recovery

Let me just say how much I love the compassionate teacher and Zen Beginner blogs (always linked in the sidebar there). They're doing it right in every way, and they write about it so well. Like this:

The forms of oryoki are starting to make sense to me but I still can't figure out if I'm supposed to be present for my food or efficient in eating it.

Yes! Exactly! (It's both.)

How am I feeling?

You know something was really wrong when you wake up with 4 incisions and one less organ and you feel better.

I checked with the doctor on Friday to make sure my various pains are normal, including pain where the gallbladder used to be. He said that the inflammation had been very bad, so that area is still recovering from the original problem. The painful one of the three incisions--I can't feel the other two--is just under the ribs near the sternum, and feeling much better today than yesterday. Overall my system seems to be coming down from its week of rude shocks, and settling back into an equilibrium.

I'm thinking a bit about capability: normally I'm very lithe and agile, and right now I'm neither. From aikido, I have very strong core muscles that I use quite a bit, often just for fun, and with the incision just below and to the right of my sternum, tensing my core muscles means pressing against my stitches, which isn't dangerous but can hurt quite a bit. I also get tired after 30-60 minutes of doing anything except sitting down or puttering slow around the house. I sat zazen this morning for the first time since Wednesday, and I was pretty beat afterward. Because I'm young and in shape, I don't always stop to consider what a physical practice it is, even though I rely on it to get my body warmed up for the day. It takes a lot of core and back muscles to sit still for that long, which of course is why half my sangha sits in chairs.

It's certainly much better to have the gallbladder out, but still. Ow.