IN A MOMENT I said goodbye to the doctors and nurses at the clinic. I walked 25 meters and broke down in tears. Just a bit after that, walking became difficult. I was having trouble moving my left leg. I started to limp, and in less than a hundred meters, I felt like I was going to fall to the floor. Abdominal spasms made it difficult for me to walk upright. I leaned against a bench, my crying intensified, and I began to hyperventilate. People walking by were looking at me. They spoke to me, but I did not answer.
My level of emotional response raised again. A woman stopped and asked me if I needed help. I spoke to her for several minutes, answering in short sentences. I remember that she asked mewhat had happened, and my answer was not particularly articulate. I was having trouble thinking about the past or the future. My brain had anchored itself in the present, trapped in desperate emotions. I felt intense nausea, but not the kind that induced vomiting. It was something different. I had a sensation of pressure in my chest. I thought I might be having a heart attack.
DISCONNECTED After about 45 minutes, the autonomic response suddenly calmed; my breathing returned to being unrushed. I felt released, as if now free from my emotions. I felt a strange sensation of peace. My sense of time had been affected. The two hours I walked seemed quite brief. My short-term memory wasn’t working well. I had the strange feeling of not belonging to my surroundings, as if disconnected. The people around me seemed alien, as if they weren’t part of my world, as ifthere were two parallel realities: theirs and mine.
The right hemisphere of the brain is in charge of processing experiences in the present and negative emotions. It was as if some circuits in my right hemisphere had disconnected, producing a strange experience of disassociation for me. My prefrontal lobes were suffering from distress, which had inundated me, and in order to overcome it, I needed to disconnect myself so the pain would cease. My prefrontal functions were affected and were leaving me hanging in a state of altered perception. My brain had closed in on itself. My right hemisphere, responsible for integrating me into the surrounding environment, had disconnected essential circuits.
The right hemisphere processes interior as well as exterior space. I was not aware of my emotions that had brought me back to a state of calm by disconnecting. The pain was not mine and neither was the space around me.My brain had produced a great quantity of endorphins which had relaxed me, as if I were thinking less, and my muscles relaxed, producing a sensation of walking as if floating in water. That night at home, the feelings of fear returned. I couldn’t sleep and my thermoregulation was not working right, I couldn’t regulate my core temperature I was feeling cold in a very hot room. I was very aware that the fear could kill me much more easily than the tumor I was confronting could.
The date for my surgery was set the following day. Three weeks later a biopsy would be performed, and I would know if I was facing a thymoma and life expectancy of 10 years or more—or the opposite, an advanced carcinoma or lymphoma which would require a more aggressive treatment with a life expectancy of less than 2 years. I spent the next three weeks preparing myself physically for theoperation. I was in good spirits during the day, but after 7 in the evening, I tended to have panic attacks and I could not stop crying.
THE NEXT PHASE A month later I had the surgery to remove the tumor. The surgery carried with it the risk of breaking the capsule that surrounded the tumor, spreading its content to the pleura and mediastinum. The removal of the tumor was a complicated procedure. It measured 9 centimeters in diameter and was in a space as small as the mediastinum anterior, placing force on the left lung to make room for it. After four hours of surgery, the lung collapsed.
Waking Up
Minute One: I woke up. I felt an intense pain in the thorax. My left lung had lost its elasticity. My entire body was paralized. I couldn’t move a muscle.It was as if I had been shot in my left lung. I could not inhale. The muscles used for exhalation were contracted, and inhalation was accomplished by great force, producing a deep pain I had never before experienced. The entire left side of my body was contracted, as if it were protecting itself from the intense aggression it had experienced during surgery. It was not obeying my orders.
I could only take superficial breaths, a second of inhalation and a second of exhalation, which required so much force on my part, it distressed me greatly. I was able to talk to the surgeon for a moment, and I described to him the muscles that were spastic in my back and in my hand. He told me this should not be happening and that it might be a response to the aggressive surgical procedure. After an hour, I was moved to the nursing floor. I was lying in the bed with a drain in the lung, when the sedatives took effect.
Three hours later, my breathing becamevery difficult. A very young nurse who was on the night shift came to me and said, “You are very tense. You have to move even if it hurts.” That very simple and direct advice opened my eyes. I had no other choice than to stimulate my breathing on my own. I checked to see which muscles I could move, and found that I could only move my head a bit and the fingers on my right hand. The left side of my body was in spasm, an intense and painful contraction. My muscles were heavily contracted from my shoulder to my toes. I had to use the same system that I had designed for my generalized dystonia patients, but this time on my own body.
I began to make pendulating movements, increasing their range bit by bit, when I felt my muscles relax a little. The process was very painful and let loose a strong autonomic and emotional response. After 15 minutes of trying, I was able to unblockmy first movement. I could slowly open and close my left hand. I added rhythmic contractions of my breathing muscles. I used inhalation to stretch my back muscles bit by bit, millimeter by millimeter. After an hour, I could bend both elbows, and the pain decreased.
Hour Three: I tried to connect with my pectoral muscles on both sides. The right responded with difficulty, the left had no strength. It trembled or did not respond at all. Some of the thoracic nerves had been cut. The muscles had been separated, detached during surgery, but not cut. They could contract and relax, but my nervous system refused to use them. I was aware that my recuperation would only be possible with a neural regeneration. Before I could recuperate functionality, I had to be able to make that happen.I could wait for the regeneration of my tissues to take place before I began my movement rehabilitation, but I knew that I should not do that. If I began exercising, accomplishing what I could, I would guide the regeneration of tissues, the processes of neuroplasticity, and in the end, tone the desired muscles. My recuperation would need directing, which was provided by the movements I made. Movement is the means of driving a recuperation and assisting lymphatic, immunologic, circulatory, and respiratory function.
I took my left hand in my right and moved it slightly, progressively increasing the range. When I found the point in my range where I experienced pain and a defensive spasm was produced, I stopped and tried to relax.
Hour Four: My range had greatly increased, but there were still points where the system was blocked. My left arm wouldn’t even slightly pass the area damaged by the surgery.I began to work on my serratus and latissimus dorsi muscles, the two muscles most contracted as a consequence of the surgery. I exercised: anteversion, abduction and adduction of the left shoulder with the help of the right arm. I felt an intense, incapacitating trembling.
Hour Five: I was able to initiate active movement of my left shoulder, with a very limited but progressing range. My arm would move only a few millimeters, but it was a big improvement. My body began to respond. My breathing progressively became easier, but the pain was still intense. I was able to sleep for an hour, but it was from exhaustion.
Hour Seven: I felt the need to stand, but the nurses wouldn’t allow it. After 6 hours I was allowed to sit up, which facilitated the draining.I began exercises with the spirometer, but I could not make the spheres rise. Trying to increase my exhalation pressure caused a cutting pain that produced a spasm in my back and chest. 24 hours after surgery The drain was removed and the pain was greatly reduced. They allowed me to get up. I took a few very slow steps, which radically improved my situation. I began to unblock the flow of chi in my hips with my right hand. I could not get even 10 centimeters close to the surgical incision with my other hand because it caused trembling in my entire body. My chi was making irregular movements, like never before. My bladder meridian was blocked. I worked on reinitiating the chi flow through the meridian. That night I noticed an unblocking of the stomach and bladder meridians: They were working at 150 percent.
Day Three: I was able to walk better and was able to unblock the flow of chi from the surgery site, but I had no feeling in the pectorals. Even the nipples had no feeling. My brain wasn’t processing my left pectoral as part of me. I felt a deep sadness as if in a duel with the part of me that had been removed. I remembered that the thymus (the gland that had been removed) was considered in some cultures to be the seat of the soul or the seat of the heart’s energy. I gently began to stimulate the skin to regain sensation in my chest, with no immediate progress.
My left arm now had improved mobility, but the dystonia was clear. There was great tension and great resistance to movement. I discovered something interesting. My left arm, which I could not move intentionally, regained movement when it repeated a movement made by the right. I was aware that I was confronting a cortical issue and that I needed to get over a dystonia of the left arm. By copying the movement of the right, I was able to increase my anteversion range a little.
Day Five: I no longer needed analgesics during the day. I felt very tired, but I was able to sleep in a seated position. I had gone more than four days without sleeping. Day Six: I regained partial feeling in the skin of the nipple and pectoral areas, accompanied by paresthesia. I felt odd pains when I touched those areas, as if there were tiny pieces of glass under the skin. I stimulated the area with a soft sponge, which produced an autonomic response or great stress, dizziness, and a strange pain of neurologic origin. The left pectoral continued to be disconnected. The post-surgery scars were a bit infected, which kept me from exercising much due to the pain caused by stretching the area. I took it easy for a while.I was able to unblock the gallbladder meridian using chi gong. The surgery had also affected the flow in the kidney, pericardium and lung meridians. I needed to activate the left kidney, which had become hypoactive after the surgery.
Day Ten: The site of the surgery regained feeling, which brought with it a dull internal pain, and what looked like subconscious memories of the assault during the surgery. These could have been real memories or ones produced from fear, but they affected me the same way. I needed to include more daily meditation to control the circular thoughts about the surgery.
REHABILITATION A month after the surgery, my left lung was working again and breathing was less painful, but my respiratory system was not working sufficiently. If I didn’t pay attention to it, my breathingbecame blocked. My breathing was quite superficial, making it difficult for me to walk without tiring. I frequently woke up during the night forcefully inhaling through my mouth, feeling suffocated. I was aware that I needed to relearn how to breathe. I made myself a strict plan for recovery that included hours of daily breathing exercises. The rehabilitaion of my arm was not a priority at that moment. I needed to reestablish my breathing first. I soon learned that I was mistaken. Without the use of my left arm, I lost a valuable assistant in the functioning of my left lung. I needed to rehabilitate both at the same time.
I worked for hours in front of a mirror, trying to have my left arm copy the movements of my right. Supination of my left arm was difficult. Abduction and anteversion were limited. I could not surpass more than 20 percent of the range of movement.How could I assist my body to relearn how to breathe? The first step required identifying when I blocked my breathing and reacting at the very first moment, not allowing the cease of respiratory flow. I studied the movements of the torso and arms that might help me force respiration that was not produced on a pulmonary level. It needed to be respiration initiated externally, with the superficial muscles stimulating the deeper ones. That worked. My lung reacted to the movement.
Without the help of the left arm, my first step was to use movements of the trunk and the hips to assist in achieving quiet inhalations and exhalations. I choreographed circular motions that combined hip flexions and extensions with trunk flexions and extensions. I always worked with music, as the rhythm helped me keep the movements smooth. It became clear to me that I needed to smoothly connect movements. This dance-like characteristic of the exercises had a powerful effect on my nervoussystem, which allowed me to increase the range of movement and the levels of stretching much more when the motions were rhythmic and smooth.
Three Months Later: I noticed a great change in mobility in my left arm. During these months of rhythmic working in front of the mirror, I was able to regain 80 percent of the range of movement for all motions of my left arm. My breathing was still stiff, but it no longer stopped. It had returned to feeling like an automatic process that no longer required my attention. The pain in my left thorax continued, but I accepted it as part of a process of change.Many of the patients who had thoracic surgery which cut the intercostal nerves experienced paresthesia or chronic pain for many months after the operation. Many need to take analgesics on a regular basis. In my case, I opted for neuroplasticity. I needed to modify my pain threshold in the hypersensitive affected area. If I touched my right pectoral, I felt the contact and the temperature of my hand. If I touched my left pectoral, during the first weeks, I felt nothing. I had lost almost all of the feeling in that area.
After the third week, the feeling began to return, along with the pain. It was a pain that was very characteristic of neurologic injuries. It felt as if there were tiny pieces of glass under the skin that were cutting me and causing a dull pain. That pain made me uneasy. The feeling was not only in the pectoral. The worst part was not the pain but the sudden active state I felt come over my nervous system and my kidneys every time I touched those areas. The slightest brush against the area made me overreact.My body wanted to avoid contact there. It was clear to me that I had to begin a process of desensitizing it. In the present condition, the lightest touch produced pain. In order to induce desensitization, I used my hands.
Every day I lightly touched the area, without pressure. If I could not stand the feeling more than a few seconds, I stopped, and when it felt better, I reinitiated the stimulation. By doing this, I was intermittently stimulating the nerve endings on the left side of my thorax. In a few days, I felt the pain change. It felt different: from broken glass it became a type of strange itching pain, but only when I pressed the muscle against my ribs or touched the exterior muscle attachments. Taps to the area with my hands, even light ones, were unbearable, but with practice I decreased the sensitivity to a point where I could softly slap or press the musculature producing only slight discomfort.
Six Months Later: My body wanted to avoid contact there. It was clear to me that I had to begin a process of desensitizing it. In the present condition, the lightest touch produced pain. In order to induce desensitization, I used my hands. Every day I lightly touched the area, without pressure. If I could not stand the feeling more than a few seconds, I stopped, and when it felt better, I reinitiated the stimulation. By doing this, I was intermittently stimulating the nerve endings on the left side of my thorax. In a few days, I felt the pain change. It felt different: from broken glass it became a type of strange itching pain, but only when I pressed the muscle against my ribs or touched the exterior muscle attachments. Taps to the area with my hands, even light ones, were unbearable, but with practice I decreased the sensitivity to a point where I could softly slap or press the musculature producing only slight discomfort.
In six months I was able to reorganize my paresthesia on the left side of the thorax with regular stimulation. The pain disappeared and only reappeared from time to time for short periods. After more than 400 hours of practice, I regained complete movement in the left arm. The range of movement in the shoulder was 100 percent in anteversion and retroversion abduction-adduction. The flexion-extension of the elbow, the pronosupination and the movement of the fingers were also working correctly. During the following months, I had to do daily stretches to maintain that state of muscular function. As the months continued to go by, I began to feel completely normal.
