Transcendent Experiences

[Rachel Swirsky]

I figgered it was time for another one of those "we can fight, but let's show we can be friends too" threads. If anyone wants to, they should totally feel free to throw out their own topic, but I thought I'd start out with -- what's the most heart-warming, transcendent experience you've had lately?

I'll start... Not so much an incident, but a person. My parents have an old friend named Nancy who used to work at a major computer company with my father. Nineteen years ago, she got pregnant. It was a very difficult pregnancy and she kept going in to her physician for checkups, but he waved her away: it's okay, you're fine, don't worry about it. She had the baby, a son named Joey, and she still felt terrible, so she went back to the doctor, and he discovered that she had cancer. "You have six months to live," he said.

Joey graduated from high school last year, and Nancy's still around.

She wanted to raise her son, so she did. She's had cancer, and resurgences, and gotten over them, and gotten sick again. She has more devices at home than I can keep track of. She's usually unwell, and occasionally grouchy -- and mentioned in a number of major medical text books because she's managed to live so much longer than anyone expected.

I know it's trite to point to people who are ill or disabled as examples of triumph over adversity, but she has to work through a lot of pain and distraction just to make it through the day. And if anyone can prove to me those studies about how much the mind and the body are involved in biofeedback loops, it's her. She really affected her fate with an iron will, and I admire her.

I might kick in another anecdote later, if I can come up with one. I look forward to reading what y'all have to say.

[ClintMemo]

   Ten years ago, I was diagnosed with cancer - Hodgekins Lymphoma Type A for those of you keeping score at home.  Luckily for me, the prognosis was very good. Because they had found it very early, the chances of a successful treatment were about 95%.  The prescribed treatment was radiation - soak up lots of x-rays 5 days a week for 4 weeks. Take a week off. Repeat. Get retested. Cross your fingers.   The doctors told me that radiation was not nearly as debilitating as chemotherapy.  I'll take their word for it.  Radiation treatments leave you weak.  Additionally, because the radiation hit my tongue, it killed my sense of taste (temporarily).  Throw in some nausea and you can guess how much fun eating is.    Being a pigheaded, stone-hearted ass, I decided that I was going to continue to work full-time during the entire treatment.   I managed to get through it just fine.   However, my life changing moment happened in the last few days of my first round of treatment. 
   Every day, I went to work, went to treatment and then just went home and laid on the couch and watched TV.  One Friday afternoon, I was laying on the couch when I realized that I had forgotten to get the remote for the television so I couldn't turn it on.  I decided that I was too weak and tired to get up and go get it.  And as I lay there, staring at the blank screen, I finally understood just how weak I had become.  I wanted to do something trivially easy and was just physically unable. That was my life changing moment.  Once I recovered, I could no longer sit still and just relax.  Everything in my home appears as a bunch of tasks that need to be done.  My mind is constantly trying to figure out how I can best use some small chunk of free time that I think I'll have later. A lot of my friends play golf. I had to give it up.  I couldn't stay on the course that long without feeling incredibly guilty because I wasn't home cleaning out the garage.  I get infuriated with people when I think they are wasting my time. I get infuriated with myself when I feel I'm not getting things done fast enough - which is most of the time.  Because of that one moment where I wanted to do something and couldn't, when I can be doing something, I feel like I should.  That was at the end of June, 1997.  Just to throw in another detail, my daughter was born in December of 1997.  Yup, that was one heck of an interesting year.

  I keep telling myself that I'm going to write down my whole cancer experience. I need to get to work on that.

[SFEley]

Wow.  I can't compete with the first couple of stories.  And anyway, nothing really transcendent has happened with me lately.  But I'll share a minor one, just because I really love the idea of this thread:

After my intro to EP104 (now known in some quarters as "Steve's TMI intro") a casual friend of mine chatted me up and told me she thought it was impressive of me to come out about some of the things in my life.  I disagree, but that's not really the point here; the point is that it made her comfortable confiding with me some very personal, and far more important, details of her life.  This floored me, that she'd place that sort of trust in me.  These are things that make her a much cooler and stronger person than I'd realized.  It's also something I was surprised to find out we have -- sort of, a little bit -- in common, although it affects her much more than me.  Which gave us even more to talk about.  That level of sharing made for a really great evening of text chat.

(And a bad story, I realize, since I can't share what the revelation was.  But I swore.  Anyway, it made me happy.  Lesson learned: if you're open about yourself, other people will open up to you in cool ways.)

[Rachel Swirsky]

"Lesson learned: if you're open about yourself, other people will open up to you in cool ways."

One of my favorite profs used to say that any time a student shared something personal with her in her class or office hours, she tried to honor that by sharing something personal about herself. I try to run my classes like that.

She was amazing in herself, a really brilliant, and good woman.

[Anarkey]

This is more of the heart-warming than transcendent variety, but it is a sort of rite of passage for both myself and my daughter.

My daughter goes to a Montessori school.  If you want me to talk your ear off, ask me about it sometime.  She'll be six at the end of May, so for the past four weeks she's been visiting at the elementary school, one day a week on Tuesdays.  One of the beauties of the Montessori system is that kids are allowed to transition like that, spend one day a week for two months, or three mornings a week for two weeks, or however long it takes for them to be ready to completely transition.

It's a big step.  The first morning when we went to the classroom, two older girls rushed up to my daughter and one asked her "Are you visiting?" and the other said "Here, let me show you where to put your things and let me show you around."  This was completely unprompted by any teacher (in fact, we were slightly early, the teacher wasn't even in the room).  I was much warmed and pleased by that, and knew I was leaving my daughter in capable, young hands.

The next day she went back to her old classroom.  I stood at the doorway with her and she turned to me and said,"Mama, don't wave at me.  Elementary kids don't get waved at."

We had had this long ritual where I'd drive by the classroom window and we'd blow kisses at each other and I'd hand signal I love you and pretend I was hugging her.

But she doesn't need it anymore.

That's both the awesomest sign of independence and growth, and the saddest one.  I'm so proud of her for her declaration, but I can't believe the toddler/young kid cuddles are mostly gone now, so suddenly.  My excitement, pleasure and nostalgia were so simultaneous and strong, I practically got vertigo.

Raising kids is not for everyone, but it's so rewarding and smacks you in the face with life lessons so often that I am thankful for the experience.

Thanks, palimpsest for starting the thread, and thanks ClintMemo for your humbling contribution and SFEley for your cryptic one.

[ClintMemo]

I had a similar experience with my nine-year-old just last week.  Every night, after she went to bed, I would go and "check on her" later.  The other night, she said to me "Dad, don't come check on me if you are just going to wake me up."  It was her way of telling me that she didn't need that any more.  She's been gaining a lot of self-esteem lately. This morning she told me that she made it to the top of the climbing wall for the first time yesterday.  Wohoo!!

[Rachel Swirsky]

A friend of mine who works in a school lunch room is risking censure from her boss to help get food to poor, hungry children. That's important and inspiring. I admire her.

[FNH]

When I had a heart attack last year I had a "moment".  It happened at the moment I realised what was happening. 

There was a dropping sensation in my chest and stomach.  The nearest feeling to that I've ever had is that feeling you at moments of terror, real life-threatened terror.  Anyway the dropping thing isn't what I'm aiming at.

My torso dropped, my vision tunneled and quite literally in a glow of light, my thoughts were glad and happy.  I was convinced, I knew, I was going to see my mother when I died.

My mother died three years ago. 

My wife was right next to me.  She didn't see any light.  I had a heart attack and came out of it smiling.  It was faith confirming moment.

[Listener]

This isn't nearly as moving as everyone else's.  Sorry.

About 6 weeks ago I sat down with my wife and told her in no uncertain terms that I was afraid I'd reached the point of no return when it came to weight loss -- nothing was working, and nothing seemed to be on the horizon.  I called my doctor and asked for a referral to a bariatric surgeon.  The taste of ashes were in my mouth the whole time.  I do not ever want gastric bypass surgery.  But I feared I needed it.

I went to my doctor's office and we talked for about 45 minutes -- he's a bit of a prat but he makes sure you know everything you need to before he leaves the room -- and discussed options.  He prescribed me some medicine and as I left the building, I realized that there were options, that I wouldn't have to have a life-changing surgery so new that most of the long-term side effects really aren't known.

But I'd have to meet the medicine halfway.  So I did.  Every morning I get up at 5:30 and am at work by 6:45 to use the gym we have on the first floor.  I've started cooking week-long meals on Sundays and Mondays, and bringing leftovers.  I stopped buying the snack foods I like.  When I'm home alone with the baby I take her for walks in her stroller -- we went five miles round-trip one time, which for me is a serious accomplishment, as I hate walking.  I've cut back what I eat and how much I eat, and concentrated on avoiding hunger pangs.

Two weeks later, when I went back for a quick checkup, I'd lost 12 pounds.  I go back for my six-week checkup next Tuesday.  I still have more than 100 pounds to go (at least, I did a month ago) before I reach my personal target weight, and at least 150-170 before I reach what my doctor probably wants me to weigh.  But that moment when I left the doctor's office without a referral to a surgeon, with another option in my hand, that changed me.

[ClintMemo]

This isn't nearly as moving as everyone else's.  Sorry.

No need to apologize!
I'm a two-time failure at Weight Watchers. I know how hard it is to battle weight. It's not like you can just give up eating.  You have to retrain yourself, which is really hard, if, like me, you've been doing it wrong your whole life. 
Just keep at it and don't let a setback stop you.
Best of luck!