Sun: Orion Bright Star, Barry Hardy

Each and every day bow before the sun and offer thanks for your strong and courageous body, thanks to your beautiful open heart that serves continually. Your eyes that can see the grace and suffering in all things, your ears that listen for and to the subtlest of prompts and your wisdom that transcends your own mortal sufferings. For if you do the universe will exalt you now and forever more, from your spring until the autumn of your fading glow. For we are all but a brief moment in time, yet it’s not who we think we are or who we’ve been told that we are that is important. It’s how we live our lives, it’s how we search for truth, it’s how we serve and bring joy and hope to all hearts in need. For to truly live is to embrace selflessness and to begin to raise ones vibration. As such death and rebirth are so much more than moments in time. For they are indeed one in the same, the product of how we live from our heart, how our soul evolves, how we serve and bring joy and hope to the warmest and even the coldest of hearts. For that is to truly live selflessly and to be at one with all things, for that is the way of the Surya. That said; below are three little body of works that perhaps better crystallise each souls journey of sun to son and son to sun.

Reformation of The Heart: Ameer Muhammad Akram Awan (RH)

Earlier generations and civilisations were destroyed as a sequel to the ruination of their hearts. Human beings of today should also examine their own hearts. Are their hearts alive? A live heart would try to obey Allah; that is actually its food, without which it cannot survive. If it does not demand this food, then it would at least be unconscious or sick, if not totally dead. No one can really succeed unless he devotes proper attention to the reformation of his heart. That is what I have understood by Allah’s grace. May Allah make it easy for us! Ameen!

escape plan

I don’t know how I feel….I started a job three weeks ago…I’m in the learning process of it now…a few of the people in the class said they’ve been trying to join the company for more than five years and how glad they are to be there.  It wasn’t my first choice but it came first so I accepted the offer.

I thought I was thankful to have a way to make some money to survive until my mama got sick again. Seems like every time I start something for myself my mama ends up in critical care and I end up quitting what I start. I don’t like where I live. This town that I was born and raised in has never felt like home to me. I’ve been trying to get out for twenty years. I’m still here. Trapped.

I don’t understand this cycle that I’m losing myself in. I want to help my mother. I want to be a mother to the kids that I’ve been pulled away from. Seems like I can’t do both. I need an escape plan.

 

the struggling advocate

After the E. R.

My heart is broken for my mother. She lays there unable to speak or act on her on behalf. People who are in place to help someone in her state often times do the opposite. They treat her worse than u would treat an animal because she seldom speaks or even makes a sound. I’m usually always at her side in hospitals and clinics but I started a job January 27th because I’m tired of being a charity case. Last week I was about to quit the job like I always do but I didn’t.

i was told last Sunday by the attending critical care physician that my mothers triponin level was 39 and she had a heart attack. Meanwhile, she was having severe diarrhea probably caused by the antibiotics and two liters of fluid in her stomach. I asked for Imodium (loperamide) but the request was ignored. By the time she was moved to a different floor her inner thighs were fluid filled and the skin had come off from the acid in her stools.

They suggested a rectal tube that I denied but they put it in anyway while I was at work. When I got to my mother and examined the catheter she told me that it didn’t hurt so I didn’t complain. However, on Thursday when I got from work and made it to the hospital she was in pain from the catheter. I looked at her bottom and stool was coming out because the bag and tube had reached its capacity and beyond.

i asked her nurse if she could come in her room and she asked me the reason. I told her about my mother’s discomfort and asked her to remove the catheter. She repeated what I said, rolled her eyes and closed the door to the room tht she was in.  I located the charge nurse and told her about my mothers condition and the interaction between myself and the nurse before asking her to remove the tube.

when she took the tube out, she said “Yuck” and then my mothers skin around her anus fell off with the catheter. I wanted to cry and I still do. It hurts and is so hard to deal with these monsters while my mother is so fragile. After this happened, the majority of the nursing staff treated me unethically and rude because of my concern for my mother who just recently had a heart attack along with other serious issues.

in this picture my mom was asking to have the tube removed because they wouldn’t sedate her while it was in.

nurses/doctors that cause harm and neglect to patients should be punished and removed from all healthcare settings

The E.R.

i was doing my moms exchange (peritoneal dialysis) at 11 pm, two fridays ago, when she became unresponsive. I was afraid to call an ambulance in this town because of the care that most people receive when they go there, but she was going out and I didn’t have a choice.

the EMT’s arrived in what seemed like five minutes from the time I called. I was working on my mom when they came in. They checked her vitals again, but I was ready to go. We didn’t have time to waste. They got her in the ambulance and I got in the front. I asked them to hurry what they were doing so we could get her there.

we arrived at the hospital and they asked me to go in the waiting room while I was walking/running ahead of them. I told them I was not separating from her as I walked through the doors. Dr. Smith came in and looked to the rescue worker for a report. His response was slow and partial so I interrupted and gave him the full one.

I asked him to give her fluid because I believed my mom to be dehydrated due to her recent loss of appetite and vitals. I was trying to revive her still while they were getting supplies. I patted her head, face, lips, and neck with a cool compress. She sluggishly opened her eyes some. They looked yellow.

Dr smith wanted to put her on a ventilator. VENTILATOR! He said she would die if he didn’t do it. I asked him to put the oxygen mask on her and give her fluids but he insisted on the ventilator. He also was starting a central line to get her blood pressure up. Her blood pressure was low but her pulse was 130’s 140’s. I ran out to the waiting room looking for my stepdad and partner to ask for their help but no one was there.

My battery was dead on my phone. I asked the triage nurse to use hers. I reached my partner and told him what was going on. I was scared of that ventilator.

I went back in the back with my mom. He made it in and said to let them put her on the ventilator. The respiratory nurse was already there waiting for the go to put it in. Dr smith wanted to give her antibiotics and asked him for what. He said he felt she had an infection. I told him that her output has always been clear, she had no fever, and he said because of her unresponsiveness. I told him she cldnt take the antibiotic without an anti fungal and he disagreed so I disagreed to the antibiotic and asked to be transferred to a different hospital.

He called a nephrology associate and they advised him to give the anti fungal with the antibiotic. He and his nurse told me they were not aware of this protocol. He struggled with putting the central line in. I peeked in a few times and saw a lot of blood. That was giving me anxiety but I tried to keep my composure so I wouldn’t be taken away from my mothers bedside. She needed me.

We had a central line put in before and it only took about five minutes. This time it was taking thirty. He finally got it in. I was able to see my mom. Her pulse was still all over the place. I asked for more fluid. I told them she hadn’t been eating and we had still been doing the dialysis. They got a second bag. A quarter of the bag was gone and the pulse went to 74 and stayed there. I felt some relief after seeing that.

this is the beginning. We were there for a week. I will share our experience in the icu next …. while there were monsters in the mix, there were excellent providers there who we are forever grateful.

Poems: Why Do You Complain?

you have the sun and the moon

the soil and the seed

the cloud and the rain

the fruit and the trees

the fish and the seas

the wind and the breeze

the birds and the bees

and much more

yet you still complain

you define lazy

you want to be handed everything

 

 

I’m sorry

I’m sorry that I wasn’t around

im sorry that you looked for me

and I couldn’t be found

but mama was tired

her spirit wasn’t making a sound

i had to act quick

and man the ring

pound for pound

i never wanted to leave you

my heart wouldn’t leave the ground

i beg for your forgiveness

and pray that our hearts are forever bound

 

RUMI’S COMPASS

“If There Is Light In Your Heart You Will Find Your Way Home”

YouTube : (Sufism with RUMI-Meditate “HU” The Zikr)

A Man Is What He Thinks: James Allen

Interpreters often collect fragments of text to illustrate and reinforce points that they wish to make. In Allen’s hands, this particular fragment becomes comprehensive. It “not only embraces the whole of a man’s being, but is so comprehensive as to reach out to every condition and circumstance of his life. A man is literally what he thinks…This becomes the basis for Allen’s insistence that the way to change your life is to change your thought. 

The eclectic base on which he makes his case is clear when he turns almost immediately from familiar Judeo-Christian territory to quote Edwin Arnold’s verse version of the Buddha’s teaching:

“Thought in the mind hath made us. What we are / By thought was wrought and built. If a man’s mind / Hath evil thoughts, pain comes on him as comes / The wheel the ox behind … / If one endure in purity of thought, joy follows him / As his own shadow–sure.”

But it is worth noting that Allen does not present this as some sort of effortless or magical wish fulfillment.  He wraps it securely in the Enlightenment tradition of reason. “Man, ” he says, “is a growth by law, and not a creation by artifice, and cause and effect is as absolute and undeviating in the hidden realm of thought as in the world of visible and material things.”

As a popular writer, Allen seeks to do some of the things that academic writers are doing at just about the same time–extending the rule of law to every corner of the universe, including the human mind, making every corner of the universe, including the human mind, susceptible to rational investigation. Allen is confident that the universe is governed by reason, that this means every effect may be traced to a cause, and that rational reflection on effects will enable individuals to cause the effects they desire. 

Delicacy of Dialysis

In 2017 a home hemodialysis nurse told me that the home dialysis machines were gentler than the machines that are in the clinics. My interpretation of that statement was that the patients who do not have the option to do their treatments at home have to suffer more than patients (clients is probably more fitting) who can treat themselves in their homes.

Because if you know that one machine is less aggressive than the other, why not “only” use the one that is less aggressive? I’ll assume that it is based on time and money.  Money makes mans world go around.

A kidney doctor (nephrologist) who knew nothing about my mother, was meeting her for the first time, told me that she would probably live five years being on dialysis.  I felt he was a donkey for saying that.  Later, I understood why he did.  Solely, in their hands, you are less likely to survive. Most of the time you will have to manipulate their recommended treatment to benefit from a treatment that will be customed for you and not set for the majority. We are individuals and have individual needs.

The centers are staffed with technicians who are trained to get as many people in the chairs as possible and to get them out as fast as possible.  That’s why many clients look like they have ran a marathon after being dialyzed.  Their bodies literally  have.  My mother has had several hospital visits from orders of pulling too much fluid, and a flow rate that was too high.  There seems to be an obsession with pulling fluid, even when it’s not there.

Most times the blood pressure will drop from pulling too much or the body will start cramping, letting you know that it’s too much for the body. I instructed clinics to never go beyond a certain amount during treatments for my mother.

I saw a lady yesterday that I met in one of the clinics last year.  She was with her husband and looked like she could barely make it and worse.  It troubled me because I know that her treatment doesn’t have to be so harsh.  I guess enough people haven’t died or complained to cause changes to be made.

I try to help the patients feel as comfortable as possible when I’m allowed to cross their paths by giving them special hoods or sweatshirts with openings for their accesses so they’ll be warm during treatment, getting snacks that they can tolerate after the treatment, hard candy during treatment for dry mouth, calling to check on their transportation and anything else that is appropriate, but it’s not enough.

These are people who need better care at the core.  My trying to help after the damage has been done, isn’t help at all.

From experience I would request peritoneal dialysis as the mode for dialyzing before hemodialysis. Facilities may try to discourage you by talking of sterile techniques. Being sanitary and careful should get the job done.

I did hemodialysis at home with my mother for a year with no incidents whatsoever, with the exception of a few cases of prolonged bleeding after pulling her needles that blood pressure medication and a cold compress took care of.