POW

I'm a prisoner of war.

I was caught unexpectedly - at an innocuous enough place but it turned out to be a trap. Now I'm slowly being tortured. All day there is a pin in my back and in my chest underneath my breast - I can't remove it and it aches. At random times it digs deeper, 'how do they do that?'. They make it worse by letting me have "normal" days - I can work, I can play and I forget...then they will press hard on my lungs causing me to cough, lose my breathe, gag. They love working at night, while I try to sleep. No position is too comfortable either the pain will be gone and the coughing and phlegm back or the coughing is gone but the pain is back. I have to make a decision - in which position can I sleep better? The answer is none. They know this. There are no other prisoners in my prison - no sounds of others being put through this same torture. But when I work, in the distance I see others, they are being freed...when will that be me?

This was a bad week. The pain has come back and woke me up Tuesday night, I ended up driving around DC sleepy and in pain. I thought, maybe if my life were threatened I'd want to beat this more and not give in, not beg for this to be over. I spoke to my therapist about it and she said even people who really want to live wouldn't have made as many lifestyle changes as I have in the past 3 weeks so I guess the bad neighborhood idea isn't useful. Bad neighborhoods in DC are hard to find these days anyway.


Ups - This week was mostly downs but ups are
1. Dodgeball, the happy pill. I wish I had more things like this in my life or I could figure out how to harness my concentration in the same way to be able to forget the breathing, forget the pain.
2. I sent out an email for my friends to help and don't feel so in it by myself
3. The nutritionist, who is so positive that I'll get better. Where is she when I'm getting stabbed in the chest at 3 am?
4. I'm still able to do this diet thing, which is pretty impressive for someone who's never changed their diet ever
5. Prayers for World Peace sunday morning - I realize I need to go to more Buddhist events because they make me feel better.

Wednesday morning I went to acupuncture (thank goodness I had the prethought to schedule 2 sessions this week). When the needles are in, all the pain is gone and I can get a real sleep. I wish he could just come to my house right before bed, put the needles in and then take them out the next morning. After seeing him I took the day off and laid in the exact same position as I do when I'm there, hoping to channel that enough so I could go to sleep. It worked pretty well.
The Ulman Fund sponsored or told us about a pre-screening of the movie 50/50 about this young guy (well, about my age) diagnosed with cancer and given a 50 50 chance. It was good, I could relate. The Dali Lama was in town so afterwards Bob helped me try to find Stupa ear rings...after looking in all the booths, they probably just don't make them.

Today I went to the nutritionist who for homework wanted me to think of a mantra... on the other hand my therapist wanted me to think of something positive to come from the coughing and pain - the team tibet (puffler, me and lung) and turning into a Buddha apparently wasn't a good mantra ( it does work OK for when I'm in pain though)

So I'm still working on the mantra, she says it doesn't have to be something I believe right now but something I say until I believe it. This sounds logical to me.

Speaking of logic - doesn't puffler know that if he grows too much he'll kill both of us?He's not a very smart parasite, why can't we work together? Why can't we live together?

The medicine is kicking in now. 'Night