I’m back

Yup, I’m back.  I thought blogging might be dead but I’m not, so blogging on.

I still have Congestive Heart Failure, HFpEF, with the complications of Hypertension, Chronic Kidney Disease, Diabetes 2, Osteoarthritis, a totally messed up shoulder, and blah, blah, blah.  I’m still alive!

I’m also still teaching yoga and do my own daily practice in the morning. (I also do cardio and lift weights.)

I’m really into Dr. Loren Fishman for yoga guidance and will talk more about him later.  If you want to jump in, he has multiple books on Amazon and numerous videos on YouTube.  He is into doing what works.

If you haven’t tried Ho’opnopono you need to explore it.  For me, it is like the Ganesha mantra for removing obstacles but in English.   “I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you.  I love you.” Just start silently chanting these 4 statements and see what unfolds. Do it while you are holding yoga poses.   Don’t worry about how or why, just keep chanting.

Namaste,

Dean

Total Hip Replacement

Here I am, almost four weeks after having my right hip replaced.   Feeling a little guilty that I accepted the miracle of surgery and didn't find a way to fix it without cutting more of body off and replacing it.

One day, weeks before the surgery, as I was hobbling around a corner grocery store, I noticed a young man following me around and thought he either needed money or he had daddy issues.   He finally came up to me and said he could heal me and reached out his hand.   I thought we had just had an introduction and he was next going to tell me he was a body worker of some sort.

Nope, he grabbed my hand, wouldn't let go, and started to raise his voice to Jesus to heal me.   It is a very small grocery store and we were blocking the aisle.   There was a part of me that wanted him to be able to heal me.  He stopped for a moment and asked me if I was healed and I  told him no but I felt better and thanked him.   Not good enough--he grabbed me with both hands and since our Lord and Savior must have hearing problems began to talk to him louder.   Suddenly I felt hands on my shoulders.   I turned and looked behind me and a very large, muscular, filthy, shirtless, shoeless man, whose body odor was almost overpowered by the smell of alcohol on him, had joined in the effort.

Obviously not having the faith of a mustard seed, I silently offered my own prayer to hear the announcement, "Clean up crazies in aisle 2."

Inspired by each other and now competing for Jesus' attention, my healers voices grew in volume and range.   I waited for a small break removed their hands, said thank you, and limped as fast as I could to the cash register.   Behind me I could hear the argument started between the store employees and the underdressed gentleman over their inability to sell him anymore alcohol.

I keep wondering what the story would've been like if I had been healed in the grocery store.   Instead, I've gone through successful surgery, been told I'm ahead of the standard recovery, and have had four weeks with time to reflect, rehab, read, and watch too much news---which is another entry.

What happens to people who are miraculously healed without medical intervention?  Are they like Lottery winners--quickly losing their gains and going back to the life they had?

Maybe it wasn't the miracle I wanted but it was the miracle I needed.   I ultimately surrendered to it and am moving forward.

Namaste,

Dean

Time passes.

I'm still here.   I'm still making sense of my heart surgery and now I'm facing a total hip replacement.   I've talked to some people about my experiences flatlining but have basically kept it as a skeleton in my closet to avoid having my ego think I am too special.   Get this.   We all cast off our bodies at some point and all have some kind of experience when we do that.   There is nothing special about it.  

Now if I'd come back with some kind of super power...

So the inflammation in my body after heart surgery seemed to turn on arthritis in my hip and basically ate away all my cartilage there. Adjusting to the pain, I've distorted my posture and messed up my walk.

I was reluctant to accept the surgery because I believe that given enough time, my body could heal.   Time is the question.   I've elected to get my hip fixed now in order to move forward, straighten out my body, and get mobile again.  

The cool thing is that throughout the deterioration of my hip joint I've had to rethink my yoga, my body image, and who I will become.   Now I get to be a beginner again and start that process all over.   I've been given the gift of the "do over".  

Remember when you first discovered yoga and how damn good it felt?   I get to do that again.


Namaste,


Dean

The gift of not knowing

So I step on the mat and sometimes off not knowing if I'm doing the right thing.   Instead of just diving in, I have to take the time to question what is going on with my body, assessing what I did yesterday, and what is happening today.   Then having all that processed with my fluctuating mind and hopefully I come back to the breath---my guide---moving and flowing with change.  Giving thanks that I recognize I don't know what to do and asking help to step back and get out of the way so I can be taught.

I did three weeks strong with my food and then the last week grew tired of it and ate some things not on the plan.   Woke up this morning thinking and wondering where that disciplined energy goes.  I know there are people who say that we have limits to our willpower but I also know that we build habits good and bad and once it is a habit it takes no willpower.   

I know all week that I was hyper-aware of conflicting nutritional information and I seemed to be questioning what I was doing and talking about it to the people around me.   Looking back I was afraid to submit to what I know works for me.  I need to be willing to not know the complete answer and just follow the best I can.   It is okay for me to question what I'm doing but I need to let the questions fly, keep going, and let it work.  I need to remember the reasons I'm eating this way---to make it easier on my heart!

I had a gift last night.   A relative told me they were doing yoga and what they found different about it  was that they didn't think about work or problems during that hour.   They were also doing Zumba and Spin but yoga was the only class they didn't think about work.   Yoga Chitta Vitti Nirodha!

Change

My current definition of yoga is "Everything changes, get over it."    Getting over it and accepting the changes in my body, my mind, my breath, my pain, my bliss, even what I think I know about yoga is my new normal.   That is where calming the fluctuations of the mind comes in--Chitta Vritti Narodha--Yoga Sutra 1:2.

"When are you going to get better?"   Someone asked me that.   It jolted me and made me question everything I was doing that showed this person I wasn't better.   I was completely put on the defensive.  I answered that I was improving slower than I liked but I was improving.  I then tried to walk away as normally as possible--not my new normal but some approximation of what I thought  I used to walk like.

Then I realized I'm asking myself the same question all the time.   I've fallen into the trap of using  every yoga practice as a reminder that I'm not well yet.  I have to walk my talk and learn to practice without frustration and judgment.

My self-judgment keeps me locked in my pain patterns and fighting against them.   If I  stay with my body, watching and accepting it as the good friend it is, I know I have the chance to influence the direction of change toward healing.

Frozen Hip Yoga Practice

Right now my daily yoga practice comes from Lucas Rockwood's Ebook, THE YOGABODY HANDBOOK.  The book includes a 5 day program of gravity poses.   You hit the hamstrings on day 1, hips on day 2, day 3 is shoulders, day 4 is back, and day 5 is wrists, twists, and ankles.  Each day consists of about 3 asanas.   He also has a lot of nutritional advice.

To do his practice, with my frozen hip and screwed up legs, I have to pretty severely modify several of the poses. One of the keys to his system is holding each pose for 4 minutes and inhaling through the nose and out through the mouth--that I can do without modification.   I've done the sequence for 2 weeks now and am starting to feel and see some improvement.

To connect with Lucas go to http://www.yogabody.com/lucas-rockwood/.

You could probably
design your own sequence by looking up gravity poses and hanging out for 4 minutes with each one.

Namaste,


Dean

Post Heart Surgery--a year later and a frozen hip

  Over a year later after all the drama of the previous year, I am still here in this body on this earth learning a whole bunch of lessons I would rather not learn the hard way.

Last summer my right hip froze up, both thighs continuously locked up and my knees and ankles were swollen with edema.   Lots of specialists and tests--tested three times for Lupus--but no definitive diagnosis.

It was suggested that I had Frozen Hip and arthritis in my knees that seemed to have flared up.   Another doctor thought I might have FAI Syndrome but couldn't confirm it without an MRI.   I can't have an MRI because I have a pacemaker.  Another doctor suggested it was venous insufficiency which caused the edema and then things basically just got backed up.

I was prescribed a couple of drugs and physical therapy.   I also tried everything I could think of---my yoga practice to begin with, supplemented with Feldenkrais, Acupuncture, Cranial Sacral Therapy, Spiritual Healing, hydrotherapy, and I worked with a Health Coach.  The positive results were frustratingly slow and sometimes it seemed like I was going backward instead of forward. The prognosis for frozen hip whether you do anything for it or not is that it can take up to 19 months for it to resolve.

Things were complicated by my heart doing some weird stuff which meant more tests without a concrete diagnosis. I stopped teaching for a month, my son Luke took over for me, and then I came back to classes---at first with a cane. At the present I still have pretty severe limitations with what I can demonstrate.    I've gotten better at verbal cuing!

Some of what I've learned in the next post...