On November 3 I was watching the election returns with my wife, daughter, and her fiancé when I suddenly felt intense pain in my chest and my upper back. Within 30 minutes I was at the emergency department at Cheshire Medical Center. While an EKG reported normal results, the doctor ordered a CAT scan, which showed that I had an aortic dissection. I asked her if this was like a heart attack. Her response was “worse,” and my life changed in that moment.
I was immediately sent by ambulance (the helicopter was not flying that night) to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center where they began the prescribed treatment which was to find the right combination of drugs that would lower my blood pressure and lower my heart rate which in turn would lower the chance of a recurrence which could kill me. After nine days in intensive care they found the right combination of six medications. On January 14 I will have surgery to repair the aorta. Because my tear is so long, it is a delicate surgery but the doctors are confident it will be successful. In the meantime I’ve been essentially quarantined at home.
Since I have practiced mindfulness for more than 40 years, an obvious question is: how has mindfulness helped me during this time? The short answer is: immensely. As I have described elsewhere, mindfulness is the practice of bringing an interested and nonjudgmental awareness to present moment experience, and meditation is a vehicle where one practices mindfulness for a period of time. One analogy is that meditation is like going to the gym to build our muscles.
Mindfulness has helped me not to have to deal with questions like “why me” or “what did I do wrong.” I’m not sure why I’ve not been beset by such questions, but I think it may have to do with the fact that mindfulness helps us to see clearly. When those questions arise, I can simply pay attention to my breath and body and see so clearly how those questions are just not helpful. With that awareness, they often fall away.
Mindfulness has enabled me to see more clearly that many petty emotions (for example, times of irritation when things aren't going as they should) really don’t make sense. Even though I have been meditating many years, I still often get caught up in such irritations: at my wife for not being the way that I want her to be, or something not working correctly in the house, a store not having what I need, etc. Now, in those situations, I can usually feel the ridiculousness of holding on to that irritation or resentment, and it just dissolves. Of course, it often comes back but not with the same intensity.
Mindfulness also helps with those frequent thoughts and fears about being alone in the hospital (due to covid restrictions) or the surgery not being successful. I know that when I’m beset by such fears and anxieties, my blood pressure and heart rate rise, and that can be dangerous now. When those fears arise, and they do daily, my first response is to focus on breathing or the tension in my body. Bringing mindful attention, not fighting those images, often enables them to simply move on, like clouds passing through the sky. When the fears persist, I bring compassion toward those parts of myself that are frightened, and this often helps. Sometimes the thoughts become terror and mindfulness alone is not enough. In those moments mindfulness enables me to ask for help rather than to suck it up as I was taught to do as a child.
Research on people who practice mindfulness regularly has shown that these attacks (fear, anxiety, depression, etc.) happen less frequently, are less intense, and recovery time from these attacks is quicker. I can certainly attest to the validity of this statement from my life experience. Of course, it’s not that I am suddenly being mindful every moment of the day. It’s that I am being mindful more often.
Another benefit of mindfulness is that it enables me to savor the life that I have now. I enjoy almost every morsel of food that goes into my mouth even though I’m suddenly on a low salt diet (yuck). I enjoy the time together with my wife and with friends via the phone and the internet. I savor those slow walks along the Ashuelot River path that I am allowed to take every day. I have lived here for 32 years and have often thought about walking that path every day for a period of time to notice the changes during the seasons. I am finally doing it and it is so wonderful.
Gratitude and appreciation of the many beauties that life has to offer are two other common mindfulness practices. I am grateful so many moments each day--for having lived for 70 years, for having a loving wife and two wonderful children. I am also appreciative of connections with others--whether through emails, cards, phone calls, meals, and other gifts that have been given to me.
I will end with three related reflections:
One teacher described the benefits of mindfulness as being able to live fully in the present moment, to be free, and to see life, my actions and their consequences clearly.
I am not the first person to face a life threatening situation and say something like “I wouldn’t wish this situation onto others, but there are some very positive things happening inside me that I really like."
A metaphor from my mother comes to mind: we often make mountains out of molehills. Mindfulness helps turn mountains back into molehills.