I can see clearly now (well, almost)

Today, 10.12.23, I was privileged enough to be invited to my lovely yoga teacher’s house for a yoga retreat. I could only stay for the morning because I was singing this afternoon, but it was wonderful to have the luxury of a longer session. I smiled inwardly as she took us through some movement to which she attached imagery about cutting out what we no longer need, leading to clear sight (all metaphorical, and embodied in much the same way as a Dance Movement Therapist might). The reason for my inward smile? In ten days from now, I will be having the first of two cataract operations, literally cutting out what I no longer need (my retina) and replacing it with a sparkling new prosthetic retina – leading, hopefully, to clearer sight.

I’m still awaiting my total hip replacement, having had my pre-op assessment on November 14^th, four and a half weeks ago. But I have since heard it can take up to eighteen weeks to call me in for surgery, after which if it hasn’t happened I will need a further pre-op assessment. That means the surgery could be delayed until sometime in March. That would not be helpful. I am meant to fly to Rome on April 11^th next year to give a keynote speech and run a workshop for the Italian Association for Dance Movement Therapy at their annual conference. Recovery time from the operation is about twelve weeks.

I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching about my health, which is where the metaphorical clearer sight comes in. I am currently withdrawing from a drug prescribed for my hip pain. My GP was concerned that a lot of us oldies live on morphine-based painkillers. They tend not to work after a while, because people habituate to them, and so they tend to take more – and can get addicted. I should state here that I already knew this before he raised it with me. I am not one to take a pill for anything unless it is absolutely necessary, but he put the fear of God into me and so I meekly complied when he prescribed duloxetine. Duloxetine is an SNRI. Commonly prescribed to people who live with depression, the drug blocks the re-uptake of both serotonin and noradrenaline at nerve endings, so that there is more of both these neurotransmitters floating around. It’s the noradrenaline that might be important for pain, but so far it has only really been shown to be useful for neuropathic pain – that is, pain that originates in a problem with nerve signals – like the neuralgia headaches I sometimes have. Its usefulness for arthritic pain is debatable: one study I have since read found that for knee arthritic pain there might be some benefit, but none for hip[i]. I seem to support the findings of that study. I was never sure my pain decreased while taking duloxetine, and I ended up taking roughly the same amount of co-codamol – one or two tablets each night to sleep, and occasionally in the afternoon for my nap.

After consulting the clinical pharmacist at the primary care practice I use, I decided to wean myself off the drug, in preparation for surgery. It has not been pleasant. The worst side effect by far has been dizziness for days on end, combined with an emotional lability that was not there before I started taking them. I have realised that not only did they not address my pain, withdrawal has been so unpleasant I have no intention of ever taking them again. I feel cross with myself that I was so compliant with my GP. He is right to be concerned about prescribed drug addiction. But he doesn’t know me – or didn’t when he first prescribed them many months ago.

Now that I am taking more charge of my health, it has empowered me to look again at my chronic fatigue. Having read the wonderful book Decode Your Fatigue by Alex Howard, I am trying to focus on activities that give me energy and walk away from people and things that act as energy vampires in my life. This is easier said than done, but I know above all that when I engage in improvisatory movement or yoga, I feel so much better. This weekend has been blissful – on Friday evening, I had my monthly Zoom Authentic Movement exchange with a colleague in New Zealand, yesterday I attended a whole day workshop in contact improvisation, a form I used to teach in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, and today, as I said at the start, I had a nourishing yoga class – followed by singing with a choir in our Christmas concert. I had one minor injury yesterday – I bruised some ribs – but it was so worth it. I was also about three times as old as all the other dancers, but they were wonderfully generous to me and I never once felt out of place. Rather, it felt like coming home.

So, that’s all I need to do. I need to come home more often. Home to my body. Home to that place where I can feel at peace. People often separate mind, body, and spirit, but I see them all as one. When I come home to my body, I find that peace that passes all understanding. I feel at one with all beings. And if that isn’t spiritual well-being, I don’t know what is.

What feeds your soul? What brings you peace and a sense of well-being? I’d love to hear in the comments.

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[i] https://bmcmusculoskeletdisord.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12891-022-05034-0