REFLECTIONS ON GOING THROUGH A HURRICANE OF PAIN AFTER EYE SURGERY Part One
Having to face and mitigate days of waves of overwhelming pain after “routine” eye surgery is a major wake up call
THE DAWNING LIGHT, Volume 7, Issue Number 440
Sunday, September 3, 2023
Still Mountain Chronicles Section Number 29
Images Credit: Pixabay
REFLECTIONS ON GOING THROUGH A HURRICANE OF PAIN AFTER EYE SURGERY, Part One
Now that the storm of pain is passing, I can write about this major wake up call experience of having to face and mitigate overwhelming suffering after a “routine” eye surgery.
THREE DAYS OF RIDING WAVES ON A HURRICANE OF PAIN
Tonight I feel like I am being reborn after three days of being helplessly tossed and tumbled on stormy waves on the ocean of suffering by a hurricane of pain.
The howling winds and unrelenting levels of hurt that buffeted me after having surgery on my right eye are finally calming down and we seem to be passing out of the storm.
There were points during this storm when the pain I was experiencing was so far “off the charts”that it seemed truly more than I could bear.
Pain to that degree completely takes over our consciousness, and there is no place to get away from it. Its like being in the blazing sun with heat everywhere.
For myself, that is when I am most grateful for the spiritual training and practices that have been central to my life, because they lead me to my own inner ultimate refuge.
Image Credit: Pixabay
Times of such suffering and pain, raging seemingly beyond my control, show me the value and power of my daily prayer, meditation and kirtan practice…for these were the only tools I had that helped me endure and transform the experience from pointless suffering to profound dharma teaching.
Every serious illness or time of pain and suffering is a wake up call that I must take seriously by asking myself “what do I need to see, recognize and learn from this?”
I WAS SHOCKED BY THE RESULTS OF A “ROUTINE EYE EXAM”
A few months ago, my primary doctor sent me to an eye specialist for a “routine eye exam”, the first in at least forty years.
I was unconcerned because I believed my eyes were in good condition.
But when when the eye doctor first examined my eyes, it wasn’t long before he was calling out several findings of the issues that he was discovering in scientific jargon to the nurse taking notes.
After a thorough examination, the doctor told me both eyes were in far worse shape than I had believed.
The two main and most urgent conditions were that I have cataracts in both eyes, but more urgent was the fact that big bulging rope like growths called pterygiums had already crossed most of the white surface of my eyes and would soon cross over my cornea and pupils.
Image of a pterygium growing across cornea and pupil Credit: Eye Specialist Institute
These growths are so robust that they have tiny blood vessel running through them and had warped my eyeballs.
They are well entrenched and severe, having been growing slowly but surely since at least the 1980’s…caused by the twenty years I spent as a San Francisco Street Artist, working all day, every day on a broad white sidewalk on Fisherman’s Wharf that bounced sunlight up into my eyes and triggered the growths…
The doctor said that it would require a series of operations stretched out over many months to repair and restore my eyes.
If I chose not to have these surgeries, my eyes and sight would only get progressively worse until I could no longer see at all.
I said, “Of course we must do as you recommend.”
‘Will the surgery be painful?” I naively asked.
‘Yes…you may have some pain for a day or two,” he replied, “but we will give you medication to manage it.”
“You will not have any pain at all during the operation because we will numb your eye with local anathestic…” he continued, “We keep you awake so that you can follow directions to raise or lower your eye or look left or right during the operation.”
I looked up “pterygium surgery” in a medical reference website, and it said “you can expect he surgery to be both painless and have a speedy recovery…after only two days you should be able to go back to work with corrected vision…”
“Healing time after surgery depends …on how much tissue was removed, your personal health and healing ability…typically your eye is fully healed in about a month…”
Image Credit: Pixabay
I have never had my eyes operated on before, so I had no idea what would happen or to expect.
But since the surgeries are something we must do to save my precious sight, I realized that no matter what actually happened, the results were worth whatever I had to go through to achieve them.
I know that the best outcomes for any experience I go through can only be attained through a positive, loving and grateful attitude…so whenever I thought of the upcoming surgery in the two months of waiting for my appointment, I kept my thoughts and expectations cheerful and positive.
What I did not expect or even suspect was that I was about to go through one of the most intense gauntlets of pain and emotional turmoil of my life.
Here is a poem that I wrote in the wee hours of the morning, just before we drove down from Still Mountain to the next town for the surgery, from today’s Journey Of The Heart Section: “On Our Way To Having Surgery To Save The Precious Gift Of My Sight” by Chinmayan
This Story Continues in PART TWO in the next issue of “The Dawning light”
A BEAUTIFUL SONG ABOUT OVERCOMING THE HARD THINGS IN LIFE
“The Sun Will Rise Again” by Mellowdy
Calligraphy by Chinmayan
Image Credit: Still Mountain Meditation Center
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https://on.soundcloud.com/7i9tyCs5MMLoUY4R8
Today’s gospel reflection on suffering. Very profound and meaningful perspective. It seemed very appropriate for me to send