It's 7am, Amanda has just ran through how she wants her funeral and burial arranged if she doesn't come round after the general anaesthetic (she is petrified!), I couldn't shut her up! She wants a cardboard coffin, with new age classical music playing, and maybe Magic Numbers, played before and after the service. She wants an eco friendly urn, and would like to be buried with her Nanna, and if possible,
have an inscription on the same headstone! She wants afternoon tea and cake to be served afterwards. I thought I was frugal! But Amanda sees funerals as a total waste of money, we agree on something there, so I want the same, with a few alterations! It would usually be hard to talk about this, but I found it amusing.... Not losing Amanda, just her intense preparation!
Amanda is taking her final pre operation spirit based shower, 'removes all germs, for clinical freshness!!!' She slept last night, (I had to go and knock on my neighbours door at 11.30pm to ask them to keep their hammering and drilling down, as Amanda was going into hospital tomorrow morning, and could use a good nights sleep. I should have asked them, just for future reference, if they would mind refraining from home improvements after 10pm throughout the week, as standard practice! It sounded like they were actually in our house, hammering the skirting boards!
As we drove to the hospital, lung cancer statistics are broadcast over the radio. Lung cancer in women over the age of sixty has doubled since the 1970's. 180 women out of 100,000 now suffer from lung cancer in the UK each year, Amanda noted that there was more chance of her waking up mid operation, due to the anaesthetic wearing off, than contracting lung cancer from 40 years of heavy smoking! Waking up mid-op is one of Amanda's biggest fears. The stats were 1 in a 1,000, so there is actually less chance of waking mid-op, than contracting lung cancer, but this morning, I wasn't hear to point out Amanda's lack of mathematically skills, though I did assure her, it wasn't going to happen!
It's 10.09am.... Amanda has a side room, off of the main ward, so is relatively happy about that, there is wifi at £9.99 per day, and TV at a fiver a day.... got to love the NHS! The surgeon has been in and chatted, and Amanda has gingerly signed the consent form.... probably signed it Jessica Rabbit!
She wants to read now, and apparently I'm just sitting, in the way... making negative comments about the debacle outside in the main ward, I'm ruining her 'inner peace'. I don't mean to, I'm just a bit rubbish sometimes. She wants me to go and make soup for this afternoon, for when she is ready to eat. I will be needed though, to hold a frightened little hand as the general anaesthetic is delivered, so will be heading back up around midday. She likes to read, it keeps her mind off what's coming, and helps her relax. She is reading something about Chakras, I told her the operation I had, to have my chakras removed was painless, and I didn't wake up mid operation either!
Her operation is going to be early to mid afternoon... apparently... so we just have to wait. Anyway, I home now, making fresh butternut squash and sweet potato soup for my lovely wife. Will update you all this evening x
Good Luck AJ, Thinking of you. X
ReplyDeleteI found this a while back...
You are mind. Diseases of the body are no different than any other appearance. The world, the body, diseases of the body - all of these are thoughts in your mind. They are the effect of your mind, which is their cause, but they are not you. They are "illusions", because they are not your Reality.
God is your Cause and Reality. God is Limitless, Formless Being, or Mind, extending infinitely and eternally. The experience of God is boundless love, peace, and joy. God extends only God, so as God's Effect, you extend God infinitely and eternally. In God, then, Cause and Effect are One and the Same, but in your belief that not-God is possible, you are cause of effects unlike God. When you identify with (give your attention to) a personal self in a body in a world, then, you believe that you are limited, time-bound form. This is not true, so it is painful. Also, to believe that not-God is possible, you must believe that you attacked God and took part of God away from God. This means that your identification with a personal self is one of inherent guilt and fear of punishment. Your pain and guilt and fear manifest in your awareness as an anxious mind and a dis-eased and dis-ordered body.
As a thought in your mind, the body is healed, then, by your decision to have it heal. This can happen spontaneously, but most often this is done through what A Course in Miracles calls external "agents" (medicines, doctors, treatments, etc.) showing up to give form to your decision to heal the body. But this is not real healing, because the real source of your dis-ease and dis-comfort is your belief that you are a personal self in a body in a world. To focus your mind on healing the body, then, is to do nothing real. It is to keep your mind mis-identified with what-it-is-not, because, healthy or sick, a body is never you. Even when the body is healthy, your mind is still conflicted if it is identifying with the body. Eventually, dis-ease and dis-order will return in your awareness again.
True healing, then, is your learning to identify with your True Cause and not with the erroneous effect (the body) of your belief that not-God is possible. To do this, you must withdraw your attention from the body and the world it seems to inhabit. You must look inward at how your own thoughts contribute to your sense of peace or conflict, and correct those thoughts that lead you to feel conflicted by affirming God as your Reality. As you focus your attention inward, and return your mind to God again and again, God will become more and more real in your experience. You will find that, as an effect of your healed mind, the world that you perceive, including the body, will improve. But, ironically, this will no longer matter to you, because you will realize that they are not your cause, and they are not you; they are meaningless. You will have inner peace, and what more is there to want?
Having the literacy skills of a twig, that's for you Carl :-D, I have found it hard to interact with the blog as I don't really know any BIG words!
ReplyDeleteI have never read a book in my life, simply because I'm not the fastest reader! So as you can imagine it's taken me ages to read this blog, I would think it's the most I've ever read!
I will put a comment on soon, watch out for it!
Prenno
amanda and mark, you have both shown such amazing strength of character during this journey- i am confident that now you have had this surgery, your strength, determination, lifestyle choices, positive mental attitude and of course great friends will see you on the road to a speedy recovery!
ReplyDeleteamanda, i hope that you can be pain free and comfortable over the next few days and i love you lots!!! xxx
AJ, Boyd, Rob,
ReplyDeleteThinking of you all every minute of every day at the moment.
Prenno x x x