Tag Archives: grief

Keeping me awake at night

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Graphic: Human nervous system via Wikipedia

Human ner­vous system

I’ve known that I had periph­eral neu­ropa­thy since early 2010 when I checked in with a podi­a­trist about other issues. I saw my per­sonal doc­tor and he took a full bat­tery of blood tests to deter­mine if there was any­thing obvi­ous. The results ruled out any of the “bad things” (dia­betes, HIV/​AIDS, etc.). He did detect a vit­a­min D defi­ciency so he had me tak­ing mega dosages of vit­a­min D. Because the sup­ple­ment would not have imme­di­ate effect, I did not get back to him right away and then for­got about the problem.

How­ever, this year, I’ve noted a wors­en­ing of the symp­toms (pin pricks and numb­ness on my feet, espe­cially the left foot) to the point that it was keep­ing me from falling to sleep. Symp­toms seemed to flare up about 1:00 or 2:00 am. My home med­i­cine con­sisted of Aleve, restora­tive poses on my mat, using a ten­nis ball to stretch the sole of my foot, and apply­ing ice to the foot. I tried to do some of these things before going to bed. Results were incon­sis­tent, and I would usu­ally dose off when I was com­pletely exhausted. Some­times, I could pull myself together to go to work. Dur­ing the day, I would not notice the pin pricks because my shoes and socks applied a uni­form pres­sure that tended to lessen my sensitivity.

Since my father’s death in Jan­u­ary and accel­er­ated by my mother’s death in April, I’ve been liv­ing off reserves (don’t ask me to explain; I’m search­ing for a con­cept that doesn’t sound too “New Age-​​ish”). I attended yoga class in fits and starts, I did not make to the gym either, and each new begin­ning seemed to start from a more degraded sta­tus. Because I had to pri­or­i­tize my time and energy to take of my job respon­si­bil­i­ties and the set­tling of my par­ents’ estate, I have not been tak­ing care of myself as well as I should.

This sum­mer, I could feel that things were catch­ing up with me: just run together a string of nights with just 4-​​5 hours sleep each, and anyone’s per­for­mance suf­fers; and pain med­ica­tion and sleep­ing pills did not seem to have an effect. I finally went to my doc­tor again and we did another round of blood work, which revealed that I was in oth­er­wise good health.

The next step was to see a neu­rol­o­gist, who con­firmed the orig­i­nal diag­no­sis — the con­di­tion of idio­pathic periph­eral neu­ropa­thy — the “idio­pathic” means that the doc­tors don’t know what the cause is, and the “periph­eral” means that the con­di­tion is out­side the cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem (brain and spinal cord). The neu­rol­o­gist did not find any impair­ment (grip, bal­ance, coor­di­na­tion, etc.) aside from the pain, and because I can remem­ber the pin prick sen­sa­tion as far back as 12 years, it’s not some­thing of recent onset. He then ordered up an elec­tromyo­g­ra­phy and nerve con­duc­tion test — basi­cally elec­tro­cut­ing my feet, legs and arms for two hours and mea­sur­ing the speed of the periph­eral nerves. The results showed that the nerve cir­cuits in my feet and legs had a degraded capac­ity, but no clear cause was iden­ti­fied.  I was given a pre­scrip­tion of Gabapentin (a generic drug to treat epilepsy, but also effec­tive for neu­ro­pathic pain) and told to ramp up the dosage until it relieved my pain.

Con­clu­sion: After a three-​​week blitz, West­ern med­i­cine has deter­mined that what­ever the cause, the only option is to treat the symp­toms by help­ing me man­age the pain and to mon­i­tor my con­di­tion to see if it got worse. I could prob­a­bly con­sult some more spe­cial­ists or look for some obscure dis­ease (does Dr. House receive patients from DC?). I’ve con­sulted with my acupunc­tur­ist and he said that he could help with the pain and, per­haps, slow the neu­ropa­thy, but did not hold out much hope for revers­ing it. I am going to have to take own­er­ship of my pain and body, and learn to man­age both, which is a trial-​​and-​​error process.

Smith Center expanded facilities to have open house

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I was approached by the Smith Cen­ter for Heal­ing and the Arts to share with my read­ers an invi­ta­tion to attend their open house on Sep­tem­ber 24. I am not going to make it that day because I have a prior com­mit­ment, but I encour­age any one will­ing to test their hearts in the face of com­pas­sion to stop by the Smith Cen­ter at 1632 U Street, NW, Wash­ing­ton, DC 20009 (3 blocks from the U Street Metro):

From 11 am to 4 pm on Sat­ur­day, Sep­tem­ber 24, Smith Cen­ter for Heal­ing and the Arts will open the doors of our newly expanded and ren­o­vated U Street com­mu­nity cen­ter for an open house event – giv­ing the com­mu­nity the oppor­tu­nity to tour the new state-​​of-​​the-​​art teach­ing kitchen, pro­gram space, and tran­quil rooftop ter­race, and expanded Joan Hisaoka Art Gallery. Atten­dees will also be invited to take part in sam­ple work­shops and classes, view an art exhibit, and enjoy music and enter­tain­ment, refresh­ments, cook­ing demon­stra­tions, and give­aways through­out the day.

The open­ing event will high­light Smith Center’s legacy of offer­ing time-​​tested inte­gra­tive care pro­grams and resources for peo­ple with can­cer, and intro­duce a vari­ety of excit­ing new health and well­ness pro­grams and classes for the local com­mu­nity at large. Atten­dees will get a sneak peak into some of our newest pro­grams, includ­ing nutri­tion and cook­ing classes, cre­ativ­ity work­shops, health and whole­ness lec­tures, yoga and stress reduc­tion classes, and more.

I lost my brother to lung can­cer three years ago and my mother to the sequela of breast can­cer in April so I need no prod­ding to back the Center’s work of can­cer sup­port, cre­ativ­ity and com­mu­nity building.

Taking stock of the grieving process

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At my work, things have been pretty hec­tic all year, with meet­ings, reports, res­o­lu­tions, fund­ing pro­pos­als, assorted urgent mat­ters, polit­i­cal nego­ti­a­tions and bureau­cratic rou­tines, and it’s been hard han­dling every­thing while try­ing to process my par­ents’ deaths. Those losses bring per­sonal pain. But this sea­son has also offered open­ings for car­ing and con­sid­er­a­tion from rel­a­tives, friends and com­mu­nity. I’ve been blessed to have a com­pas­sion­ate group of col­leagues at my work­place. They sent beau­ti­ful flo­ral arrange­ments to both memo­r­ial ser­vices and a sur­pris­ing num­ber showed up for the ser­vices, even though they were in the mid­dle of the work week. Oth­ers could not break away from work to get to the ser­vices, but there were always pesames y abra­zos that went beyond mere for­mal­i­ties or cour­tesy: you can tell when peo­ple are really sincere.

I also received mes­sages from read­ers of this blog who also extended their con­do­lences, and I appre­ci­ate their concern.

In a way, the fever­ish pace of work meant that I didn’t spend a lot of time rumi­nat­ing on how much I miss my par­ents, the imper­ma­nence of life or human suf­fer­ing. The clear goals and tasks gave me pre­cise pri­or­i­ties and mile­stones. I actu­ally sur­prised myself with how well I per­formed over past six months.

Shortly after my par­ents’ inter­ment, I under­went an emo­tional shift as the work pace slacked off, my wife vis­ited her aging mother in Peru, and I had to grap­ple with the dense details of wrap­ping up my par­ents’ estate. It was time to grieve. It takes a while to rec­og­nize that change, and that’s when yoga, pranayama, medi­a­tion and mind­ful­ness come in hand. It also helps to have fam­ily and friends to turn to.

My parents’ interment

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Photo: wedding portrait of Lynn and Lorraine Smith - 1947

June 8 1947 - Wed­ding portrait

Today hap­pens to be my par­ents’ wed­ding anniver­sary, June 8, 1947. For the next six decades, they were insep­a­ra­ble, soul mates (the over-​​used cliche that’s appro­pri­ate in their case). My dad’s biggest con­cern in his final years was that he would last long enough to take care of her to the end. With his final words to us, he extracted a promise from my sis­ter Judy and me that we could take care of Mom. My mother’s biggest con­cern was that she did not want to be a bur­den to us and she longed to be reunited with her hus­band. Well, she died three months later, resolv­ing that oath.

 

In a sim­ple wooden case, their ashes are sur­pris­ingly heavy, as is my sor­row. I’ve kept the case here at home for the past two months. Today I will be relieved of hav­ing to care for them. My fam­ily will lay their ashes to rest together in the gar­den of the Rockville United Church in a pri­vate cer­e­mony. A small plaque will com­mem­o­rate their rest­ing place, among the flow­ers, ever­greens and shade trees.

First yoga class in April

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I finally went to a yoga class at Thrive Yoga. I had been plan­ning to go, but I really resisted pulling out my mat and dri­ving to the stu­dio. I felt that I did not deserve to reward myself with a class. I was also con­cerned about meet­ing friends for the first time since my mother’s death and going through the con­do­lences rou­tine. I have my evening restorative/​nidra yoga prac­tice, but that does not do the same job as a full hatha or vinyasa practice.

I could feel all the weak­ened parts of the body as we advanced through the class, a delib­er­ate hatha sequence focus­ing on twists — the stiff­ness in my wrists when I went up into wheel, the quick fatigue in my thighs, the tight­ness in my shoul­ders. The list could go on.

I just hope that I can fol­low this up wth a few more classes dur­ing the week before depart­ing for Suri­name for a week.

I’m a 60-​​year-​​old orphan

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On Tues­day, the fam­ily and friends of Lor­raine Smith cel­e­brated her life at a 3:00 pm memo­r­ial ser­vice at Rockville United Church. It took much less effort that the prepa­ra­tions fol­low­ing my dad’s pass­ing because we did our learn­ing in Jan­u­ary. Now we know the rou­tine, the choices and the tim­ing so it went down really smoothly.

But it was not easy. I am feel­ing phys­i­cally ground down, as if I had gone through a maul­ing. I find it hard to sleep at night, and it would be worse if I did not have my evening restora­tive yoga rou­tine that allows me to wind down. But my sleep is really light and I wake up mul­ti­ple times. I’ve been unable to go to any yoga classes. Work has ratch­eted up the pres­sure because I’ve missed three days this past week, and dead­lines are not being adjusted accord­ingly. In 10 days, I leave for a week in Suri­name. Today was my wife’s birth­day, and I bought her roses on the way home as a way of apol­o­giz­ing for not being in party mode.

I am sure that there’s a lot that I will have to process over the com­ing months. I’ve lost both my par­ents in the brief span of three months, and that’s a major mile­stone in anyone’s life. You’ll excuse me if I don’t want to record all of it in this blog.

Grieving mindfully

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Griev­ing has been on my mind the past few weeks, so I nat­u­rally noticed the e-​​mail that came through my Inbox. Oper­at­ing out of Fred­er­ick, Heather Whit­ting­ton pro­vides yoga ther­apy for grief. Her site Mind­ful Grief pro­vides infor­ma­tion on her work­shops and groups that help deal with grief and other human suf­fer­ing. She also offers pri­vate ses­sions. I will be spend­ing more time with her online mate­ri­als over the com­ing weeks.

Farewell to her last breath

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Photo: Lorraine Smith smiling at her grandson's wedding

Mom was at Judy's son's wed­ding in 2009

My mother passed away at 8:05 am on Wednes­day, April 13, at Casey House, Mont­gomery Hos­pice. She took her time in tran­si­tion­ing from the back-​​broken 91-​​year-​​old to the freed spirit that joined my father and brother in the here­after. She fell on April 2, was admit­ted to the hos­pice on April 4, stopped eat­ing on April 8 and said her last words (“I am sorry.”) Sun­day noon. I was sur­prised that she hung on so long with­out food or water. Her last great grand­child vis­ited her on Tues­day to say good-​​bye so she kept up her end of the bargain.

Dur­ing those last evenings, I thought that I could still com­mu­ni­cate with her even though she was unre­spon­sive. I thought I detected a twin­kle of aware­ness in her glazed, half-​​closed eyes, but I may have been delud­ing myself. I kept read­ing to her from the Scrip­tures, telling her sto­ries from my life in Peru that I had never told her and remem­ber­ing the most pre­cious moments of child­hood. It was one-​​way com­mu­ni­ca­tion, but just sit­ting around in the room seemed even more irrational.

The last two evenings, her breath­ing took on an eerie qual­ity, like raspy uja­jai breath­ing, some­thing from yoga that she would have never under­stood. She took four or five deep, hun­gry breaths into her chest, then the breath would become grad­u­ally shal­lower and fade to noth­ing. She would remain immo­bile for 20-​​40 sec­onds; some­times, it seemed even longer. On a few occa­sions, I thought she had actu­ally had passed away in front of me. But then she’d take another rav­en­ous, noisy sequence of deep breaths. I spoke softly to her, “Mom, I did not think that prank was very funny.” On the last evening, the gaps in the breath­ing cycle got longer.

When I left the room that last evening, I turned around and look back at my mother’s still form on the bed for a long while. I fol­lowed the up and down move­ments of her chest. After a silent lapse, I heard the hiss of the air through her dry throat again. Even though her body was bro­ken and her soul longed to escape, the prana, the life force flowed through her.

Brother’s obit does not do justice to him

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My brother’s obit­u­ary as it appeared in the Dal­las Morn­ing News on Octo­ber 25 (only view­able for 30 days after publication):

Richard Elliott Smith passed away Oct. 23, 2009 after fight­ing a 3-​​year bat­tle with lung can­cer. He was born Jan. 12, 1953 in Ander­son, Indi­ana to par­ents Lynn and Lor­raine Smith. He grad­u­ated from Ander­son Uni­ver­sity and Dal­las Bap­tist Uni­ver­sity. He held 2 Master’s degrees.

Richard’s spe­cial joy was being a spe­cial edu­ca­tion teacher. He recently worked at High­land Park High School in the Spe­cial Ed depart­ment. He was fea­tured in the May 1st edi­tion of “The Bag­pipe” in which he spoke of his can­cer bat­tle. His favorite shirt to wear to school was a T-​​shirt with the phrase from “Spa­malot”, “I’m not dead yet”. The say­ing was from a spoof on the 14th cen­tury black plague. He also loved telling his doc­tors and nurses “I’m alive and well and kick­ing” when asked the ques­tion “how are you doing?”

Richard is sur­vived by his wife of 4 years, Susan Peterson-​​Smith. Also sur­vived by his par­ents, sis­ter Judy Zack and brother-​​in-​​law Sam, brother Michael Smith and sister-​​in-​​law Terri, sis­ter and brother-​​in-​​law Anne and Mike Hahn, sis­ter and brother-​​in-​​law, Christa and Floyd Stan­ley, nephews Stephen, Jonathan and Ben­jamin Zack, Matthew Smith, nieces, Stephanie Smith, Gretchen and Delaney Hahn, Emily Stan­ley and nephew Samuel Stan­ley and mother-​​in-​​law Anne Peter­son. Richard was loved by his furry chil­dren, Harry Pot­ter, Nar­nia, Clar­rie and Liaku.

Spe­cial thanks to Dr. Gupta, Dr. Sam­sula, Dr. Engle­man and Dr. Cheek. Also to the won­der­ful staff at Texas Oncol­ogy Plano Bay­lor spe­cial thanks. A big thank you to Bay­lor Regional Plano Hos­pi­tal and their staff for the care they gave to Richard through­out his illness.

Funeral ser­vices will be at The Church of the Incar­na­tion on Oct. 30th, 2009 at 3:00 p.m., fol­lowed by inurn­ment at the Church of the Incar­na­tion Memo­r­ial Gar­den, The Rev­erend Father Matthew Oliver, pre­sid­ing and The Right Rev­erend Anthony Bur­ton, assist­ing. Memo­ri­als to be given to the Church of the Incar­na­tion Foun­da­tion, Granger Fund.

Photo: Portrait of Richard Smith, five months before death

Richar liked to look death straight in the eye

I know that Susan had to under­take the task of putting this together, which really sucks. In the mid­dle of mourn­ing, you’re sup­posed to write a life story that sums up 55 years on earth. I wish she had asked me to do it, but I know only a small por­tion of his time in Dal­las and cer­tainly not enough about his last three years.

I was telling my daugh­ter before I flew to Dal­las that Richard really should have felt ful­filled at this stage of his life: he had a mean­ing­ful career, teach­ing spe­cial ed, after decades of seek­ing a pro­fes­sion that was reward­ing; he had met the girl of his dreams, Susan, after decades of seek­ing a soul mate, and both of them had pur­chased a beau­ti­ful house in the sub­urbs of Dal­las. It just a bitch that once he had all these things in hand, he had to share them with the can­cer monster.

He was a seeker all his life, and it took him all the way down to Texas. He ended up hav­ing two Master’s degrees and prob­a­bly enough extra cred­its to qual­ify for another degree. He could have made a for­tune at account­ing if he had both­ered to get cer­ti­fied as a CPA, and indeed his skill with num­bers and spread­sheets served him well.

Photo: Richard Smith working with his power tools

Richard sought to be pro­duc­tive even while his body weakened.

I spent six days with him in June. That was the most time that I’ve had with him since I left for Mex­ico and Peru in 1973, and he was going to be a sopho­more at Ander­son Col­lege. Even as kids, we were sep­a­rated by four years, which meant that I was over high school when he started, and grad­u­ated from col­lege when he was fresh­man. When you’re young, you think that four years of age dif­fer­ence cre­ate huge bar­ri­ers, but today I look back and think how triv­ial those dif­fer­ences seem.

Since then, we spent lit­tle time together. He made a short visit to Peru in 1976 (he broke his leg just before the Tri-​​S trip and wore a cast in the Peru­vian rain for­est, doing ser­vice work in Pucallpa). We spoke on the phone, wrote a few let­ters, had a few fam­ily reunions together, but never more than a few hours. When I came back to the States in 1990, he had left my folks’ place to work in Texas. More short encoun­ters until his mar­riage in Octo­ber 2005 and then the illness.

I wish I had sought out more oppor­tu­ni­ties to be a big brother to him. Over the past 30-​​some months, we’ve spo­ken on the phone more than we ever did, but it always seemed that he could never hold a con­ver­sa­tion for more than 10-​​15 min­utes before get­ting fatigued, espe­cially in the evening. Plus, at the end, the treat­ments had stolen 80 per­cent of his hear­ing so car­ry­ing on a phone con­ver­sa­tion was a bur­den. He hated his hear­ing aid.

Post Script: Susan has put up a com­mem­o­ra­tive site with lots of pho­tographs of Richard, some that I had never seen before.

Richard, you put up the good fight

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Photo: Portrait of Richard Smith, five months before death

Richard liked to look death straight in the eye

My brother Richard died early this morn­ing at Bay­lor Regional Med­ical Cen­ter in Plano, Texas. His wife,Susan, was at his side. For 32 months, he fought against lung can­cer, beat­ing the orig­i­nal esti­mate of life expectancy. Now he can rest in peace and shine in the pure essence into which his courage, per­se­ver­ance and faith dis­tilled his life, loves and dreams.

The quote on my brother’s T-​​shirt (on the right) is from the movie, “Monty Python and the Holy Grail:” He loved to wear it to let peo­ple know he could still laugh at himself.