The wisdom of shielding

Yesterday I was in the Emergency Room at my doctor’s insistence to get a PCR test for Covid (negative). My fever was up, my blood pressure and heart rates were way up, and my oxygen level was down, and the cough was so bad that my neighbors were knocking on the door to see if I needed help. While I was in the ER, they also tested for flu (negative), and strep (negative). They concluded that I just have a virus, and I need rest and a cough suppressant.

Today the fever went down, and this morning I had an hour-long conversation with the behavioral therapist who works at the Pain Clinic I’ve been referred to for neck, back, wrist, knee, and ankle pain. This next bit is personal of course, so feel free to skip and go on to other things, unless perhaps you have sometimes pushed yourself beyond your limits for the love of others. Then you might find it useful. I met the doctor for the first time on video at 8 a.m., coughing and blowing my nose. She asked what I had been doing the week before the virus struck. Then she asked if I had a “pattern of pushing through pain” to care for others. 

This was in the first ten minutes of our meeting as strangers by video. Well, I said, I guess so. 

She said she often sees people in the pain clinic who were athletes (that category arises again) or high achievers in their fields, people who have demanding careers and also have children or other family members to care for, who develop habits of putting other people’s needs above their own. They have lifetime habits of ignoring the pain. We (you see by this time I have joined the group) find as we age, if our bodies don’t give out completely, we are no longer able to push the pain away. We have not listened to the pain warnings our bodies have given us for years. We are not good at saying no or setting self-protective boundaries. She recommended I join a “Pain Education Group” that meets online, starting in September, in addition to the physical therapy and possible future medical treatments I’m already in line for. After we finished, I lay on the couch processing that conversation for a few hours.

In the afternoon I went for a walk, just a few blocks away. I thought I was strong enough, thought it would be good to get some fresh air and movement in my bones. I put on my very best mask so that I would not be a menace to others, and I came to this arresting sight just a few blocks from home. Someone had placed a home-decorated Buddha statue outside a doorway by a medical building parking lot. (See extra for the lovely details.) 

Buddha statues can be depicted in many ways, some with their hands folded in their laps (meditation Buddhas), some very fat and laughing (symbolizing happiness and success). But this particular one holds the right hand in a “shielding” or “protecting” gesture, and the left hand open in a gesture of compassion. I want to say to the universe how grateful I am to the person who put that little statue out on the sidewalk, because I do want to call to myself the wisdom of shielding and the wisdom of self-compassion. I think that could be my next job.