As someone who has devoted a large amount of my time, energy and consciousness to taking really good care of myself and living a healthy lifestyle, this past month has been quite out of the ordinary. It has also shown me that even taking the best care of ourselves we can, does not make us immune to the currents of life. Stuff can happen, and it can be a real surprise.
Being self-employed as a body psychotherapist and a professional musician, I am aware how much energy I invest on a daily basis in creating both the structure and the content of my life. I am grateful that I have enjoyed the gift of high energy and good health, and that these qualities have allowed me to live both a connected and productive life.
But all that can change in the blink of an eye. On May 7, I went into a clinic for a surgical procedure, that required slowing down a bit, which I was prepared to do. The big surprise was a systemic viral infection that started out as chills on the evening of May 9, preventing my sleep, and leading to a very unexpected pathway of one health challenge after another, ultimately landing me horizontal for a week and a half. I had to cancel several gigs and postpone a Music Salon, things I do not do lightly.
Chills led to fever and zero energy. I went to my office on June 10, and by mid-morning, found myself needing to lie down on my own therapy couch. I called my doctor's office, trying to discern whether my state of fever and fatigue was related to the surgery or a virus I picked up at the clinic. It took until the end of the day to make complete contact with the doctor's office, but their verdict was that I had picked something up at the clinic, and unless my fever (which was 100 degrees) increased to 101 degrees, to go home and rest. Going home, usually a routine activity requiring little thought or energy, that day felt like a Herculean task. It took me four hours to find the energy to get off the couch, take my dog, and drive myself home.
Mother's Day weekend was a horizontal one for me. Zero energy. Zero appetite. I needed help walking my dog. One day of resting and trying to force myself to hydrate led to another day of resting and trying to force myself to hydrate. And as the fever started to leave, I found myself developing what turned out to be double conjunctivitis and a sore throat.
In our current medical maze, everything is compartmentalized. So, the doctor who was my liaison for surgery was different than the PCP I needed to contact about double conjunctivitis and a sore throat. After a day of chasing medical personnel about my latest symptom developments, I called back first thing Tuesday morning to get an appointment with the PCP's office to have my eyes and throat checked out.
The doctor concluded that my double conjunctivitis was likely viral, but we decided to treat it with eye cream anyhow. My throat tested negative for strep. So, throat lozenges, rest and hydration were what I could do. Low energy continued. As life's choreography often has it, a number of my clients cancelled or rescheduled, leaving me more time to rest and heal.
I realized after three days of the eye ointment, that I was having an allergic itchy reaction, and I needed to stop using it. The doctor's office confirmed my symptoms were that of an allergy and agreed with my decision to stop using the eye ointment. Since the double conjunctivitis was viral, it was starting to recede medicine or no medicine.
As the second week started to drag on, it became clear that I could neither do week of show promotion for nor hosting for my monthly Music Salon. And my voice had faded to laryngitis, putting into question my ability to perform at a cabaret showcase involving 7 singers that I was both producing and singing in. I rested and pushed myself through it. I did not want to let anyone else down. And when all was said and done, I was exhausted, and went home to rest.
The sore throat gave way to a bad cough, which led to bleeding from the area where the surgery took place. And low energy was continuing. Having already slowed down and reduced physical activity (my beloved daily gym ritual and weekly personal training sessions were shelved until I was more healed), the message seemed to be to slow down even more. As I reached out to the doctor yet again, the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend, I was beginning to wonder when I would get to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
When I spoke with the doctor's office the Friday before Memorial Day weekend, the message was to take it easy and if the bleeding did not stop, to go to the doctor's office on Tuesday morning. As I write this, my plan is to go in to the doctor's office on Tuesday morning for more help.
In this period of reduced activity, increased resting and just being in the moment, I have become profoundly aware of how hard I work and have worked for a long, long time. I have become aware of how much energy it takes to keep creating and producing and making things happen both in my own life and for other people. I have become profoundly aware of the consequences of working really hard in the current state of the music world, where so much is virtual, so many talented people are performing as singer-songwriters, there is so little money available for investing time, energy, work, money, heart and soul in ones craft.
When I went in to the Whole Foods near my office earlier this week, I crossed paths with another singer-songwriter who works as a cashier at the store. I asked him how things were going with the single he had just released. "I don't really know," he responded. "It's like a work so hard, and then feel invisible, as though all my work and my music is just dumped into a big black whole." Somehow, having gone through my humbling, low activity past couple of weeks, I felt very much the way he did. I told him, "I understand. I feel that way too." Perhaps the camaraderie made his day.
In our social media society, an unspoken pressure to always present what we are achieving and producing and how we are succeeding and doing great hangs over my head and the heads of many others I know. New and exciting sound bites must be produced regularly and rapidly in order to stay visible and relevant. Some people post about their personal struggles and health struggles. But the line between oversharing and bravely speaking from the heart in ways that engender empathy are not always well-defined. Although being a self-employed, self-generating creative requires me to put a lot out into the world, as an introvert (who has worked hard to become an ambivert), when I am having my own struggles, I am more comfortable keeping them private.
Having two going on three weeks of health challenges, requiring cancelling life as intended or life as planned here and there, and not having the energy to generate all the sound bites required to be relevant leave my heart sad and my soul questioning. What seems necessary does not always seem worth it.
As my energy returns, and hopefully, the string of health challenges eventually winds all the way down, I am left asking questions about how much I want to do, generate and produce. What can make it easier? What can make my investments generate a more gratifying reward or outcome? What does one do about being lost in the black hole of cyberspace as a creative artist and as a person? I don't have answers. But I trust continuing to sit with the questions will ultimately be fruitful.
I do not mean to be dark or self-indulgent in writing this blog post. It is real. And right now, though I try to focus on what I have to be grateful for, real is a bit more dark gray.
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