My experience (2)

About 3:30 a.m. I am placed in ICU.  It is Halloween and I’m scheduled for surgery in a few hours. 

From the beginning, when not answering questions or actively engaged outside of me I go within, purposefully occupied with gratitude and finding peace.  I am grateful for this amazing gift of life and this body I get to use to run, jump, create, love, laugh, heal and regenerate. I am grateful for my family, my husband, my children and our time together.  I am grateful for doctors, staff – and while I usually express disdain for the American Medical Association and its backward perspective of what constitutes healthy living, I am very grateful for the wonders of modern medicine and those who have chosen to serve.  I believe I am one with infinite possibilities in an infinite Universe of infinite Love.  I believe the essential me, what I am, is way more than this body and whether I live or die, it is all okay.  Everything is so very, very okay and perfect.

This is my job right now, this is what I can do. I actively practice, repeat and seek until it sinks in, until it sticks and I am that experience.  When I have any doubt, uncertainty or worry I return to the process until it “takes”.  When people ask if I was scared, I really wasn’t. During that first week of intense focus I spent much of my time in this gentle state of grace.

This was my frame of mind when the nurse asked if I would like pen and paper.  When it dawned on me what she meant, I said yes and wrote to Scott and the kids.  It wasn’t profound, it wasn’t polished.  I wrote quickly hoping to convey my love for them and whatever the outcome from surgery in the morning I was so very okay and at peace. I folded it, placed it on the tray and went to sleep. 

**When they were transferring me to the ambulance taking me to the airport, I remember thinking as word got out of my experience there would be a flood of goodwill, love, light and prayers coming my way. I trusted this and opened myself to it completely.  It was a powerful base from which to work. When I returned home 2 weeks later and learned something of what that meant it was more than I could ever have fathomed.