Hiding behind

I started to write a long essay yesterday that is still sitting there waiting for me to revisit about where I fit in in this world. I don't know and I am still pondering all that I saw yesterday and all that I felt but today someone I love made a comment to me that I seem well. I had to sit and think about that as the reality is far from that but I have managed to pull of that perception ... I have managed to put on that mask.

WE wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes-
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile
And mouth with myriad subtleties,
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

Paul Laurence Dunbar

"Oh it is so far from the truth in that it becomes the truth. We are born naked and fully unaware into this world and learn from others reactions. We are constantly provided with a list of things that we are not to do or are 'bad'. Thus we conclude that we are bad. We therefore determine and learn to hold negative beliefs of ourselves. This is the first level of the mask that so many of us wear. We don't want others to see this of us and we put on our faces and outward appearance so that they, the outside world, will not know that we live in fear of being a bad person.

Then as we age we try on different masks for different reasons and determine what works for us ... the happy one, the studious one, the know it all, the jock, the geek, the punk ... and we cover ourselves up with so many layers of masks that we live in a new fear of being exposed. In the business world we find a whole different world of masks to layer over the top of each other as we create a persona that fits us in.

It beats us down over time and sometimes we just let it all go. We may meet someone who does not know us and we decide to let them see the real person under all those heavy robes and mantles we are carrying." (me)

This was the crux of the one part of many a church retreat in high school and college that I would host. I would talk about the masks that we lived behind. I had this one down pat. I could wheel and deal you out of your masks and give you a moment to just be you. The real you. I knew that once you left you would bottle it all up and become the you behind the mask but for a moment, for just one moment that awareness of you being you was real.

I was good at this but I am also great at covering up the underlying me. The scared, lonely, confused, heartbroken, lost and totally sad me. Obviously I have done this well in the world of social media. I know that those close to me, who can see and touch me, are aware of more. They can see through the cracks in my masks. Those on the phone can tell something is amiss by my voice but cannot put a finger on it.

But how much of that mask that I am putting on is a portrayal of the hope I have that there can be more for me in this world. That somewhere I do fit into this puzzle called life. That I can have hope that I do not have to be lonely for the rest of my life. Or can we create so many masks in life that we don't really know where the real us is under so many layers of a reality we create.

Here in the words I can be more me than I can in person, that I do know. I am such an empathic person and have too many emotions when I try to break down the reality to others in person. Thus here I let people get peeks into who I am. Right now I am wounded and that wound runs deep into my psyche. I could not spend enough time on that trying to figure out where it ends and where to begin the healing so I close it up. That does not heal me and overall it hampers me. But right now that is the existence that I must live in. I have to find a way to try and make it through the day to day grind. I have to find the energy to get out of the house and not hide away with loneliness as my constant companion.

So I try each and every day.

I get up and find a smile to put on my face. I go through some tasks that are routine and others that change. I give thanks for the breath I have and then look for the strength to move through the motions of eating, cleaning, washing clothes and such before heading to work do deal with the world outside. It is a challenging task some days but most days I make it without incident.

I have to find ways to change that. I have to find ways to heal myself. So tomorrow, Monday the 25th of October I begin the Induction phase of a lifestyle change. I cannot go on like this and this is the repair part of me. Through the haze of this week I have worked hard on reading a large textbook about change and repair even though apathy often wanted me to curl up and ignore the world. The change hearkens back to what my nutritionist had me on after the stroke and what I have drifted away from.

With this change I begin to truly move to the next level of healing the physical me. I am hopeful that as I heal the physical me I will in turn begin to heal the broken man, the broken child inside of me.

I thank my family and friends for being a constant reminder through the past couple of weeks and I know that I will continue to need you more as I move into the new phase of me.

I am not fine. I am not even close to being there now. I do not mean to deceive but I need to see the me that I hope to become and thus the masks will be part of me as I heal. Don't be afraid to ask as you know that I have always said it like it is when people have truly meant that they want to know, rather than the superficial.

Thank you.

Cardiologist

So yesterday morning, at like the edge of the witching hour in the morning, I remembered that Sarah had called me at work (the end of last week) and said Dr. Malik had called her to let me know that my appointment had been moved to Tuesday morning. I never wrote that down so I am shocked at 2 in the morning I woke up and remembered. Although I thought 10:30 ... showed up at 9:55 and it was supposed to be 9:30. OOPS!

Had no idea why my heart doctor needed me there and neither did they. Eventually after much prodding and probing into the books we determined that it was just the annual follow up. Hmmm have catheters and what not shoved in arteries, scoping out right ventricles and atrium, checking the passageways trying to find a PFO that contributed to the strokes, never to be found and guess what you have a specialist in your world for life. Yippee.

EKG was done with some really cool sticky things that actually had a little tab on them so when my nurse was done she just pulled that tab and they released. She did not have to shave parts of my torso - thank God cos that ends up itching like the dickens and I really do not want to be scratching the torso at Tammy's family reunion when lots of these people will be meeting me for the first time (oh the pressure of that but I am not going there ... yet). But that was so cool.

So EKG showed that I am still an abnormal but normal person. Essentially the same abnormalities in my readings that have existed over a few but show nothing abnormal in the operation of my heart are just all the same as they have been and will be. Huh? Yeah that is what I think.

Heart sounds - okie dokie.
Lung sounds - okie dokie.
Artery sounds - okie duh dokie.
Extremity blood flow - peachy. (hmmm never thought of red blood as peachy but OK)

So I check out. Continue to lose weight, exercise, control cholestrol and get a stress test. I look at him and say "I work - is that not enough" Just kidding doc I have had those and I know. See you in a year.

Well that was nice. I think. Then again I assumed that my heart was still beating as I am still here. :)

Awareness

Overdoing it.

It is a real possibility. It happens. In moving forward in a direction we sometimes become so wrapped up in that direction we ignore a warning sign here or there.

Then the trapdoor falls out from beneath us and we spiral into a downward fall of agony and pain. Too much to soon becomes a crutch. Too much to soon becomes a wheelchair. Too much too soon becomes a reason to curl up and run away from the direction of repair.

Overdoing it.

It is a possibility that we all face and walk into. It happens. But moving forward is always a risk that has to be taken. For in forward movement we see opportunity and life.

So what if the trapdoor opens and we find a discomfort. We slow down, we adjust, we adapt and then we continue forward. Slow and constant becomes our motto. Slow and constant...remember the tortoise and the hare? Slow and constant is a reason to continue the repair, continue learning and grab a hold of life coming at us.

Overdoing it.

Happens.

Adjust. adapt, go slow, be constant, take care, strive ahead, be gentle, be strong.

Overdoing it.

Is ego. But that is OK. Embrace it when it happens. Talk to it, cherish the awareness of new sensations, learn from what caused it and live for another opportunity to learn from this.

Just don't stop repairing, don't stop learning and please do not stop living!

Time to Repair!!!

Today was really an information gathering session. Dr. Malik is one of the junior partners at the Heart Center of North Texas and really good at what he does. I found out from Cynthia (his nurse for 22 years) that he is booked through December of this year and most of next year is filling up. They fly in from other states and one of his specialties is closing PFO’s.

But the discussions he and I had were intense. Some things became clear to me. I had been reading about this but it was not as clear as he made it. We all develop little clots and such when we bruise or hurt our body. These clots are little and travel through the venous system, the blood going back to the heart. This enters the right chambers and is then pushed through the lungs. This serves two purposes. One is to apply the necessary oxygen to the hemoglobin in the red blood cells. The other is the lungs act as a filter. The filter the dust and such that we breathe in and they filter these little blood clots. The clean air returns to the left chambers of the heart where it travels out to supply the body and brain with oxygen.

Now a PFO that does not close after birth sits there as a little potential short cut from the right side to the left side of the heart bypassing the lungs. This can happen when we sneeze, when we cough, when we strain while sitting on the loo and what I just found out…when we have sleep apnea.

When I stop breathing at night my heart jumps when my body is forced to wake up and take a deep breath. This is the prime opportunity for that clot to move over from one side to the other. Then a TIA or stroke occurs.

I found him to be a very knowledgeable man speaking on both a high intellectual level and knowing that I was understanding this, then also dropping into layman’s terms easily when he could tell I was struggling with a concept.

He was rather interested in how the stroke happened, what symptoms I had and then did some physical examination and had me do some tests that seemed to be more neurological. The first things he said after the examination was that my breath and heart sounds were good. That my neurological disorders were still a little off but mostly normal, that I probably was having issues with numbers, that I was probably still having issues getting the message across and was jumbling up sentences. Sorry but WTF.

I have not really discussed with many that my brother is dealing with my finances as I just cannot deal with it. I had to ask the apartment manager how much my check needed to be written for as I cannot remember numbers. There were no sentences I had to write on the 8 pages of documentation I had to fill in and well he even knew that my short term memory was still a little off. Can I be Hurley here…Dude this guy was kinda creeping me out a little bit. But on the flip side I was impressed.

Good news is he believes that I will gain full functionality back as I am young. Then he dropped the bombshell on me that I have been skirting with avoiding. “Philip, you can keep taking the aggrenox for the rest of your life and not have the surgery but it is not a matter of if you will have another stroke it is a matter of when you will have another stroke if we confirm there is a hole in your heart.”

I know that is the case. I have not wanted to face that reality but it is true. So I have to make a decision. I have to make the decision. I have to make a decision about my life. I know there are lots of factors that have contributed to me being where I am today and most of them are of my own making. I did not take the weight off seriously. I procrastinated. I did not pursue the sleep apnea in Maui. I have made choices that I can change and work on now. I have time. But I cannot do anything about a hole between the right and left chambers of my heart and my body has already suffered. The organ that I need to live and live at the level of intelligence that I want to live at has suffered.

There is no one to make this decision for me. As terrified as I am of having someone invade my heart the prospect without this invasion is just as chilling.

I have to make a decision.

TEE is on the 11th – I go in at 9 and the process starts at 11 am.

Closing the hole in my heart (if the TEE confirms that) is scheduled for the 19th. I go in at 9 am, procedure at 11 – takes about 1-2 hours. Actual process is about 15 minutes long. I will be under anesthesia as they will have the ultrasound scope down my throat as well as going into my heart. I will stay overnight in the hospital and come home on the 20th.

I have made my decision. (my hand trembled when typing that last paragraph but my inner mind lets me know that it is right)

Plans change for the month of June but that is alright. We have to adjust as the world around us adjusts.

I have a direction and that direction is forward.

REPAIR, LEARN and most importantly LIVE

Why do I have to do that....

...that which is below.

Insulin resistance and the fact that my glucose level is 121 - supposed to be under 100 best to be 70 or so.

Insulin resistance can result in diabetes, high blood pressure, abnormal blood clotting, low HDL (36 - that is way low) and more.

Plus that is why I am obese. Time to change that huh. I think so.

Peace.

Why the food?

Well I am a big guy. I mean big. There are two big things that my neurologist wants me to do.

1. Lose weight.

2. Get my LDL below 100.

Only two things. I have fought with the battle of weight for some time. March 3rd was the heaviest I have ever been. 424 lbs. That is a lot for all of my body to deal with. I have gotten down to 300 lbs but this is ridiculous. I started making changes before then but on the 6th I looked at deaths door and then my worst fear was made real. I have to change it or I will die soon.

I have to repair myself - for myself, my family and friends. I will not go out this way. When I was weighed with my jeans on at the sleep clinic on April 3rd I was at 407 lbs. I have taken it down that much one month. I can do this. I will do this and I am grateful for the opportunity to do this.