Intuitive Life
The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
The banging, clackety, screeching gate gets eventually, by some, appreciated.
Both extremes and everything in-between can be regarded as blessing, eventually and regardless.
The Dao says how: “Gradually and inevitably…”
What better to do than simply be, noticing, gratefully
And perhaps fully great?
Consider it a stretching, maybe.
Like lavender taffy, pulled
In what must be painfully opposite directions, to the sugar itself.
Yet to the observant anticipatory participants, all shining glee.
-JRB
Part 1- Filter-Being
When first told my left kidney is giving the appearance of swallowing my spleen, I am amused. The cute doctor acutely calls it a dromedary kidney, because it appears to be evidence of a rare condition existing from birth that is just now, at age 55, getting to be the star of the show. The photo op. comes from a medical study utilizing “full-body non-invasive measurements to assess the effectiveness of prevention efforts related to human health and wellness,” is what I’m told as ultrasound jelly is generously applied from head to abdomen.
No idea why the toes, feet and legs appear to be completely omitted from this grand giving of attention. Although I am in Texas where anything below the belt has always appeared, to me, to this point generally be regarded, for all public purposes, as off-limits at the very least and non-existent in most cases. So I never get around to prioritizing a question around that curiousity.
On the day the kidney news is initially delivered I am so grateful the doctor participates in the study. I am so proud of my spleen for enduring these overcrowded conditions for over 5 decades without so much as a peep of complaint. Instead it is literally flying under the radar, shielded (albeit involuntarily) by the grandiose left kidney.
Why does the doctor think it is this? I ask Google. Paraphrased conclusory results: 1. Because it is the left kidney and this condition only occurs on the left side (because the right side doesn’t have a spleen…), and 2. Because of the size, shape and apparent consistency of the overgrowth.
There is, in this scenario the proverbial (and definitively unmentionable) dangling modifier, if you will, of the fact that no one has any idea what had been going on in there before we took this picture. This growth could have formed last year, or last month, or the day before. So. Lots of speculation. I deduce.
No one's mentioning it. In other words, there is a lot not being said in these interactions, primarily because it is not known. Secondarily because it does not wish to be offered by the potential provider or recipient of alleged service. I perceive that the few curiosity-driven questions I did offer, followed by the intentional silence of waiting for answers, must have felt like expectation the doctors did not know how to fill, or have the time to even consider. Much less the desire. The passion. Or the compassion. Perhaps I am in the same boat. Here is where I drew the line:
I am advised to pay for a 500 dollar MRI portrait to further conclude my asymptomatic condition. As politely as possible I decline.
One year later we repeat the process. Now we have comparable evidence. What is now being called a mass has measurably grown, and a different yet equally cute doctor announces, “We have some work to do.” I accept this mission.
- 500 dollar MRI
- Referral to nephrologist by in-person appointment with primary care physician.
- Consider the prospect of a biopsy procedure highly likely
Meanwhile I read up on the AI-assisted, filtered and freely given information regarding this topic. First and foremost kidney growths are common and often go unnoticed unless pain, extreme bloating or protruding occurs, and/or blood and possibly other unmentionably painful things pass via piss. (Why use the word urine when a perfectly good opportunity for alliteration exists?)
Apparently once upon a time, the urologist was the kidney specialist, because this is where we saw the evidence: the bladder and/or urinary tract. By evidence I mean pain and/or inordinate physical disturbance.
Now we have Organ & Tissue Glamour Shots galore, and I am informed by current, live, online doctor visit that my misbehaving left kidney will be treated to as much, with and without contrast.
Part 2: The Kidney Is a Filter
Ever forget to change your air conditioning filter? It’s so easy to disregard this crucial and simple component that we often consider it to be unnecessary, or act as if it is, anyway. The kidneys are the medical version of this, from what I can tell. At least as long as we’ve got two. When we get down to one then questions get asked about symptoms of diabetes. Probing for warning signs and such becomes the focal point of every doctor’s visit. A numerical sequence representing a conglomeration of allegedly carefully collected measurements is assigned to the term "Pre-Diabetic" for this reason. Google tells me I had been measured within one point of this label several times in the immediately previous years. In fact, a few of my standard measure numbers are reported this way. Except body temperature, blood pressure and pulse. These are always in the “healthy as a horse” category.
Meanwhile, being of the age for this type of inquisition to begin and also not appearing to be so, from all outward physical appearance, it is in the midst of actually enjoying the lack of inquisition that something obvious yet heretofore missed, hits me. The result of all this “work” as my doctor calls it, would most likely be removal of the overtly obtuse organ.
It is here that I begin to wonder, once again, what would happen if I did nothing. What if I choose to let it be, and see how my body responds to the apparent alleged catastrophe? No wonder my doctors appear to be disturbed by my calm demeanor and contented smile, regardless of the reason for the visit. If they could read my placid mind wouldn't their panic only be amplified?
I choose not to further disrupt. I go through the process. Part of me begins to mourn the loss of the kidney before it has even happened. It isn’t even causing any pain or problem that I know of, I defensively posit, unlike the molar I relinquished 3 years ago, now. (Has it really been 3 years?!)
Since she is on the left side I regard her in the receptive feminine. I interpret her bulging obtuseness as messaging. Messaging as in signaling. For example, almost daily I interpret the slight dull ache of my magnifying “readers” pressing the crease where the ears connect to the head saying, “It’s time for a break.” Sometimes I take it. Sometimes it is put off for hours.
Similarly, I collectively read the messages she sends. The interpretation comes out something like this: “I am you. Even though you go on without me, there is a reason I am failing. You are a filter, constantly absorbing. There must be cleansing and subsequent release. This is how to care for the you that is me.”
It is about now that I realize I know nothing, and rather, am being constantly informed as I go. A channel or vessel or siphon of some sort. A sudden brief and yet certain urgency infuses my system in what can only be categorized as either auric or oracle-y (no, not auditorially or orally, auto-correct helper). Suffice it to say I am humbled and highly motivated to not only listen, but compassionately respond.
This is the message no doctor so far would touch with a 10-foot pole, so to speak. Biological and pharmaceutical response from he sides of the box in which each seems to have grown comfortable operating. As far as I can tell, only my kidney dares to put it out there.
So instead, again and again, she and I come together in the silence to a place of refuge and find a serene sense of shared-ness. Somehow shared = energy. With this energy comes a fragment of the result of multiple shimmering summers’ memorized vacation bible school verses, “Where two or more are gathered…” It is in this spinning off sort of sentiment that she and I come to know and trust this truth. We experience it in the darkness of pre-dawn awakenings, the exhaustion of post-sunset rest and the occasional deliciously warm daylight-infused nap. Her message, clear as a sounding bell, is graciously given and so gratefully received. In the quiet places I close my eyes, and place my hands at the point of gravity’s center on my body. Nodding with a subtle smile here, I thank her for her sacrifice, her dedication to the end, and all the ignored indications she tried to send. We mourn in the stillness, holding each other in the natural, forgiving way that we always have. This is our shared mourning yet also our knowing of each other to greater depths than would have otherwise been possible. It is this precious treasure that aware acceptance brings.