Walking My Chosen Path

"Looking at problems from different angles actually lessens the mental burden. From the Buddhist viewpoint, every event has many aspects and naturally one event can be viewed from many, many different angles. It is very rare or almost impossible that an event can be negative from all points of view." - from The Dalai Lama's Little Book of Wisdom

Dearest Jam'ling,

Looking at my last entry in this journal, I had to laugh. I was writing about how wonderful my holidays were. And starting with this new year, things took quite a turn for me healthwise. To make a long story shorter, I visited my PCP in early January who diagnosed me with anemia. Hemoglobin level 8.1. He referred me to a blood specialist/hematologist. By the time I was able to see her in late January, I was dragging myself around with extremely low energy. I knew something was very, very wrong with me by then. I saw her January 31st at about 1:30 p.m. and after getting lab work done, she and her nurse practitioner both came into the room and told me that I needed to go to the ER RIGHT NOW. My hemoglobin level had dropped to 6.1. I fought against this and asked if there was another way. I set up a type and cross and blood transfusion for later on in the week, but I was quite distraught and drove home sobbing. Once home, she called me and told me she had spoken to my GI doctor and they both strongly felt that I needed to go to the ER. Immediately. My anxiety was through the roof. I'd not been to the ER in decades, and in the Age of COVID? I was terrified. Again I said I just couldn't do it. Five minutes later, my GI doctor called me. He said, "Anne-Marie... You're DYING. You need to go to the ER NOW. You will not make it until Friday."

Well, that woke me up, so I packed a bag and off I went. By the time I was checked in and got lab work done, my hemoglobin level had dropped to 5.1. Dr. Shah was 100 percent correct. I was dying. He saved my life by getting me into the ER that day. After several blood transfusions and several GI tests, I was released and told to get iron IV infusions at the hematology office transfusion center. Unfortunately, after two weeks, I was deathly ill again and the nurse practitioner called me on Friday, February 16th and told me my hemoglobin level had dropped to 5.1. I needed to return to the ER.

Having experienced the ER and a 5-day hospital stay, I told her I would go in the morning, but I needed three things right now. I needed a night's sleep, a shower, and a good meal. There is no sleeping, showering, or eating in the hospital. (Since I was getting so many GI tests, I was on a clear diet most of the time while admitted.) I managed to get some sleep, although the IncrediHubby was so terrified he called out of work and sat up with me all night watching me in case I started to die in my sleep. (This was a real possibility, I found out later.) The next morning, trying to shower was like trying to climb Mt. Everest. I managed it, but it nearly killed me and Richard had to help me with everything. Getting breakfast was an ordeal too. I was so low on energy I could barely eat, but I managed to get some nutrition in.

When I arrived to the ER on Saturday morning, February 17th, I was second in line to check in. I had to lean on the "Wait Here" sign because I could barely stand. The check-in nurse saw this and, rather than send me to the waiting area, put me in a triage op right away. Blood work was taken, and the triage nurse exclaimed, "Four point six!!! And you WALKED in here?" Apparently, most folks with a 4.6 hemoglobin are not only immobile, unconscious, and come in on an ambulance, but are also in extreme danger of going into hypovolemic shock. A blood transfusion was ordered, STAT, and I was put into a bay with Nurse Adam, who, like Dr. Shah, saved my life by actually managing to get an IV in me. It took three blood transfusions before I even made it up to 6.9.

So again, I'm going to make a very long story much shorter by simply stating this: Three ER visits (one of which I was very close to death from hypovolemic shock), three hospital stays, two of which were longer than two weeks, ELEVEN blood transfusions to keep me alive all of this time, and seven GI tests to try and discover where in the world I was bleeding from. We knew it was a GI bleed because my stools were black and tarry. And having had several colonoscopies, it wasn't coming from my large intestine/colon. It wasn't in my stomach either, as evidenced by the several endoscopies I had. The third time with a pill camera was the charm - I was bleeding from my jejunum of my small intestine, about as deep inside me as you can get. And once again, my life was saved - by Dr. McLean, who used a balloon enteroscopy to patch me up.

It took months for my hemoglobin level to return to normal. In early July, just last month, I registered an 11 - finally the low end of normal. My iron, however, was still low, so I had two more iron IV infusions at the end of July to try and boost those levels. I'm also taking oral iron daily. (Yeah, I feel like crap most of the time stomach-wise, but it's tolerable and hopefully, it's helping my iron levels increase.)

I read the above passage from the Dalai Lama tonight as part of my Daily Readings, and it registered to me that, while this year has totally sucked for me because of everything being thrown off kilter due to my almost dying six months ago, I do have the option of being grateful that 1) I am not dead. 2) I am healed/healing and this might not ever recur. 3) So many people during so many stages of this literally saved my life. 4) Many, many friends came out to visit me in the hospital, sent cards, flowers, well wishes, and followed my journal on Facebook and Instagram through the whole ordeal, praying with me and supporting me the entire way, even to this day. 5) While I lost all of my PTO time for the year, and almost couldn't pay my rent for the month of March, we luckily had savings we could fall back on, and since I've worked for the same dental practice for 34 years, I am like family to them and I was able to ease back into my job with concessions for having to go get iron IV infusions and follow-up doctor visits.

And finally, yes, I have a massive hospital bill that I'm paying off (I'm on a year payment plan, so when you look at it, I'm just months away from having it paid in full) but since Piedmont is working with me, we're not broke by it and still have financial stability and are thriving.

One of the main lessons I learned from this health scare is to listen to my body. I have probably been bleeding for a while, because I remember feeling tired on my girls' cruise last year in March, and I was really feeling the exhaustion over the holidays, but I chalked it up to menopause. Well, nope. If I had not seen my PCP/followed up with hematologist/gone to the ER/etc., I could have very easily simply passed away in my sleep and no one would have known why.

In light of there being so many things that could have gone wrong, the fact that I am still here is a huge gone RIGHT. And I am ever so grateful.

So now, I am doing the things I should have been doing all along to keep myself healthy. I am eating a healthy diet. I am taking my medications faithfully, as prescribed. I am working out several days a week now. I am drinking a lot of water. And I am slowly, slowly trying to get my apartment cleaned and organized because since I've been ill, we really just let everything go.

The big difference here is, I see a light at the end of the tunnel. There were times earlier this year that I didn't. But now I do. And this is wonderful. Life is Good.

Thank you, Jam'ling, for always being there for me as my Spirit Guide, and always listening. Much, much, much love. Namo Amida Buddha.

Greetings, Dreamwidth. The last time I posted here was very early 2021. It is now mid-to-late 2023. I read my last post, where I was grieving at the loss of my beloved Meau-cat and terrified that I might have cancer. And it was in the middle of the pandemic. The Wyzard and I had not yet had COVID, but we caught it that May. It was much kinder to him. He managed a 7-day bout with cold symptoms - although his cough was horrifying - and for me, it was 10-day journey of two different kinds of pain, and I continued to test positive for days after the symptoms were gone. And I feel like I might still have "long" COVID - I'm exhausted all of the time, and things I used to do much more easily are vastly more difficult.

In any event, it is two years later and this year has not been very kind to me. From workplace woes and uncertainty to illnesses continually, and the bleakness of depression poking in from time to time, I feel like I've been through the ringer.

I was inspired to make this post by several things.

First of all, I comforted an anxious patient via text message yesterday and another by phone today. I was rewarded for my efforts with praise and gratitude, and I began to realize, *THIS* is why I am still in dentistry. Sure, I can write wicked appeal letters that get our claims paid, and I can figure up estimated co-payments in typically less than 30 seconds. But it is my compassion and caring for our patients that really garners me job satisfaction. I have always said that I would continue to see Dr. R for dental treatment even if I were no longer employed here. Dr. R is compassionate and caring, but shows it differently. To some, he seems aloof and closed off. But he and I are both water signs, and while my water flows freely and openly often for all to see, he keeps his hidden like an underground spring. But we recognize this in each other and our mutual respect has carried us through these long decades of our professional relationship. When he told me that he had hand-picked my new space in the new office for me, that allowed me to feel a tremendous sense of being valued. And you cannot truly put a price on that. I am a lot more isolated in the new office - patients arriving cannot see me unless I stand up and walk around the front office space. Patients in back only see me if they need to check out and pay a balance or get a treatment plan. I do worry a bit that some of our longer-term patients think I am no longer employed here since they cannot readily see me. The more vocal of them have spoken up and asked the assistants or hygienists where I am. I cannot even count the number of times in the last two months that patients have said, "Well, THERE you are!" when being brought to my desk to check out. And this, too, gives me a tremendous sense of being valued. I started realizing that, since the pandemic and all that had happened since (the loss of my beloved cat and my father are just two of those events), I had started to shut down inside to shrink away from the pain that these events had brought me. And I realized that, in order to feel joy, I must also be willing to feel pain.

It is time to bring my feelings out into the sunlight again.

The second reason that I decided to make this post was something that I signed up for at the end of June. I subscribe to the Tiny Buddha website and Facebook page, and for a very long time now, I've received snippets of joy on a daily, and now, weekly basis. As part of the Tiny Buddha Feel-Good Summer Bundle, a large number of self-help/self-actualization courses were offered at an extremely discounted rate of $99.00. On impulse, I decided to go ahead and sign up. I paid the money (a pittance, in my opinion, for some of this kind of wisdom), and I figured, when I have time, I will go through and register for the individual courses. Well, of course, life has gotten in the way, and I received an email reminder a day or so ago that my time to register for each of the courses under the bundle was running out. So I decided today would be the day. As soon as I completed my work and got off the clock, so-to-speak, I went through each link and applied the coupon code to receive these (some QUITE expensive) courses for free.

So now I've signed up for all of them and I am quite literally overwhelmed in a good way with what I'm now facing in taking them. Here is what I will soon be immersed in:

*Blooming Brilliantly - An online course designed to help you understand and love who you are as a Highly Sensitive Person

*Narcissist Abuse Recovery Program

*The Body: Releasing shame & awakening a loving connection to our bodies

*Health & Happiness Reboot Challenge

*Using Metaphor to Access Clarity, Health, and Inner Peace

*21 Days to Relieve Anxiety Naturally

*Realize Your Life's Mission: Get Clear on Your Purpose, Embrace Your Calling, and Feel Alive

*The Power of No

*Tweak a Week - Unstick what's got you stuck! Tweak your way to a life you love!

*Reclaim your plate: Break unhealthy food habits and redefine healthy eating and living so you can stop falling off track and start feeling your best

*Letting Go Meditations + Overcoming Hard Times

As I registered for each of these courses, completely agog at how much they regularly cost, I started getting the feeling that I'd won the lottery! The amount I paid, a mere $99.00, would not even cover the cost of one of these courses, much less all of them! I truly realized the enormous value of these gifts, pure God-given gifts, that I'd given to myself by signing up three months ago!

Some of these are actual courses, with coursework, some are recordings of lectures, some are simply an email service designed to serve up a positive email every day for a month or so, and one is even an e-book. But I truly believe that my Spirit Guide realized three months ago that I was going to need all of this positivity and actualization to kick my butt back in gear and get past the post-pandemic mope.

I also really, really, REALLY need to start journaling again. I realize that I have very little, if any actual readers here on DreamWidth, but I do plan to copy and paste these ramblings into my Self-Help/Self Care Circle filter on Facebook. And truly, I am *tired*, utterly EXHAUSTED by social media. I go days and days without checking Facebook now. Not that I have a great deal of time to do it anyway. I do try to acknowledge birthdays and make a post every once in while, but it's been quite a long time, months, since I've actually scrolled through my feed. And as any good-hearted user of social media should, I feel quite guilty about that. I post, but don't read. It almost feels like taking but not giving. But in all honesty, social media fits into each of our lives as a niche market - it is how much time you individually are able to devote to it, and of late, I've not had time nor really the inclination. But yes, I do feel a little guilty. Just so's y'all know.

Anyway, I just had a week's vacation away from work to rejuvenate my brain, so now it's time to get to work. Professionally, personally, spiritually, physically. I need to get to work.

And so I shall.

I need to write to my Spirit Guide, and check my God Box. I need to clean my apartment. REALLY clean it. Like, DEEP. And I need to start really tossing out the crap that I don't have time for any more. Physical crap, mental crap, emotional crap. All of it.

So, hopefully, this starts now.

One of my dearest friends that I was chatting with yesterday gave me the greatest analogy about my daily schedule. I was saying that I need to somehow find time in my day to do regular exercise, and right before the pandemic hit, I was getting up at 5:00 a.m. to work out *before* going to work so I did not have any excuse to get out of it after. After work, heck, I am always tired, worn out, exhausted, energy-less. And years and years and years of saying, "Well, one of these days I will start working out after work" never got me anywhere. I took a seminar that changed my mindset and for eight months straight, I got up at 5:00 a.m. and hit the gym, even on weekends. I lost 50 pounds and brought my A1C into a normal range. The problem with that scenario after a while was, it was still exhausting me, in more ways than one. Working out like I was every day and eating a VLCD was incrementally tearing little pieces of my sanity away, to the point that I recall very clearly losing my shit over the fact that my desktop computer at home was basically in its death throes. It was a total overreaction, but my brain was completely saturated and I simply could NOT handle the complication I'd just been faced with. I *still* haven't replaced my home desktop computer. Instead, I started using my laptop more. But that was a catalyst that eventually tore down my carefully constructed system. I couldn't get a decent life balance out of what I was putting myself through on a daily basis. Being the perfectionist that I know myself to be, I couldn't settle for anything less. But I know that I need to find a solution that gives me much better daily balance.

So my friend said something to the effect of, "You need to unpack the suitcase of your day to find a better balance in your life." And I LOVED that analogy. I could picture it in my head so clearly! She reminded me that I had the same hours in my day when I was getting up at 5:00 a.m. to work out every day as I do now. (Of course, then, I was conking out around 8:30 - 9:00 p.m. every night due to exhaustion. But as it stands now, the only thing I'm really doing between 8:30 p.m. and my usual bedtime of 11:00 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. is watching humorous, cute, or inspiring videos on YouTube. And sometimes even the non-inspiring ones, like Karens in the Wild or Most Impressive Car Crashes Caught on Cam. I *really* need to put myself on YouTube restriction.)

So now, I have this most beautiful analogy (thank you my darling heart-friend) of a suitcase, packed to handle the day. And I believe I can work with this. As it is, I carry a suitcase to work with me every day. Inside are my two huge bottles of water, my lunch, my chargers and cables, and a collection of documents I typically always keep with me, plus any reading material or things that require handling. It's a "rolly-bag" so I roll it around like a suitcase in the airport. Now I can truly visualize me packing my day into that thing. It's amusing, and makes me laugh, but it's also something I know I can work with to tweak my day into working better for me. And to ensure that I will be able to have a much better life balance to keep myself healthy - emotionally, physically, spiritually, etc. In every single way.

I've not been this inspired in quite a long time. Oh JOY!

Dearest Jam'Ling,

I write to you from the depths of my heart, aching to feel your joyous presence yet again. I am ready to begin a journey back to you, and I am ready now to accept that the pain is as important as the joy in feeling my feelings and letting them go. I am at a point in my life where I am financially sound, in a wonderful, loving decades-long marriage that I have no doubt will continue until life's end, in a job that appreciates me and that I appreciate, in a spirit of understanding that I don't have to be perfect or caught up on a daily basis every single day, but one in which my own understanding of compassion and concern will filter through everyone I have contact with and inspire them as well, and finally ready to accept the challenges of aging, as a 55-year-old woman, to do so as gracefully as possible. Thank you for your ever-loving presence in my life and I am so grateful that, even after years of inactivity, you still advocate on my behalf.

Namo Amida Buddha.

Well, greetings and salutations, Dreamwidth! I am in you! Finally!

When you were able to import all of my entries, etc. from LiveJournal, I knew I loved you. So I'm just glad to be here.

I'm in the midst of a large project involving many smaller projects to improve my life. As such, I believe that journaling is one thing that will help me reach my goals.

I have the same filters here that I had on LJ. If you were on my LJ and were on certain filters, those have transferred over.

To help me improve certain areas of my life and help work through things, I'll journal about them, and I'll do so in filters. I most certainly hope that this will continue to motivate me to success.

It's a busy Sunday today. I got up and boiled some eggs for the week and put away my laundry. I've also done a small bit of filing. We're meeting some dear friends for brunch today, and later on today, I have a good number of things on my to-do list that I either need to go ahead and do, or schedule to do at a later date and time. The Reminders app on my iPhone has been invaluable to me in helping me remember things I need to do or take care of, and also scheduling time to do them. Weirdly enough, the app does not work successfully on the IncrediHubby's phone. I have a few issues I need to have resolved too, so we will most likely be hitting the Apple store at some point soon.

Anyway, I figured I would stretch my proverbial legs in here, and I may cross-post some of these entries to my Facebook. It's good to be journaling again, and depending on how the day goes, I may be creating more entries before the end of today.

*smiles happily*