Those with eyes to see

I went for a checkup at the pain center today. I told Bernadette, my nurse practitioner, about my current state: pain is persistently more extensive -- all the way through both shoulders, intensity is about the same as usual with a couple of spikes to 9-10/10 each week, medication barely adequate. On the good side, if I'm doing anything about sailing or working on my new keeled home, I can work far longer than I ever thought possible -- several hours at a stretch, sometimes. The pain comes up, but it doesn't flare; I can work through it without sending it out of control.

It's as if anything connected with sailing floods my system with so much happy-juice that it keeps the hellacious cocktail of the pain cascade mostly in the shaker. She was really stoked about my having a boat. And it doing me so much good.

Afterwards, as I was scheduling my next appointment, Mai Hong, the physical therapist who used to work with me during my 2-month intensive, saw me and came up to visit. She wanted to introduce a new patient (someone who was going into the next round of the program I did) to an alumna. The other woman looked like someone who's bearing up under the unbearable, so of course I treated her perfectly normally.

Mai Hong peered at me with fascinated intensity. "You look ... great! The expression in your eyes is different." She used to monitor my state by the look in my eyes.

She spotted, in my first few minutes in the program, what a desperate simulation every smile and word that came out of me was. She spent most of my 2 months there looking for ways to get through and around the hard, tight masks I wore -- either the brittle cheer or the anaesthetic depression, whichever one was up at the time. She helped crack it, and could spot the daylight coming through -- moreover, she could point it out to me and name it: "I can tell I'm seeing the genuine you." That was important.

I said, "You remember I was sailing with the disabled sailors in San Francisco?"

She nodded.

Smiling all over, I told her, "Well, I realized that made me really happy, so I bought a boat and I'm making it my home." (See the Handicaptain's Ship Log for more details.)

She gasped, and in her next breath said, "That's great!" and congratulated me. She just stood there another moment, still peering into my eyes, trying to take it all in.

"It's quite a change, isn't it," I agreed. She nodded. I realized the staring might seem odd to the newcomer, but I felt comfortable with it. I remarked to Mai Hong, "That's what we live for as healers, to see that change."

She said, "Ye-eah," slowly, still drinking in the sun-streaked life pouring off me, stunned by comparison to what she saw 6 months ago.

I've been questioning myself a lot lately -- old scripts trying to play out, I'm sure, given how unreasonably they've troubled me -- but I saw my "genuine self," as I am right now, in Mai Hong's peering, bottomless gaze ... and I felt absolutely fine.

This moment of inner peace brought to you by the pharmaceutical industry

I've lived in California for 10 years, bushwhacking regularly. Two weeks ago, I got my first-ever case of poison oak. It is still progressing, claiming new areas of skin at the rate of square inches a day. Anything worth doing is worth overdoing, apparently.

I can't take prednisone for anything short of imminent death. I'm doing the nonmedical things I can, from Aveeno and Apis mel., to scalding showers and ice packs. I'm also taking outrageous amounts of Claritin (to reduce my allergic response) and Atarax (to calm the itching).

So I’m loaded up on dopey stuff to cope with this systemic inflammation.

But wait, there's more.

Despite inheriting depression from both sides of the family, I managed my mood without drugs until I'd been dealing with chronic pain for five years, when my neurochemistry finally threw in the towel. Fortunately for me, antidepressants also help control nerve pain, so I get a two-for-one deal with the right drug – and one day, I will find it. Meanwhile, my psychiatrist and I are juggling pills.

We doubled the dose of the Efexor I'm already on. I thought, if I had too much, I'd start buzzing like 5 cups of coffee. Should've been an interesting contrast to the dopey stuff.

I didn't buzz, but I didn't care. The produce was all eaten up, but I didn't care; there was plenty of bread. I itched a lot, and I sometimes cared about that, but that was about it. Christmas was coming, and I was getting fat, and I just didn't care.

I had a feeling it wasn't right, but the sense of inward peace was wonderful. I didn't even care to find out why I didn't care. No worries, mate. Even the constant pain faded away. No worries at all. It was heavenly.

Well, we've backed off on the Efexor (although I'm still a bit wiffled on Claritin and Atarax.) And the inward roil has started up about where it left off.

I like the satisfaction of getting things done. I like taking care of myself. I like having something to look forward to – like getting the medication optimized.

I just remember that unruffled peace, that living stillness at my center ... and I yearn. What on earth would it take to feel that, normally? The obvious answer – a lifetime of meditation – overlooks the harsh reality of the need to scratch for a living. Without that cocktail of brain-bending drugs, I don't know if I can live in that place again. Since I still remember it, though, I intend to find a way.

What a thing, to be so inwardly still. Maybe I'll start meditating anyway and see what happens.