Dr. Doner’s Blog

I Took to the Mountains

 

I thought I “took to the mountains” for rest and relaxation in July. I did enjoy the 9 day meditation retreat outside Boulder, Colorado. Then, I camped throughout Colorado for two weeks by myself. Going wherever I wanted to go and doing whatever I wanted to do, with no restrictions, sounded like absolute freedom. Or so I thought before the “triple whammy.”

 

The first glitch involved my right knee. I’m used to fearlessly following my goals. Seven years post-graduate training to become a doctor?  Sure. Divorce, full-time medical practice and two children, OK – I can do that. Sell the practice after 21 years and pursue a holistic healing vision? I’ll make it work out. Like the “Little Engine that Could” I chugged my way past every challenge. “Climb every mountain” was my motto. Will, force and determination had insured success to date.

 

But on the camping trip I found I couldn’t hike! The meniscus surgery seven months ago did not give me the  strong painless knee I expected! Sure, in Florida I could walk on level ground but not up and down a Colorado hill, let alone a mountain. This was a profoundly rude shock to my belief system. Will and exercise alone could not reverse the aging process. It was also a rude shock to my identity. Vacations revolved around hiking. Who was I if not a hiker? And how would I take vacations with my hiking boyfriend?

 

The second surprise happened one morning, after soaking in a natural hot-spring the night before. I woke up with one-quarter of my left breast, just above the bathing suit line, beet red! As a physician this was terrifying. There were only two explanations. Either it was a cellulitis that I could possibly treat with antibiotics in the first-aid kit – or – it was inflammatory breast cancer and I could die! I could live with the first possibility but wasn’t ready for the second. And even if I didn’t die how could I continue to work and pay the bills while undergoing surgery, radiation and chemotherapy? Many people do it but I never thought it could happen to me! My body would change drastically and perhaps my romantic relationship!

 

The redness resolved after the antibiotics but my relationship with my body didn’t. It was no longer trustworthy. Neither was my identity. This was extremely disorienting and frightening.

 

The third unexpected occurrence was when I returned home and took a quick look at the accumulated e-mail. “A memorial service for Deborah…” What? Deborah died! She’s younger than me! She just dropped over dead with no known medical problems. I’ll never see her sunny smile again. I can never call her up to see a movie. She just got engaged to the man of her dreams and now she’s gone.

 

Three aspects of my previously well-running life had stopped functioning as ordered. My body and its abilities, my identity, and my friendships. Poof! In just a few weeks changed forever.

 

And then I got it that the meditation retreat was not about being blissful and stress-free. It was about understanding the truth of reality. That my body, my identity and my relationships are impermanent. I can only depend on the fact that they are always changing. That Death is always around the corner. That, in fact, Death is impermanence and is always operating in the process called “life.”

 

This is the way it is. And to truly live with this knowing is actually liberating! I can be grateful every morning I wake up with two breasts. I can appreciate however strong my body is right now. I am determined to love my friends more passionately and forgive them more quickly because we will be attending each others’ memorial services.

 

Something has profoundly shifted in me. The flowers smell sweeter and anger is more regrettable. The old belief in willful bravery has been replaced with true courage to accept life. I now realize that this is the lesson I had unconsciously requested from this vacation. It turns out that along with the Colorado mountain maps for the trip, I had also packed a quote from the sage Milarepa:

 

“In horror of death, I took to the mountains –

Again and again I meditated on the uncertainty of the hour of death,

Capturing the fortress of the deathless unending nature of mind.

Now all fear of death is over and done.”