.
My usual activities and various zoom meetings were dropped during this intense period of recovery except for one course: Beginners Mind. The main point of this course is to keep asking if the mind’s stories are true. I don’t know what the future holds! After spending ten days bedridden with caring nurses and PSWs changing and washing me, and also hasty and rough nurses and PSW's washing and changing me, it was a creepy male night nurse that spurred me on to get up at least to the commode. Soon after I was able to transfer into my wheelchair with a slide-board and two people assisting. To wheel around my room and out into the hallway to watch the sunrise out the window at the end of the hallway was pure freedom. So, by degrees, things change. Always. We can be sure of this, but we never know exactly how. Sometimes it seems to take forever and sometimes it changes way too fast. Change can be as minute as one breath or as big as your whole world ending. And this is good news: anything can happen next.
When I turned away from the risen sun, I could see the growing medical activity I'd only been hearing from within my room. The excited and busy din of shift change carried both loud and hushed voices along the hallways. Call bells were starting to ring and PSWs were making their rounds to get patients washed and dressed, ready for breakfast. Unlike the times I needed to drown such noise out with my headphones, this instead was a beautiful moment. All of that sound and movement felt the same as the river of blood in my body, as my breath coming and going, and as the flow of thoughts in my mind. There were hundreds of beating hearts in the hospital at this moment, hundreds of lives in various stages of living, healing, and dying. I appeared to be in the geriatric area. All of the patients were older than I and many were going to be there for much longer than I, if not for the rest of their lives.
I had many visits from friends and family and they came bearing treats! I usually asked for fresh fruit. My friend, Kim, faces her own significant challenges with Rheumatoid Disease. She made the long hospital walk in to see me twice and brought homemade goodies. This curry dish was delicious! I’m so grateful for the support I receive and for my warm-hearted peeps.
In hindsight, coming out of my room was like coming out of the mind stories I'd been caught in. This has to happen so we can see the bigger picture — this moment, whether we label it good or bad, is but a drop in a multi-layered myriad of constant change. My saving grace through that hospital stay was connecting with people: one of the regular housekeepers, several nurses that I saw over and over, some of the PSWs, doctors, and therapists. However intense my pain or discomfort, I never lost touch with the warmth of human connection and I experienced much compassion and kindness in return. When you can spare a moment in the midst of your own story to ask someone how their day is going, it opens up a whole new world. When you can put down the personal armour long enough to ask for help or let someone know you are scared, that connection is there.
This broken hip has been one more experience for a long list of hardships if I so choose to keep running that list in my head. What I might choose instead is this intention: to lead with my heart and to leave with gratitude. Leading with our heads often ends up in butting heads. Like there were a few hospital mixups with my medication and when when one young nurse answered my call bell I began by telling her about said mixup. I didn't even say hello. Before even looking at me, she started into a rant about how the nurses had no control over the medication; it was up to the doctors. It all could've gone differently if I greeted her first, however, when she looked at me she could see that I wasn't coming from a place of anger or frustration. I was just trying to share some information. The medication situation got organized, but our interactions were tense until we kind of got used to each other. When we finally started being curious about each other, the situation changed completely. She ended up being my nurse several times over my stay and I grew quite fond of her. A young woman named Eden. Such a beautiful name and rich with associations. Love in its purest form, lushness, plenitude, and innocence struck through with the harsh reality that you will feel shame and abandonment. You will feel incredible pain. You will scream at the universe, at God, at the people you love. You will be lonely, you will get sick, grow old, and die.
There was a lot of political craziness unfolding while I was in the hospital (and it continues, holy #$%&.). It felt like the vicious cycle of pain and spasms in my body were being echoed in the world. I did not have the capacity to follow any of it. Nor the desire to do so. Sequestered as I was, however, the political noise made its way through. I also kept hearing, from different traditions and sages: "hate by love alone shall cease.” Anne Lamott writes, "haters want us to hate them because hate is incapacitating.” If that's true, then love will absolutely undermine the people who want to make chaos, who seem to thrive on hate in all its forms. The Tao asks, "Who can remain still/quiet while the dust/mud settles?” Ram Dass found even more stillness and clarity after the stroke that incapacitated him. Thich That Hanh waged peace in a country ravaged by war; as a result he was banished from Vietnam to become a worldwide force for peace. Extreme hardship can be a kind of grace when you are open to letting it soften rather than harden you, let it teach you something about life rather than become bewildered, and find the common ground in our shared experience of being alive. Anne Lamott also writes, “Aliveness is sacred.” No matter how hard it is to be alive at times, this piece of wisdom helps me dissolve into an all-embracing presence like agape-love.
I really do not know. But it feels like good advice to lead with your heart. You can also lead with your feet and hands and trust they will lead you where your heart wants to go. The Sufi poet Rumi wrote, ”between heart and heart, there is a window.” That's the heart space where we can see each other and hear each other without armour and without weapons. And there is always something to be grateful for. Always. I learn that lesson more fully each time I meet another one of life’s curves — meet it like the Rumi-inspired whirling dervish.
It really helps to have a supportive and loving partner. Michael visited and called every day and sat with me through many challenging times. I returned home at the end of January to this wall of balloons, happy and concerned hubby, and our ever-friendly and demanding fur-babies. Rebecca followed behind with my many prescriptions; she also visited a lot and gave many loving hugs. I am truly blessed with much love and support in my life. My longtime friends in the Muskoka Mindfulness Community had a small fundraiser that allowed me to hire extra private PSW support and come home a month earlier than prescribed. My Mum and Dad were also in hospital during this time. We supported each other as much as we could!
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This poem makes the circuit in yoga and mindfulness circles. A friend of mine sent it to me while I was in Hospital: “Walk Slowly” by Danna Faulds.
Another friend sent this book to me on Audible — which was helpful because reading was beyond me. It is full of humour and wisdom. I am quite enjoying it! Almost Everything by Anne Lamott.
I also received Living Untethered by Michael Singer from a friend. I haven’t fully read it yet, but it is one of those books you can open anywhere and find inspiration and wisdom.
There was one other song with lyrics I found very joyful and that kept me above water at times: “Follow the Sun” by Xavier Rudd, an interesting artist.
This band became the main part of my hospital stay playlist: Seryn, This Is Where We Are.
I came across this inspiring conversation about the poet, Rainer Maria Rilke. Whatever your bent, this poetry, conversation, and wisdom is so relevant for our lives now: Reading Rilke.
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March 6 Adendum: I’ve been home over a month now. It’s beautiful to be home and also challenging in its own way. Today, the surgeon gave me 50% weight-bearing allowance for my right leg. I can now stand and transfer putting weight on both feet. Eventually I can shuffle with my walker. I asked him if my healing progress was typical for this type of injury. He said mine is an uncommon case because normally one would get a hip replacement. He estimates it will be a six month journey. I am nearly three months in. I'm so glad he didn't tell me this at the start!
