Adapt or ____

August 6, 2021

It started last Friday. I woke with blurry vision in my left eye. Several uncomfortable hours later the vision cleared though the headache, anxiety, inability to read or write, also to train as having unequal vision in the eyes made turns and fast movement difficult, remained. Finally I fashioned an eye mask from a well-washed, soft cotton face mask and went about my day. 

 

But really, all I wanted was to curl up in a ball, feel sorry for myself, and perhaps nap. 

 

The next morning I was pleased to see that the vision was fine though my headache and cheek pain had intensified. Karate eased some of the feeling—endorphin rush I guess, but also worsened the sinus pain since we train with masks. By the time I got home my eyes were tired and my temple pain explosive. I couldn’t bear to look at the book I was hoping to finish that day. While my spouse washed up the lunch things I googled the causes of my symptoms and found sinus cancer as one of them. He was angry when I told him. ‘Why do you have to look that up.’ He didn’t want to consider the possibility. 

 

Adapt, I told myself. I borrowed an audiobook from the library and listened to it all day. But the more I listened the more agitated I felt. It was the nature of the book—a lot of violence, but also simply that it ‘wasn’t me’. I’m a very visually oriented person and when I couldn’t use that channel I felt cut off from the core of me. At night the sense of disembodiment peaked and I couldn’t sleep. Feelings of failure and inadequacy hit hard and I began crying at 2 am. I couldn’t do it anymore was the refrain in my brain. I needed a break. Also I needed my spouse to listen to my anxieties instead of denying them. 

 

Part of me wanted to fight this nonsense and keep going and part was succumbing to the fear and pain. I don’t know what will it took for me to wake on Sunday, and catch the bus to Chinatown, but we were trying out a new training space and I had to be there. I told the few seniors in our Sunday class, ‘I will take a break in August.’ We did an hour of partner work, and an hour of kata. It rejuvenated me. It was three seniors and I, and their presence reminded me that this was my Singy karate family — I trusted them to carry on the training and the admin if I need that break. 

 

I’ve seen two doctors this week, a GP and an eye specialist. On Tuesday I woke with blurry vision again and my friend in NY urged me to see the GP. The doc gave me antibiotics for the sinus but was more concerned with the blurry vision. The eye doc was a disappointment. ‘Nothing wrong with the eye,’ he said, and wasn’t interested in exploring causes for the pain, though he did offer me painkillers, which I refused, and an incredibly good eye drop for dry eyes which is allowing me to type so long here. 

 

I haven’t been able to read or write much all week. I processed the symptom in spurts. I squeezed and pulled at the blue gel bag which I heat and use as an eye compress. The pain intensified as I did that. I know it’s to do with adapting and breaking out of stagnating routines. The symptom is about affirming that writing is a necessity in my life and not something I do when all the chores are done. It’s about actively breaking moulds, and not just saying I want to discover the next door, but doing more to find it. It’s about realising how much it is my dream to learn to write better and better and better. Simply for the love of it. Simply because it makes something internal visible. Simply because it is what I want to pour myself into.

 

Early in the week a fiction podcast popped into my email. I closed my eyes and listened. I searched for more. On the Wednesday zoom with my artist friend we shared our trials and eurekas from the week. We grinned at the similarity in our processes. I've been saying that I want to experiment with shorter pieces of writing though earlier my medium was the long form. ‘But with shorter pieces I can write the piece, then play around revising and improving all in a matter of weeks or months, not years like a novel,’ I told him. His art work has always been huge canvases, paintings and sculpture, but now he wants to master pen and ink— a very small, very detailed, and very different medium.

 

Adapting to symptoms or circumstances that feel like chains holding you back is growth. I've wanted to work on my third novel but have been dithering, scared because I am convinced I don’t know what to do. And it is likely that I don’t. I need new skills to do the revision. But right now it is obvious that I need to put aside the visual and use my ears. Using a different sense opens a previously unseen door sometimes. 

 

Nothing is certain, but everything is possible was the spirit that hovered in the transition between 2020 and 2021. I lost that precious feeling during these last months as deep ravines and overflowing rivers suddenly appeared in my path. In this harrowing week I heard that message again. 

 

Late last night, after the ibuprofen, I took to sleep pain-free, had kicked in, I read my spouse a story. We don’t normally read to each other. I said I wished I had written that story. I’ll tell you more about it the next time I write. Early, too early, this morning I woke on the verge of tears. I couldn’t take an ibuprofen so early. I told my spouse to google and find a face relaxation massage. I closed my eyes and followed the instructions as he read it to me. I dozed for another hour before waking for the day.

 

I still have to investigate the cause of my eye pain and headache. I probably have to see an ENT next week. I want to record this time as it happens while I feel maximum frustration and fear, as I adapt to this new, hopefully temporary, reality.