Is that the right term? Navel gazing?
I believe it means that I’m doing absolutely nothing but sitting with my head down staring at my navel. Hours blown while my mind zooms in and out and back to where it started. Repeat.
In my case, just to be honest, I’m staring at a “navel” that exists in a million year old river rock that I stole from someone’s garden. A small slit that was once full of crystals, long eroded over the millenia.
Of course there’s a story behind this.
It started when I was walking the pups, after another 5 days in bed. (That’s another part of this post, please read on. Pain won over, and I reached the limit, the point of no return. Almost.)
Back to the dogs. We head out on one of our normal routes around the neighborhood, finally some spring weather! Nice quiet streets, nice neighbors in their even nicer homes. We have a couple different circuits we walk and I let the dogs decide which way to go when we leave our development. Right or left. Blu is the decision maker, Lucille follows along.
Many of the homes we pass have used river rocks in their borders and beds, nice accents in a yard, and great weed control. All these stones are worn round and smooth by rushing water over the lifetime of our wonderful planet. You don’t pay attention to each individual stone, there’s thousands of them along our walk, but for some reason this one particular stone was calling my name.
“Kyd, Kyd, over here man.” No, I wasn’t high or anything , it was a cosmic voice that brought me and this one stone together. The cosmos wanted this union to take place.
So naturally I stole it. Maybe I should have put a dime in their mailbox. I might have to re-do my landscaping by stealing two or three stones everyday we walk. Hmm.
I am not a geologist, and don’t know when the ice age created the Niagara escarpment, but I’m guessing this stone could be millions and millions years old. I have a fossil of a crinoid, the segmented stalk portion of a creature called a sea lily. They were most abundant on Earth during the Paleozoic period, 320 million years ago.
That figure is astounding when you think about it. Humans, us poor little creatures who believe we are far superior to all others, have only been around for 80,000 years. That would mean the sea lilies were here 4000 times longer than man. In fact, there are still a few of these creatures that have survived over all that time.
Makes me seem pretty insignificant, my own existence. If I make it to 70 or 80 years old that’s just a tiny little speck on the time line.
I’m insignificant, irrelevant.
Sunday night was bad, really bad. Mrs. Kyd and I went to bed around 8:00, the dogs following us as they were ready to sleep the night away. We’ve been watching a cooking show, a tournament type, that comes on every week. Something to pass the time versus my continual habit of watching the news and getting depressed about the world. At least it’s interesting. I do like to eat.
Except this was day 4 of being overcome by that damn unrelenting nausea. No idea what caused it this time. Day 45 of this miserable illness since the beginning of the year. Yep, that’s about 40% of my time spent lying in bed or up and pacing, drinking ginger ale and trying to down a saltine cracker.
Restless Leg Syndrome. Another of the wonderful gifts I’ve been given. It’s gone from a minor twitching to kicking and jerking. Now, the nerves that are damaged from a bad spine are on fire. I really can’t describe it, an intense burning pain that radiates from my lower back all the way down to my toes.
My left ankle feels like it’s been run over. Why? Nerve damage. The nerve pain and restless leg were in overdrive and at 8:30 I had to get up and out of bed. I knew it was going to be a difficult night, it started early and ramped up quickly.
The only way I can reduce the kicking and twitching is to get on my feet and pace. I usually pass out from exhaustion, it just takes time. Being nauseated fueled the pain, a synergistic effect. My body in revolt, betraying me.
I use one drug, in a patch form called rotigotine. It’s prescribed for Parkinson’s disease in order to control the twitching and muscle spasms that occur. Then another, clonidine, which I have no idea what it’s used for but it does help.
They weren’t effective tonight, darn. Here we go, it’s time to do battle with myself, mind against matter so to speak.
The next point of attack is a compounded cream that is prescribed by my pain specialist. A lovely young woman and friend. It contains a bunch of goodies like lidocaine, ketamine, gabapentin and baclofen. It’s better to use this topically instead of swallowing a bunch more meds.
Lately I’ve had to use it over the entire leg, lower back and hips. Then it’s a waiting game.
An hour goes by, it’s now around 10:00 pm and not only is the cream not working, the pain is getting worse. Another dose of the cream, more pacing, more trips to the garage for a cig. Turn the TV on, turn it off, then try to lay down again. Nope, back up and out to the garage once more.
What the hell, let’s try a joint I thought. I smoke half of some pre-roll tucked away in my secret little hiding spot in the garage. I lied, it’s lying right there on my workbench. I have actually stopped smoking weed for the last 3 weeks, just to see if that affects my nausea. It doesn’t, as I’m still getting sick.
Now I was half high, but the pot did nothing for my legs.
I had no idea what the hell I was going to do. By midnight I knew this was all I could take. This was more pain than my mind could handle. I had reached the limit, my breaking point.
Torture, this felt like absolute torture. Being who I am, and knowing how insignificant this life is, my mind drifted to stopping this myself once and for all. I cannot go on living with this level of pain.
I’m standing in the garage, now 2:00 am, smoking again, looking for any distraction I could find. There’s an industrial grade, 50 foot extension cord hanging neatly on the peg boards next to the rakes and shovels and weeder. There’s a new 5’ step ladder that holds up to 300 pounds, the top step secured enough to stand on. And there’s a 50 foot tall black locust tree in the neighbors front yard.
That was where I was.
Really, how much pain do I need to endure? Is this living?
But I can’t raise the garage door, as Blu and Lucy would be there in 5 seconds. They would shoot themselves off the bed, and fly down the stairs to see if I was really going out. I think they know what I’m going through, my companions in life. They know my pain, know my bad days, and know the really bad days.
Had I reached that point, was I really that friggin’ bad? I thought about calling the number I had seen on the television in some PSA. I have it tucked away. Just dial 988 to reach the suicide prevention hotline here in Canada. Do I need to call? Maybe, I told myself, maybe.
Instead I head back in to continue my nightly rounds of pacing. Around the kitchen island, turn the TV back on. Try to sleep, repeat.
And that’s when it speaks to me, catches my eye somehow, and I stare at the stone sitting next to my normal spot in the kitchen. My mind turns to my life, this world and the people I know and love dearly. I lose myself.
The stone was my salvation that evening, it had been placed there for me to find. This weird little stone the size of a tennis ball with its strange wound, almost as if it had been stabbed by a great sword.
My mind is drawn into this rock, and I’m reminded of the young boy who had lost himself in a cracked tile so many years ago.
A distraction from the pain, and after another hour staring into a rock of all things, thinking about everything and everyone in my life, exhaustion takes over. I finally lay down on the couch, curl up and fall asleep. Finally.
I was ready, but I’m not ready. Make sense?
Today I am good, I’ve slept, the pain is down. I can function.
Today I tell myself if it gets to that point again I will simply call 911 and ask for help. I’ll tell them there are two options and they can choose. The first option is they can help me. The second option? We don’t ever want to go there again.
No one should have to live like this, but I do.