Sunday....

Today i woke up late... I rested pretty well from 4:30 am till about 10:00 am. The pain was really intolerable...I am on 3 different pain killers, they all help but you can imagine after 20 new screws on top jaw and 200 stitches, i could use about 10 more doses of pain killers - I took it easy. My cousin from London went to SF in the afternoon, I watched a movie my friend Patrick sent me. I had a bit of nose bleed, like yesterday - so not a lot of fun. We will see tomorrow. In the afternoon, i was feeling more uppety - so the Dr. called in some different pain killers and we went to get them. I felt up to it and the sun was still shining - pain began to ease off around 5:30. My lovely friend Andreina, from Venezuela, with her husband and little girl Sophia, went to the grocery store as a "surprise" God knows all my San Jose friends have offered....and then came by quickly to say hi to my parents, drop some wonderful baby food and organic soups and a bouquet of flowers.....that also made the pain go away even further. I do think this 2nd surgery has been tougher....Tomorrow I have a dr. appointment and will work a little more on the blog.
I got some wonderful emails from my friends, particularly one from Whit, one of my collegues from Gestalt - he had some great suggestions for pain - I am passing this on to you ....as some of my learnings and tips will be helpful for women with similar issues -
There are only three guidelines about dealing with pain that I latched on to and used with varying degrees of success depending on my level of concentration, and I have NO idea if these will help. They helped me, but of course every person and situation is different. Here is what I used/use:

1. Hold in your attention/consciousness that the body and you are different. The body, your vehicle, is in pain. Not you. Your spirit/soul is your “you.” This helped me more to accept what is and EXPLORE what it might mean (through the pain) to observe my body as a phenomenon doing something very healthy is creating pain.

2. Concentrate on relaxing very muscle in your body and to totally surrender to the moment. In short, let go. Breathe as steadily and fully as you can. The opposite of this is to grimace, tighten some muscles, and take short breaths (or hold breath).

3. Focus on something that is in moment. For example, I often would focus on my breathing, as quietly as possible. But you might focus (and I mean FOCUS) on something in the room, outside the window. You might take an attention-journey up and down the length of your body and limbs to notice their state, to feel the energy within the. For me the TV did not work, but it might for you.

If you try any of these, let me know what you notice.