In a conversation with a friend of mine last week, I realized she had the conventional belief system about health, and that therefore her health probably would not rise to be better than her expectations. She would need several different kinds of medicines and treatments to maintain a reasonable level of health, and the whole medical establishment to provide those treatments. There are some changes she can make for herself, but mainly, in her belief, her health depends on others.

She knows, for instance, that knees and hips wear out and have to be replaced. She knows that genetics is extremely determinant in what diseases we get, who we are and what we can do. She pretty much feels, with most of the country, that without the medical system, we all would be sick much of the time. And as we age, we can expect to be sicker.

I am just not able to be there. My belief is that my health largely depends on my choices and behaviors, not those of others. And I don’t actually believe in the benevolence of the medical system. It exists to serve itself – to employ folks who feel a need to be useful to others, to work hard at research into more and more arcane possibilities, to pat people on the head and say – ‘If you do this we can save you’ or, later, ‘I am sorry, there is nothing more we can do, and here is what you are facing.’

And, largely, when life has been spent eating American food while couch potatoing, the only thing that can be done is to make a radical change at that end – what we eat, what we talk about, how we move, what we think, how we provide love and nourishment to our bodies and minds. Often too late to make those moves, but they can make the end better.

In my belief / experience system, I find that eating low on the food chain, and the cleanest food possible, is the best medicine. Moving around – yoga, walking, running, standing while working – not only brings joy / mood elevation – but keeps the body happy and limber as well. My medicine is vitamins, especially the Bs and C, herbs, spices like turmeric. I consult Prescription for Nutritional Healing and Heal Your Body for ideas and possibilities, and then pay attention when my intuition nudges me one way or another.

But mainly and importantly, I look at the out-of-balance symptom my body is presenting, and walk meditatively with it, asking what it is trying to tell / teach me, what lesson is there for me to learn. I don’t argue with that symptom, or try to ignore it (usually) – I accept it, pay attention to it, learn more about it, and what various resources tell me about it – including google and perhaps wiki.

I am careful not to adopt it, name it as part of my self-definition, make it a permanent part of myself. I visualize my life totally without whatever the symptom, and smile at those images. I love myself in any case, and appreciate my body – its strength, its beauty – and affirm those qualities. My self-care includes putting myself first on my priority list, giving myself treats and presents, making myself happy – often by helping and giving to others, of course, because there is such joy in that.

Health is much more in our hands than we often believe. Trusting ourselves, staying calm and peaceful, using medical and spiritual resources as needed, moving along step by step, we can get better and stay better. And always have more fun!

The Travails of My Oldest Son Danny

On Mother?s Day, May 8, 2016, son Danny called me from his car, as he and his wife were driving to downtown DC to a concert by the Danish group, Lukas Graham. Danny?s wife, Donna, had won the tickets, and they were to have their pictures taken with the band before the concert. We talked most of the way through the drive, then while driving around the venue to get the lay of the land and see the size of the crowd, and then through the process of finding a parking place. A fun conversation, with Dan saying at the end, as always ? ByeI Love You, running it all together.

The next Sunday morning, the 15th, I woke at 6 a m with a dream in my head that I titled Trekking in Nepal ? to get to safety. A very strange dream ? Many, many people walking into the mountains in Nepal. Men, women and children walking along trails, carrying nothing. Nepali volunteers at the trailheads, giving people a meal before they start. Then walking ? some of the trail is good, some is treacherous. Mostly green, beautiful ? but we are walking away from something not good. If you are not up and moving early, you can miss the meal. I am walking with a group of people I know. That night, I set out a glass to catch a liquid / the dew? It rains overnight. The glass has caught the brown liquid, but the rain has diluted and overflowed the glass. And I slept too late and missed the food.

I was totally puzzled, had no sense at all of the meaning. But Nepal is a wonderful home place for me, and I have missed it since my only trip there years ago.

My friend Ed Kluska, an astrologer who also teaches meditation, had announced a Theta heart meditation class for 1:30 to 2:15 p m that afternoon. At just about 1 pm, I decided to give myself a welcome break and attend. I left there, feeling very much in the flow of the Universe, stopping at Clifton Natural Foods on the way home.

And just about the time I walked back into my condo here in Cincinnati, a young woman in Washington, D. C. ran her car into my beautiful son Danny on his motorcycle, not paying any attention on that beautiful and clear and dry Sunday afternoon, and not seeing him at all.

Danny had a great state of the art helmet, and thus no brain injury. Plus the wreck was half a block from a fire station, so EMTs were on the scene in minutes, and Prince Georges Hospital was very close. Danny was unconscious, with a smashed pelvis, nearly destroyed left leg, and major road rash ? which is what the damage is called when skin slides over the road at a high rate of speed. Lots of other smaller injuries showed up over time ? a lacerated bladder, and kidney stress among them.

Danny had major surgeries on Monday, for the pelvis and for the left leg, which had a number of breaks. We family members here in Cincinnati heard about the wreck on Monday morning. By Tuesday evening, we ? me, my ex and our two other sons – were flying to DC. At that point, Danny was in a medically induced coma.

We spent the next seven days mostly in the waiting room of the Intensive Care Unit of Prince Georges Hospital in Hyattsville, Maryland. Danny?s medically induced coma ended on Wednesday or Thursday. But not his own personal coma, which continues. Though on Tuesday, May 31, he opened his eyes briefly, responding to his brother-in-law and his father. We were rejoicing. Then nothing more. Friday June 3, he had what hopefully will be the last surgery on his left leg. Today, Sunday, June 5, he had his eyes open and appeared to track people in the room. So we may be on the road to recovery at last.

His physical body has and is healing fast. It is amazing, though, how that fades from importance, awful as his injuries were, with this continuing coma. Most days, there has been no step forward. Now for the last several days, there has been a small step forward, and then a retreat back into the coma.

Hopefully, this week, the path to healing will solidify, so that we can see our Danny returning.

Back to planning my next steps….

I think I’ve just written my basic manifesto, in the previous post. Likely the system would think I should write the appeal letter – except that I can’t really check off any of the boxes that are my only choices.

I could also call Humana and / or Medicare. The problem would be to get past the gatekeepers. Talking to someone from Idaha or India about this, who has no authority and no knowledge might just annoy us both. I may do that, just to search beyond the gatekeepers.

But I already made an effort at that when I was signing up for this Humana plan – that’s where I got the 30 cents info. There seems to be a heavy lid on the customer service reps, who are very nice, but have no real information, though they did seem able to hear and understand my questions, and felt I was being reasonable.

I certainly don’t want to go to my Republican Congressional Representatives – they will be eager to find evidence that Medicare is awful, dreadful and very, very bad.

So I woke up this morning thinking that I probably know some folks in Senator Sherrod Brown’s office, or failing that, I certainly know a lot of folk who know him, who could get me to the right person in his office. Since all the federal agencies have as their top priority responding to Congressional reqests, Sherrod’s right person can take my request to the correct location.

This is not a ‘religious’ exemption, per se. Just my personal understandings, knowledge and beliefs. And the fact that I will not take one of their $1,300 pills, or $100,000 treatments.

I know from the work that I do with friends and neighbors that we can unravel an illness, work toward understanding and releasing it, and start becoming well again. It is not difficult, or scary, or expensive. It requires some body, mind and spirit adjustments on the part of the heal-ee, all of which result in a better life and better energy. And it takes way less time than those trips to the doctor and the hospital.

So now I am considering my next steps. First a letter explaining my long term status as a conscientious objector to drugs, since somewhere in the early 80s. It was certainly permanent by the time I became a Reiki healer in 1987 – First Degree in the spring, Second Degree in the fall, and Reiki Master Teacher 10 years later.

To me, drugs have such potent and very often awful side effects. and there are lower level, more natural products that will heal more quickly, more easily, more cheaply. For every kind of illness. And, of course, my work and my own experience have taught me about the strength of the mind/body/spirit connection.

For instance, with my dizziness last week, and the remedies I used, none of which have side effects or disturbed my body’s efforts to heal itself.

A year or so ago, I considered what I would do if diagnosed with cancer, or any other life threatening malady. I would simply step up what I do now. I would ask friends to come and do Reiki, perhaps every day. I would go to an organic and likely totally raw diet, including wheat grass juice. I would use my friend Carolyn’s affirmation when she cured herself of a brain tumor, changing just one word. Carolyn said, each morning, looking in her bathroom mirror – ‘The God who made the sun come up this morning can take this away just like that!’ And she snapped her fingers. I would say Universe, maybe Goddess, maybe Spirit.

I rely on miracles every day, and I know what the Universe is capable of. I also, of course, am ready to leave this beautiful planet when it is time, in peace and joy, and walk Home.

Nothing to fear, which I also know, since I talk to folk on the other side. They are all busy and happy, by the way, and they’ll be glad to talk to you and help whenever you ask. I’m talking about your grandparents, for instance, or friends who’ve already made the journey.

So I’ve been on Medicare – the first time I’d had health care in 30 years – for about 10 years now. When I signed up for Social Security, that was part of the package. Actually, only Part A – since that was totally free.

Part B covered doctors, I think – at any rate, it was going to cost $100 a month, and I knew I wouldn’t go to a doctor. A few years ago, I realized a burden could possibly land on my kids, so I signed up for Part B. I never signed up for Part D, which is the prescription part of health care – I just simply am unable to believe in that kind of medicine, and won’t use drugs, though I will use what alternative folk call remedies – supplements, minerals, homeopathy.

A couple of years ago, after being bombarded with insurance companies all of October and November, I realized that many of these companies were offering some dental and vision care – one cleaning a year, new glasses. And started to sign up, until being told by Anthem that I would have to pay a penalty monthly for not having had prescription coverage all those years. And they would not estimate how much. So I canceled it. Then last year, I talked to Humana, and signed up, after being told it was about 30 cents a month.

Turns out it is over $34 a month, a penalty for not using drugs, which I won’t use anyway. And the only way to appeal is to prove that actually I did have prescription coverage somewhere.

When my wrist broke during a fall in 2013, I walked into the Mercy facility talking about white willow bark, Rescue Remedy, and the fact that I didn’t use standard medicine.

So they never even offered me a pain pill, and didn’t write a prescription. I’m thinking a good term for how I feel about regular medicine is that I’m a conscientious objector.

I have had a terrific weekend – of course, I always do, since I always do what brings me joy! : >

But my stated goal for the weekend had been to finish outlining for my webguy exactly how I wanted my website updated. Yesterday, I had a massage early on, bought a cute new mouse for my computer, stopped at Cafe DeSales for breakfast and to do some Reiki on my friend Jai.

Came home intending to start on the website, and then distracted myself with a Valentine’s jigsaw puzzle – 1,000 pieces of cupcakes, candy, mousse, cookies, etc, etc, etc. And forgot I had scheduled a client for 1 p m – so was a bit surprised when she walked in. After that, I actually organized the web stuff into piles, and recycled lots of ancient pieces of paper from that pile.

Got up this morning with a real readiness to make gypsy soup, one of my personal all-time favorites, from The Moosewood Cookbook by Molly Katzen. If you ever ate at Myra’s Dionysus,that’s the cookbook Myra used most, and gypsy was often on the menu. It takes a while, and lots of ingredients – and is so rich and warming. Plus I made two big pots, so it will last a bit.

A friend of mine called and asked me to work on his son’s knee, the puzzle was still calling, as was the laundry, I organized some paperwork for one of my sons – and thought about the website.

I’m intending that I will wake up totally energized, with my brain having sorted out all the website details, and that I’ll get it done before I leave for the office in the morning.

Of course, I’ll have to read Paul Krugman in the New York Times first, since it’s Monday. It’s a great life!