Ileus

It began on Saturday.  I got up at my usual 5:30 a.m., had coffee and a banana then headed to Peggy's 8:00 a.m. yoga class.  I packed my usual breakfast to eat after class, meeting up with my friend and house guest Daryl, who taught some five or six asanas during the 8:00 a.m. Saturday class.  We walked over to Starbucks where I bought some organic milk to add to my dry cereal concoction I eat most mornings along with a couple of small oranges.  I indulged and had a third cup of coffee for the day.  After a leisurely breakfast, we met at Peggy's home studio as volunteer students for Thecla who is going up for assessment soon.  At 1:00 p.m. I headed home, becoming more aware that something was not at all right with my upper abdominal regional.  It felt unusually full, even though I had eaten nothing unusual much less over indulged in anything (except the extra cup of coffee, which wasn't really that unusual).  By the time I got home my pain was increasing, slowly but surely.  I looked in the mirror and could see that my stomach was greatly distended.  I had a light lunch then decided to rest.  When I got up a short while later my stomach pain had increased dramatically.  I did some research on the internet on bloating, distension, constipation, blockage.  Apparently people experience these things all the time.   Just give it some time.  Stay calm.  Eat lightly.  Drink lots of water.  By early evening my pain was becoming unbearable, and by bedtime I could barely stand up straight.  Bent over in pain, I fell on to my bed and realized I was at the point where I was pretty close to not being able to function.  I felt I might throw up.  With help, I reached my doctor and he suggested I get myself to the nearest emergency room, which I did.  By the time I got there the pain was pretty disabling and my thinking was clouded.  I was quickly assessed and given a powerful narcotic, intravenously, which helped but also made me extremely drowsy.  I was given a cat scan and was told there was blockage and that surgery was a real possibility.  They booked me a room in the hospital and said they would talk with me the following morning.  The doctor told me I had ileus--a non mechanical blockage of the upper or lower abdomen.  Basically, paralysis sets in and nothing moves, at all.  There are a multitude of reasons this can happen.  He said he would order up some medication that would totally wash out my system.  Since I've had several colonoscopies I am familiar with this process of quick cleansing.  I drank the bottle of medication and nothing happened.  The nursing staff was small, only two people and the hospital wing was essentially deserted.  The narcotic, which had been administered a couple of more times kept me deeply drowsy.  I decided to get up and walk the halls pulling along my IV stand.  My stomach still hurt but had lessened.  After about 4 hours with no cleansing taking place whatsoever, I asked what was going on.  Could they give me something else or more of the same.  No one seemed to know what they were doing.  No doctors around.  I had a splitting headache and had asked three time for something for that and got nothing. I finally decided I was simply going to check myself out of that place and go home, which I did, after signing a statement that I was leaving without medical authorization.  I got home and felt better.  I'm still not back to normal, but my research has helped.  I called my gastroenterologist and he is going to get the cat scan results and give me a call back, hopefully tomorrow, and we will take it from there. One never knows when the strangest of things may suddenly happen. 

It is now four days later and I'm doing much better but still weak.  Nearly all the pain has gone as well as the distension.  I have thoroughly flushed my system and everything seems to be working again.  My gastroenterologist cannot see me for 2 months, so he must not think there is much to worry about.  I'm going to do a spring cleanse, in all probability I will use the one from Peggy's book.  Each time I've done a cleanse I feel so revitalized and refreshed.  I'd like to start now, but by the time I gather up everything I need it will be time to depart for Dallas, which is followed very soon thereafter by another workshop. 

I am diving into Light on Pranayama by B.K.S. Iyengar.  I feel inspired.  There are times when I forget that in many ways life hangs by a fragile thread--even a breath--and there are countless obstacles and mysteries we will encounter whose meaning we may never understand.  Just knowing that, is, in itself, understanding.  For whatever reasons, aspects of ourselves may become stuck, or paralyzed, but we must keep moving even deeper into those places where we get stuck, literally and figuratively.