Layers

When I decided to do this blog, I made a decision that I would share my truth, as it is.  We’ve had a full two days to acclimate to being here, and in short everything is going to be okay and I’m okay…but the moment we arrived to this moment now has been, well, challenging.

It’s noteworthy to mention that everything has gone pretty swimmingly.  There have been no major issues and the staff here has been beyond welcoming, kind, and organized.  The challenge has all been within.

There are layers to everything in life, and sometimes when we think we get it (we’ve grown, we’ve learned), life peels back another layer – and it will keep peeling until it has reached the center of your being.  And once there is nothing left to peel, it will ask you to make a choice.

I have never traveled overseas.  I have never had medical treatment on this scale.  So, upon arrival, the reality that I am having medical treatment in a foreign country became very real.  Our first day here, straight from the airport, was Sunday, which is a day off in the hospital, so I was asked to sign a waiver upon arrival and we were shown to our room and given the day to rest and recover from the travel. We didn’t get to meet…or even see…any other patients here.  We didn’t tour the facility.  We didn’t meet with any doctors.  And despite the extremely kind and accommodating demeanor of the nursing staff, the language barrier is a reality.  All of the staff speaks some English.  (The degree of some varies greatly by individual.)  What I did see was a small section of Bangkok that was very different than what I was expecting (I had no reference point on what to expect, but I guess I just pieced something together in my mind that was not matched by what I saw), a hospital that is unconventional by U.S. standards, and a plethora of other unsettling stimuli - a shower without hot water, an unusual looking dinner, a very unhappy stomach, to name a few.   All of this, on first impact, pretty much left me saying, oh my God, what the hell have I done?

Next my mind went into make shit up overdrive.  Oh my god, this is a scam.  I have no idea what they’re going to do to me, everything I read was a lie.  My coordinator was just a salesman…right down to…they’re going to ship me home in a body bag.  Bottom line: I was scared.  I proceeded to cry for the rest of the evening - which for me is a statement in and of itself.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m extremely emotional…I’ve just never been comfortable showing it.  So again, I fight like hell to keep it tucked away (you may have noticed an emerging theme – I have plenty of fight in me, I just fight for the wrong things sometimes).  But this emotion was beyond my control, and out it poured.  My mom calmly and coolly reassured me that I don’t have to go through with anything.  We can leave at any time.  There is still more information to get.  And, don’t forget how this all came to be (she even suggested that I reread my own blog).

You may recall that I previously mentioned my greatest fear in life is death, a topic for another time.  Well, the time is now.   I’ve been carrying around these fears as secrets for years - managing them in my own way, but in doing so, preserving them and ultimately creating a resistance to real change.   I have never been comfortable with the idea of death.  I have absolute certainty that spirit lives on, but the unknown of how and in what capacity is something that wreaks havoc on my internal well-being.  Ninety percent of my anxiety in life comes back to this.  So here I was, freaked out, mind spinning, and feeling like the ultimate question on the table was how badly do you want this - enough to take the ultimate risk?  But, I still wasn’t ready to say this out loud.

I basically cried myself to sleep, woke up in the middle of the night and cried some more, had another pep talk from Rick, and went into the next day hoping to pull it together.  The morning started with having my blood drawn…in my room.  I still hadn’t seen the facility at this point - so I’m in a room that feels like a hotel, in a place that’s called a hospital, and I’m having my blood drawn.  It was just very different from my previous experiences having blood drawn (in tiny white labs in the Kaiser office).  This really didn’t help my stress level.  My mom, the rational one, reminded me that the way they drew my blood was exactly the same…try to relax.

The good news is, next unfolded the first half of what I needed.   Shortly after the blood draw, an entire team of staff came to my room (my attending physician and acupuncturist, a customer relations rep (who’s English was great) and a team of nurses.  I learned that every morning the team does rounds and visits every patient.  We were able to solve the hot water dilemma (there is in fact hot water, it’s just not always available early in the morning or late at night – it’s a Thailand thing).  We had a tour of the facility (which was bustling with busyness - the physical therapy room was full, people were in the pool, there are patients from all over the world and of all ages (approximately 15 patients total and their families), and there are 8 patient rooms here at the facility (the other patients stay at a nearby hotel and commute to the hospital for their treatment).  I had an assessment with my occupational therapist and physical therapist.  I had an assessment with the nutritionist.  I met my Beike coordinator, who told me that it’s very common to have doubts upon first arrival – a lot of people do – and he remained consistent with my original assessment as a kind, helpful and sincere gentleman.  We met lots of other staff (there are a lot of staff here!).  And then, we finally met my head doctor, Dr. Torsak.  I really liked him.  There was nothing he told me that I didn’t already know, and he began his talk with their number one priority – safety.  No one has ever died from this treatment.  And in the last eight years they have provided treatment to 30,000+ people.  I really appreciated this.

Everyone (who is not Thai) has said that Thai people are really the loveliest people – and it’s remarkable to me, that with the degree of language barrier, everyone on the staff who is Thai has consistently conveyed such heartwarming kindness and genuine care…and all in the absence of words.  By the end of the day I was beginning to relax.

Now, I said that the day’s events were the first half of what I needed.  Here is the second half.

The thing that Dr. Torsak said that stood out the most was:

Providing the stem cells is the easy part.  We can do it all day long.  But the other components are equally important (the nutrition and exercise), and that’s in your hands.  There are a lot of unknown variables as to why it works for some and not for others...but what we do know is that we need your cooperation.

I know that my full cooperation requires my full mental and emotional investment.  I know that our thoughts and emotions impact our body’s responses just as much as nutrition and exercise.  You have to be willing to look at the whole picture.

So when we finally retired to our room, I was feeling better but still with this lingering sinking feeling in my chest and the urge to cry again.  I needed to make a decision: Are you going to stop fighting your vulnerability and instead wear it like a badge of your humanness?  Are you going to show up and be honest?  Or, are you going to walk away?

So, I finally said it out loud.  I don’t want to die.  My mom and I proceeded to have a lengthy chat about life and death (no surprise, my mom has no fear of dying).  No one really knows what happens when we die – what does it feel like, what does it look like – and because of this there is never an answer that is completely satisfying.   I have a strong attachment to my identity and a strong attachment to physical life - I am Analisa.  I am creative and loving.  I love beautiful things – the sights and sounds of life.  Sometimes I think about losing these things in death – what is the absence of a physical world like? – and it makes me sad because I would miss so much.  But, at the end of it all, this is an exercise in trust.  It is an exercise in letting go of the ego (the attachment to self) and knowing, to quote The Alchemist again, that everything is written by the same hand.  The same source energy that created me, created everything – including death.  So the question is - Are you going to accept life on life’s terms and just trust?

My answer – Yes.

I know that had I not been jarred out of my comfort zone...had I had the opportunity for this kind of treatment in the comfortable familiarity of the states, I would have kept my secrets and I would have unknowingly kept my resistance.  This experience has one by one peeled away my layers and it left me completely exposed.  And that is why this too is swimmingly.

It's not a coincidence that the key component of rebirth is death.  One cannot transform unless he is willing to change.  And change is to invite an ending...a death...to create a beginning.

So I made my choice.  I choose death.  And because of that, I am already transformed.