Living as a PRISONER of my body… a SLAVE to my PAIN… a slave to my daily fears of always more pain coming… yet my SPIRIT more loving, cheerful and grateful than most who live pain free… choosing ways to experience an infinity of moments of great Happiness, Joy , Love and Elation in each and everyone of my days…
Bonjour my Dearest Friends <3
My sole goal in writing this post, and sharing these thoughts with you today, is to maybe modestly help you REMEMBER how much people can TRULY and DEEPLY SUFFER, whether physically or emotionally or both… WITHOUT ANY OF IT being VISIBLE to one’s naked eye… and such for a wide variety of reasons.
I truly hope that my modest words will help your heart, and your mind, to be more AWARE and MINDFUL of such suffering surrounding your every days… everywhere you are… whoever is around you.
And if your goal, just like mine, is to truly and REALLY want to craft for yourself, and live, a heart of TRUE and ENDLESS COMPASSION for others – as I am strongly suspecting you do if you are reading this post? 😉💗 – then it is critical to remind ourselves (and the very same reminder of course greatly apply for myself as it is SO easy to forget this approach) to truly approach EVERYONE… EVERY SINGLE person who we interact with through our days, whether they are random strangers, or those closest to our hearts, and everyone and anyone in between… that the person who you are speaking to, RIGHT NOW… MAYBE… just maybe , has indeed deep and overwhelming sources and experienes of PAIN and FEARS, or both, RIGHT NOW, RIGHT in this VERY INSTANT!… and maybe she/he has been expepriencing so for the past many hours… days… months… years… maybe their entire life?!
xxxxxxx
And remindoing ourselves of such WILL give us the greastes oppotrunity at TRUE COMPASSION (since, just as RACISM or SEXISM and the likes, there is NOT such a thing as SELECTIVE RACISM… you either ARE racist, even if applies to only 1 person… or you are not… and it is sht same with COMNPASSION and EMPATHY…we either extend it to EVERYONE… or otherwise we are simply NOT truly compassionatre).
And I have decied to use my own example jhust as an illustration of this humbrle reminder… for pretty much everyonee bumping into me through my days always offers a “you look great!” which I know of course means so well..
I thought that I would share a few thoughts with you, with the sole hope that it will bring something good, and some love and support to your own journey, about what my days are like… beyond the external appearances… or misinterpreting…
I am actually writing these words and thoughts to share with you… while in pain… while in “fear”… which is pretty much my every day life… yet, if you know me well and are a close friend, or if you bump into me randomly, being more “happy” and filled with great joy than most…
How can that huge dichotomy co exist? co habit?… how to manage it and handle it and make it harmoniious?…
Well, it would take a long conversation to explain all the details of is but the short summarized vbersion of it, and that I offer to people who ask me “how do you do it?!?…” I try to simply explain that I simply CHOOSE to never(almost never, in extreme cases of pain or one of my 6 surgeries, when the pain is close tpo unbearable, like anyone else, I simply have nothing left to “give” 🙁 ) so yes I try to explain that I simply CHOOSE to never let “HOW I FEEL” (meaning physical pain from many sources, or emotional pain from fear (most of dying again, or of being subjewcted to new very painful surgeries or illnesses) correlate or influence WHAT I “GIVE” to people… meaning the LOVE and KINDNESS I choose to offer to all… the emotional support I give to all those around me (including when I am in the ER or in the Hospital for my own struggles).. or the IMMENSE ELATION I experience from a choice of GRAITUDE for everyone and everything in my days, especiall the SMALLEST of things and miracles in each and everyone of our days… as well as my endless joy for all WONDERMENT odfered to my every dayd and every moment…
So, in other words, I can be talking to you and I am indeed in “pain” in various parts of my body… which I have no control ovber… but I DO ”
“CONTROL” what I offer to you… either a miserable “victim” like down spirit… or my usual bubliness and joy and love and kindness…
Now I am NOT sharing any of this for ANY other reason that mayvbe, modestly, bringing to your thoughst that maybe YOU can do the very same?… it is all a choice… of every instant…
Also most people who know me publicly assume, which I totally understand, that my #1 source of health worry is … my heart, due to my massive heart attack from a year ago during whgich I died for 8 long minutes… and which, if only a few minutes more, would have permenantly taken me away. But nop! 😉 this is NOT my main source of pain or worry… the very MANY other health issues that I have daily ARE my main worries and sources of pain…
Just as an example on this very day and at this very moment where I am wertiting these words to you… if I were to kind of list so,e of the many things being ;painful in my body… and heavy on my mind and worries… here is for example some of what “hurts” in this very moment (and it is pretty mcuh like that EVERY SINGLE DAY…)
chronic and extrwemely paunifyl back pain (for the past very many years)
neck pain (from my SPINAL FUSION surgery right after my geart attacl)
knee pain (I can’t anymore bedn down or pick up anything on the floor without hands support or my kneww will just give away or snap)
arm burning pain
ocular mirgaines
prostate pain
Morton’s neuroma
tinitusy
testicular pain due to vasectomy from hell
chronice tooth pain (from my surgery when I was 20ish where they cut totally my both upper and lower jaws and left me to this day with… 26 screws and titanium plates all over my jaws and face) (little X Ray to amuse you .. you shoudl see the face of any new dentist tI go to the first tiem the nurse brings them my XRay… apparently from their shocked reactiomn, 26 screws in your face is NOYT that common! lol )
kidnet stones
EMOTINAL PAIN…
feat of dying again
feAR OF icd GOING OFF
The FEARS… and very many PTSD somehow…
By the way it is so interesting how I would have never EVER thought, just a couple of years ago, that I would one day have… PTSD! I thought, very wrongly, that PTSD was mostly for major military accidents like stepping on a mine etc. but… guess what!? NOP! Now I DO officially, and very realistically (unfornatunely) have PTSD!… and not only that but, due to several of my medical struggles of this past year, I have SEVERAL SOURCES of PTSD, which do show up randomly in my daily life.
The #1 and main source is of course the FEAR OF DYING -again- in the next few minutes… amnything can trigger it… a sudden feeling of great weakness… chest tingling or pain… basically any and all of what I experienced in the few hours and few minutes before I had my massive heart attack.
Another great source of PTSD is, my right hand getting very weak, as, when I suddenly, in a matter of a couple of hours, lost all strentgh in my whole right arm… this was the very first step of what triggered my urgent SPINAL FUSION. So now, everytime I feels those same symptoms, my brain and whole bing DO get into PSTD aka “very scared” mode 🙁
Another major source of PTSD is… peeing… as I got SO MUCH PAIN and so somehow traumatized by the kidney stone horribly painful surgery (where they had to go up my penis and prostate and bladder and urether and then all the way inside my left kidney, to BREAK and then PULL OUT my 5 kidney stones that were in there… and the recovery of that surgery was, well, a true niughtmare of pain!… especially as they left, after the surgery, a 12 inches long STENT (aka long piece of plastric with CURELED ends! 🙁 ) between my bladder and my kidney, for an entire week, and… with a STRING to later pull on it!.. that came down throuhh my penis! 🙁
So, long story short, all of that literraly create a whoole new source of PTSD… especially as I STILL have 6 stones in my right kidney and I amliterally like a TIME BOMB where that esxccuriciatin fpain can be triggee literally ANY instant.. all meaning going back to the entire HELL,once again, of that whole surgery and stent etc… so basically, anytime where I simply pee, I can very muchinstantly go that PTSD mode of deep fears of having to live, once again, that whole HELL of pain and hufge suffering
My HEART and CARDIO ISSUES and MASSIVE HEART ATTACK are actually NOT at all, and unlike what one would understanddly assume, my biggest source of both pain, fears and worries… the biggest fear of kidnesu stones trigering ANY MOMENT unbearable pain… (insert link) – whic makes me afraid to get on a plane etc…
FEAR that my life will end, again, maybe tonight?… just as suddenly and brutally as it did on Janurary 26, 2018, at 1:04 am where I suddnely co;;a[sed pm my my face in my kitchen fllor, all alone at home (I had, thankfully, called 911 a few minutes just prior to collapsing in seoizures and massive heart attack) – as one of the Dcptors in my Cardiac Reehabe program explained to me, and as I saw other big grown up men an women suddwnly, out of nowhjere, start to breakd down in tears… ” well… you have met your mortality.. and rthis is why you have PTSD, no matter how much you try to overcome it…”
Now for some reasons, if you have had only a heart attack where they can help you right away but you do not “die” (heart totally stops) per say… OR .. if you have been so lucky as to never had had any kind of heart attack… then your mind and natural self survival and life “hope
” meacnisms ALWAYS keep you in the spirit of ” sure I will die… one day… but it is so so so far away… and no matter your age, it always feels that way and you never carry any true stigma or trauma from it… “. Now when you have truly and fully “died” and got a taste of it (as my rehab Doctor used to say “fully meeting your own mortality” indeed… then with pretty mucb every single day and every single thought you ALWAYS feel, thinj of … “sure if might very well happen again in the next minute… in the next hour…” and it DOES changes your life forever… while also… how to put it mildly, teaumatizing you foreveer…
And yet…
LIving… in pain… and fear of more pain … daily… that no eye can see…
Now what to do with all that???? and how to TRANSCEND it all and create beautiful life’s tools and approcahges from it all/// 🙂 for we of course only shoudl care abuot wgat we CAN CONTROL and CAN CHOOSER to experience… NOT what is imposed upon us, or beyond \our control…
and how to follow the asame patrh… I know how YOU live the vewry same…
Why did I decide to write this post about this subject?.. For a simple reason, which is that for those of you out there who DO live with a heart of true compassion and empathy for others (and I, of course, have endless compassion, for those who have not yet found it in their heart and on htier own journey… we all learn at our own pace…) then I thought it would be a most wonderful thing to know how to approach, and interact with, those who suffer daily, in the very best way…
And to add even more struggles to all this, the fact that I am on so many heart medications and blood thinners also means that there are many treatments that in the past WOULD provide healing relief to some of my OTHER sources of pain, such as very painful chronic back pain and neck pain, now can NOT be used … for example, ULTRASOUNDS that use to help with my most painful times of back pain, can never be used to help me anymore as, combined with the blood thinners, they could potentially make me BLEED INSIDE with possibly fatal consequeces…
Same thing for example with those little devide that bring eletrical pulses to your muscles and DO help wonderfully to relieve back pain or other muscle pains… I can NEVER use those again either as it could potentially either TRIGGER or DAMAGE the ICD/DEFIBRILATOR that they implanted in my chest!…
Same thing if I needed an emergency surgery… or if one of the 6 kidney stones that I still have in my right kidney and that feel pretty much like a TIMEBOMB of exzcruciating pain that could trigger at any given time… I just could NOT do a sudden surgery as I would need at least a fiull WEEK of STOPPING my BLOOD THINNERS… and otherwise, as one surgeon put it blunoutlty.. I could end up “bleeding to death on the table” if surgery was done too soon…
SO not only you are very banged up and huring all the time from all that happened … but also many options and treaments that before would provide relief to your pain are now taken away from you and are no longer an option…. “not cool” to say the least!
So there are so
Please PLEASE PLEASEEEEEE FIND soemthing you LOVEEEEE to do! you can never get enough of doing… and you would do the very same thing for no money at all!!!! and despited all the pain in my days and all the limitations of what I can not do anymore (and qill NEVER be able to do as I am of course much closer to the end of my journet tnan its beginning) WHEN I CREATE and WHAT I CREATE (Photos, Films anything and everythinf…) IS what feeds my soul and keeps me alive!!!
Sevberale years ago I did not know A SINGLE THING about Photography… 2 years ahp I did not know a single thing about making Video and Films and Drones…
iogu ananlogy
WHAT DID I CHANGE in my life AFTER my massive heart attack?
As you can guess I am being asked this all the time… which I of course totally understand….
So without going in great details, I have only changed one main thing… and it is summarize by a most beautful word that I used to not give much importance or attention to… BEFORE I died… and it is: RECIPROCATION.
For example, if I do a Photo Shoot.,, I will ghurt horribvly the next dayt and 3 days to come… same thing going salsa… my entire body, between the 8 meds (heart meds + pain killerts etc.) a day I take just to stay alive and stay around 🙂 and which OF COURSE bring tons of side effects and bad interactions with each other (*which is of course highly understandable, and I am also IMMENSELY grateful for those meds, no matter their many side effects, as of course, WITHOUT them, I would not be around for much longer…) and also the fact that I am given the HIGHEST LEGAL DOSE for several of them (like 80mg daily of Lipitor)…. And of course all that just can NOT go without many downsides!
My main message here, if any, is… pkease never ever “judge” someone’s condition just by the way they look (I feel like I am sure so many girls and women have felt thousdans of times ) here now ! as even if I “look” ok or like so many friends who have not seen me for months and bump into me always go “POh you look GREAT!” … and I know without a doubt that they mean well… but that it is not what helps people who suffer…
I always mention to people “I DO CONTROL how I dress in the morning… what kind of outfit I will CHOOSE to put on… and whether or not I offer smiles and kindness to all those who I see through my days… “ but that does not mean that I CONTROL how I FEEL INSIDE… and I of course do NOT cCONTROL that… I am SUBJECTED to it and I DO EXPERIENCE IT vyr beyond all that I am already doing in meds, and caridio and PT rehab, and mental tools etc.. .I still DO experience all the pain that I do, daily… emotionallya nd physically…
an d the other messafe is NO NATTER HOW MUCH YOU SUFFER… PLEASE LIVE! Even more and better than those who don’t suffer… and take all those days for granted… thin king that they can always “be happy” and do those things they really want and love “after they make that much money.. Or after they reach that new position at their work… or after they are done with this or thart…” thinking that they have an endless supply of years and decades and life… to do what is truly important to their soul and heart. NO! Do it NOW!!! LOVE the people who you love NOW!!! TELL THEM NOW! SHOW THEM NOW! Tomorrow is a promise to no one!… but today is all uyours to live as you choose…DON”T MISS IT!!!!
When i go slasa at 10pm.. erc…
OF COURSE END WITH SOMETHING SUPER POSITIVE kind of like… ” If you are like me… the only question that matters is WHAT DO WE DO WITH IT? how to LIVE TH BEST EACH and EVERYONE of our days!?”
Ps: my HERAT is actually only a small part of my daily suffering…
Leave a reply