Emergency Surgery

Photo by Gabrielle Henderson on Unsplash

I've been absent from social media for some time. 

I was really unwell

This had come about over decades of not being quite right, physically. A slow descent into what follows:

I had been unwell for quite some time. Decades, actually. It was a slow, downhill spiral. Very subtle. Until it wasn't so subtle anymore. 

Inexplicable constant tiredness. I do suffer from anemia, but even during the times when my iron levels were up, I was still weirdly tired.

Some years ago, during a time of 24/7 stress, I started to put on weight. Around my middle. Big time. It just wouldn't budge.

Anyway, long story short: It all started with an undiagnosed hiatus hernia. Probably from my second pregnancy, many decades ago. About eighteen months later, at the first Iyengar yoga seminar in Aotearoa New Zealand, the bullying, screaming instructor had us using a bench to do the plough pose (... google it....). I had already been doing a much less extreme version with my Sivananda Yoga teacher, with no problems.

As I came out of the pose, I experienced so much pain in my lower back. I was writhing in agony. It just got worse over time. One year I spent all of my savings at a chiropractors. Big mistake. It got even more painful. It was "referred pain".

I am quite sure that this was when the stomach "came away" from where it should have been. I felt something bad happen whilst in that godforsaken pose.

And let's not forget all of the digestive problems. The teeth abscesses. Infections, migraines. Over the years, I had developed inflammatory arthritis in my hips, knees, then ankles. This year I also got crippling arthritic pain in every bone, joint, skull, teeth. Oh, and muscular pain. I could barely walk.

Holy hell. I spent decades trying to improve my subtly inferior health. Unsuccessfully. 

At the end of September, I was rushed to hospital with crippling in pain in my chest. I ended up nonstop screaming. (I don't scream). Rushed into emergency surgery. I managed to gasp: "hiatus hernia" (found about seven years ago); and "I bleed heaps". I was truly a helpful font of knowledge.

So the surgeon went with those two tidbits, as they didn't really know what was happening. A long surgery followed. What she found was that most of my stomach had twisted up into my chest cavity. Damaged and overstretched esophagus. Hernia. So, five keyhole surgeries. Stomach untwisted (how the hell did they manage that?) and sewed back into place. Esophagus mended, sewn, and tightened. Hernia stitched up. 

Followed by five days of one visitor a day, rest of the time was spent sleeping with masses of tubes and drugs. In hospital a week. Oh, and the lady next to me got covid. 

Recuperated for a few weeks at my eldest daughter's farm. Lucky, lucky me. Spoilt rotten. Then home.

Yes, so that's why I've been away so long. Descent into hell. But I'm recovering, it's taken a while. 

Mysteriously, all of the above symptoms seem to have evaporated into the ether (thank you, Universe). 

And to all of the lovely friends and family who enquired about me being absent, or in hospital. Biggest of apologies for not replying. I was just too exhausted to, after The Big Event. And thank you so much for caring.

Link to my talks and meditations on Earth Elders: here.  Click "join" if you haven't already, then click the search icon there, and enter "Ratnamurti Saraswati". 

Link to Global Unity Festivals on you tube, here. I'm in the Wave 1, Asia/Pacific episodes.

Link to a post explaining Global Unity Festivals, here 

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