Category Archives: Health

UNDECIDED

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February 24, 2020

TO DO OR NOT TO DO…

I read somewhere that this is to be the Year of Clarity. Usually the events of my life provide my own naming of the year — sometimes as prelude, sometimes as epilogue. But whomever floated this one out there for us — having a year of clarity for our nation, as well as for many of us in our individual lives is a welcome thought. I could use some clarity about a good many things; welcome rays of sunshine burning through my mind-fog even as the late winter sun is melting down the heaped up snowbanks.

Juxtapose this with Lake Superior Writers 2020 Writing Contest theme — Undecided. The first time I read the theme title I thought, well, I could write a piece titled To Keep or Not to Keep a Husband — Undecided. But since then he and I have had a month of counseling and some amazing dialogues and I can feel our hearts healing and so, well, I guess that title’s out because it appears I will be keeping him.

I’ve been casting about trying to hook a new title: To cheat or not to cheat on my diet; work on my book or clean the basement; repair the garden pond or fill it with dirt; repair the car the deer broke or give it to the insurance company; sign up for medicare or ignore them… Ahh, that one took the bait. I’ll reel it in, try that one out.

Medicare. I think it is a bloodsucking parasite masquerading as a good Samaritan. We’ve given them a percentage of our salaries for decades so that we would be taken care of in our retirement. We also paid a hefty percentage of our salaries for  health care insurance, whether we needed it or not. Whether we used it or not. And if we did, we had to pay more money for the privilege, especially if anything was actually wrong with us that cost a pile of pennies.

I just turned 65, whether I wanted to or not. And because I did, I now have to sign up for Medicare, whether I want to or not. I get the hospitalization part for free, except there is a deductible if I actually do go to the hospital. And, I have to stay there for a few days because I’m really sick or severely injured. If it’s just for observation, that doesn’t count even though the hospital charges just as much for either. Medicare won’t pay anything for “observation”. But, hey, it’s free because I paid them all that money for the past 49 years.

But then there’s this thing called Medicare Part B. I can sign up now for $144 a month. It will cover most of what any of my medical doctor visits cost — clinic visits, urgent care, medical exams. But, again, there are deductibles and co-pays just like my regular insurance. And a list of things they won’t cover. However, IF I continue to keep my current medical insurance plan, or get some other supplemental insurance plan which will probably cost me between $170 and $200+ a month, well THEN I’m covered completely. They will scratch each other’s backs and cover me — no deductibles, no co-pays. Of course, there will still be some things nobody will cover, and there will be rules about where I go and who I see and how many times a year. And of course, neither of them cover vision or dental or hearing — three things that typically are a big deal as we age even if the rest of our body is radiant and fit. I suppose that’s why they won’t cover them.

I went to the doctor twice last year. Once because of pain in my thumb that I was concerned was a fracture but turned out to be arthritis. The second time was my annual exam that I hadn’t had since 2016. They said I’m healthy and fit as a fiddle except for some osteoporosis in my hip. So, I’m now spending money on supplements to get more of the calcium and magnesium and Vitamin B and D that I need.  Of course my insurance won’t cover this.

The year before I didn’t go to the doctor at all.

The year prior to that I had a stroke and needed a device placed in my heart to block a tiny hole that was letting small blood clots through causing havoc in my brain. I was glad I had insurance but it still cost me several thousand out-of-pocket.

Most health care I seek out is alternative and so my insurance pays very little or nothing. I will continue to do so. So the insurance is really only there in case another flying deer tries to dance with my car, or I slip on some black ice at the top of the steps at city hall and end up in a broken heap at the bottom or I fall off my daughter’s horse and break my thin-boned osteo hip. So, I don’t want Medicare’s $144 a month Plan B. That’s $1728 per year. Last year it cost folks $135 a month. What will they raise it to next year? For my husband and I together that is $3456 a year in addition to what we currently pay for insurance which is roughly $5000 a year. We don’t have this kind of money. We both grew up middle class, but our current income rates at the poverty level.

So, simple, just say No. Right? Right??

Wrong. I mean, yes, I can say no. But then if I decide at some future date that I want to join up, they will punish me for not having signed up when I turned 65 and handed over my nearly $2000 a year. They will charge me an additional 10% of whatever the going rate is by that time for every year that I rejected them. So, if I decide at age 70, when I also sign up finally for my Social Security benefit of less than two grand a month, then I will have to pay an additional 50% of whatever the going rate is. If by some miracle it were still $144 a month, I’d have to pay $216 a month or $2592 a year. In addition to my supplemental insurance. Because unless I have both, I’ll also be paying deductibles and co-pays.

I could just walk away. Keep the health insurance I have. Pay my deductibles and co-pays like I always have. And hope I keep body and soul together until I’ve had enough and decide to leave this crazy, cracked, beautiful, wonderful world. I mean, if nothing goes wrong, I’ll save me a lot of money. Might even get out of debt and be able to go ride horses in the mountains or sail up the Alaskan Intercoastal Passage looking for whales. Or buy a RV and live the life of a vagabond.

I don’t know what to do.

I’m undecided.

GENTLENESS AND GRACE

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June 3, 2015

BECOMING GRACE; LEARNING GENTLENESS

I did it! I completed my 21 day detoxification program! The program required I abstain from eating foods; all nutrition was juiced, or made into healthy, cleansing pureed soups. There were also supplements to take. I stayed nourished and energized, but my body was allowed to focus it’s energy on eliminating built up stores of toxins, and to rest and heal. There were detoxing baths, lymphatic drainage massages, connective tissue healing massages, kidney flushes, a liver flush, colon flushes (colonics)…  It was intense. I went through two healing crisis where I was down for the count for a day; and a few days of lowered energy. Otherwise I felt good. I lost about 15 pounds. I learned a lot.

Because the program encourages ending with a liver/gallbladder flush, my colonics therapist lent me the book, The Liver and Gallbladder Miracle Cleanse: An All-Natural, At-Home Flush to Purify and Rejuvenate Your Body by Andreas Moritz as it contained much more extensive information and better directions for doing the flush. Previously I knew very little about the functions of the liver. Reading her book I was astounded! Thinking like so many, that my liver is just fine and dandy unless I develop obvious symptoms of difficulty or disease, I had no idea how many small “hints” my body already is showing of a congested and unhappy liver. Having known people who have had gallbladder surgery and witnessed their pain, I did not suspect that I might be carrying around a load of liver stones of my own. I was. It was remarkable to experience passing (painlessly) literally dozens. According to the book, after the initial flush, one should do a liver flush once a month until no more stones are passed. I’m going to take this very seriously after witnessing what I was already holding and just how incredibly important it is to have a healthy liver!

I also learned a great deal more about colon health. I have paid only minimal attention to these two major organs in my body. But I now realize that they are the two organs most directly linked to our health; the cradle where disease is first spawned, and most linked to the negative aspects of aging. I learned that nearly all other organs and functions and systems in our body depend on these two organs to keep the rest of them functioning and healthy.

I think the thing I appreciate the most about my experience, though, is how much more connected I feel towards my own body-self. I feel kinder, gentler, more compassionate toward mySelf. I feel gratitude toward my body and it’s incredible wisdom and what it allows me to experience and do. I feel contrite at how much I’ve taken it for granted and how I’ve abused and warred against mySelf all these years. This first came forcefully to my attention early on in the program after my 2nd colonic. Determined to make this detox work, I was militantly going to make sure I got all the toxic garbage out of me. Directed to massage my abdomen during the colonic, I aggressively kneaded my colon and went 30 minutes longer than the average colonic. Afterwards, instead of losing weight, I gained two pounds. By that afternoon I was quite ill. The next day I could barely make it to my lymph massage. My therapist is a very wise, intuitive woman. After listening to me she told me that those extra 2 pounds of water had been reabsorbed into my system along with probably a lot of toxins–hence being so sick. She said, “Mary, you were to GENTLY massage…more like just laying your hand on your abdomen to encourage release. The idea is to relax and release.”

I realized then how difficult that has always been for me; to allow my body to do its work rather than beat it into submission. I wasn’t very good at listening and learning when not well. Instead I would be angry and feel betrayed by my body. It is time to call an arms truce and make war no more; to allow the flow of Life in and through me and all around me. To simply let go…  To enjoy who I am and be gentle and merciful and compassionate. I realize how much easier it will then be to be kind and gentle with others.

In her book The Call, Oriah Mountain Dreamer proposes that each of us have come to this Life to learn and then to teach (because after all, we can’t exactly teach something we haven’t learned or experienced, can we?) one primary attribute–one that can be summed up in just one word. Years ago as I read her account I had only to think for a moment and I knew immediately that my special word is Grace. This became a central theme in my personal journey.

GRACE: Favor or goodwill (kindness, kindliness, love); forgiveness, mercy, pardon; gentleness; elegance or beauty of form, manner, motion or action.

First to learn, then to teach; but I have also learned that the most grace-filled teaching is that which is done simply through living out what we believe.

In Native American tradition, the energy (medicine) of the Deer is Gentleness and grace. Where I live there are a lot of deer in the neighborhood. Often they wander through my yard, and occasionally when I walk in the woods in the hills above my house I will come across a few; sometimes I have even walked unwittingly into the midst of an entire herd of 20, 30 or more. It amuses me that too many times to be a coincidence, deer will walk into my space on a day when I need a gentle reminder to be gentle, to be kind, to be grace.

Now and then some light breaks through regarding having that grace for mySelf. Going through this Detox program was such a time. It was a pivotal lesson. I feel differently toward mySelf and my body. I will care for mySelf in a way I haven’t done before, and I will accept what and who I am with myIMG_7349 glory and my limitations, my beauty and my wrinkles, my strength and my weakness, my successes and my failings, my growth and my ripening.

I am becoming Grace.

And, beginning today, I get to re-introduce myself to chewing real food! Today I made a salad. It was delicious! Tomorrow I get to also have fruit! A mango! An organic grapefruit! And Sunday I get to grill myself a piece of salmon! Oh joy!

You know what though? Chewing salad is a lot of work!

CREATING A NEW WINESKIN

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May 5, 2015
(I wrote this 3 weeks ago while traveling to Chicago on the Megabus. I thought I had posted it. Today I began a new post and then realized that I had NOT posted this from 3 weeks ago! Eeeek!)

NEW WINE INTO NEW WINESKINS

My husband and I are preparing to embark on an exciting, but no doubt difficult adventure. We are going to do a 21 day Intense Detoxification program that includes a nutritional component of very healthy green juices, herbal cleansing teas and soups; body work to aid in eliminating the toxic waste that has accumulated and gotten stuck in the organs and tissue of our bodies, and self-care through walking, resting, meditation, stretching, detoxification baths and so on. It’s not difficult once you piece the information together and line it all up on a calendar, but that has taken some research and work to accomplish. Of course, then there is the doing of it.

Fortunately for us we have been making changes in our diet and lifestyle over the years, so we don’t anticipate that it will be traumatic, nor that we will have to radically change anything once we have completed the 21 days of detoxing and reintegrated into normal eating habits. There will be a few minor adjustments to our diet where we have grown lazy, or where we may notice sensitivities that weren’t apparent in our customary day to day diet. Also, and maybe because of those changes we made over the years, although we are having some difficulties, we are not in the midst of a scary health crisis. I don’t wish to wait until that point.

I have been frustrated with the health issues that I have been developing over the last few years; issues that regularly get blamed on the aging process. Screw that! From what I have read and what makes sense to me is that the reason we experience these things as we age is because our body is wearing out from too many years of overloaded systems. Bodies, like houses and cars and tools, if ill-cared for, or subjected to environments and forces that are difficult to “weather”, will wear out and deteriorate faster than those well cared for and maintained and kept in optimal condition.

With our stress saturated lives and all the unnatural things in our soil, our water, our air and our food it would be difficult to maintain a toxic free body even if our lifestyle and diet deserved an A+ for health consciousness. Recently I began to study more about the symptoms of toxicity in the body, and what to do about it. I am “textbook”. What I am reading and observing in the people around me is that indeed, much of what we attribute to aging is about bodies loaded with natural and unnatural  toxins that it can no longer deal with. Eating “better”, or exercising more by themselves aren’t going to do it. If they could, I would be in much better condition than I am. So I’m going to do something about it. I told someone when I was turning 50 that I refused to “get old”. “Not gonna do it,” I said. Now I’m 60. Still not gonna do it. At least not in the traditional way and just gradually wear away. Or rapidly wear out.

As I was preparing my lists and calendar and reflecting on the benefits I expect to experience from this detox program I thought of a proverb that I am familiar with; “No one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.” (New Testament). Old wineskins have been stretched to the limit as wine fermented inside them and then dried and became brittle. Reusing them would risk causing them to burst from the pressure of the fermentation process of the new wine.

Perhaps this is a bit of a stretch, but it made me think about how often we do this sort of thing–we try to improve a situation without first attending to the underlying cause of the difficulty–digging out the roots, cleaning it up, repairing the foundations.  We “look for love in all the wrong places” because we don’t know how to love ourselves, or are unwilling to do so. We look to the approval and rewards that others will give us to bolster our self-worth without believing in ourselves–so our sense of worthiness is fleeting and can evaporate quickly. We might go buy new clothes to feel better about ourselves, but without attending to the body we are putting them on. It’s like getting all new furniture without cleaning the house. Putting perfume on without taking a bath. Like the ruptured wineskin, the new situation or relationship or purchase is spoiled because we haven’t attended to the underlying issue that is problematic. We haven’t prepared a new wineskin.

I realized that my bafflement with why I would still have some of the health issues I do when I have done so much to improve my diet, my exercise, my attitudes and thinking was directly related to not having helped my body clear out the garbage left from years of bad habits, poor food choices, chronic stress, anxiety, negative thinking, etc. Having developed congestion in body organs sometime past, they can no longer do their job efficiently or thoroughly, and so the toxic waste of my cells, along with the toxins introduced into the body, accumulate and begin slowly to wreak havoc. Despite the positive changes, my body cannot adequately deal with what has fallen into disrepair, and the hidden stores of toxic waste. I have made new wine, but my body can’t utilize it efficiently until I clear away all this old stuff, creating a new wineskin, of sorts.

Truly we are fearfully and wonderfully made! I am amazed to realize that our bodies have, in a sense, the same service functions we see played out in the world around us. Plumbing systems, garbage collection systems, super highways that all these cell workers travel on to take care of the business of keeping our bodies functioning at as optimal a level of health and well being as possible. And like those systems out in the world around us, they can develop blockages and traffic jams. Consider what happens to a city if the garbage collection system goes offline or the dump site is full and overflowing! If the superhighway gets congested and the emergency vehicles can’t get through, what then? If the sewer system backs up?

I am learning another level of what it means to love and care for mySelf, honor mySelf–this body that is the house where my eternal, divine spirit dwells. I like to think about the intelligence of these cells in my body, how they have specific purpose and yet somewhat a life of their own, too…choosing at times to do things that are not in the best interests of my body as a whole; or playing the hero and going above and beyond their job description to keep me going. I think about how these cells are me, and I am part of them, and yet, we are also separate. And then I think about being a cell in the body of the Creator, and the Creator being part of me, we are combined together. And I think about the Universe…maybe it is a cell in the great body of an even greater Creator…  how far does it go? Infinity…