Amiodarone is the boss.

May 25, Everyday steady progress

My hormones are way off. During the operation and recovery, my hormonal cycles of life were temporarily, if grossly interrupted. I am finding my way back, beginning again. Let’s start with “Dinacharya,” getting into a daily habit routine. Let’s use the power of habit to find my way back.

This frustrating experience is humbling.

The doctors are prescribing me the infamous Amiodarone. It is a heavy duty experience. Amiodarone is commonly used for a variety of arrhythmias and, in some parts of the world, is the only available antiarrhythmic drug. Amiodarone is known to have a wide range of potential side effects, many of which are dose- and duration-dependent.

Today I again found Left Right Breath frustrating/impossible because the drug is controlling everything. I pressed on and will continue testing. If I do more than 6 rounds in a row, everything becomes very unpleasant and goes out of sync with my breath. I felt that it was more disruptive to do 6 rounds than 2 rounds. So I pulled back.

I can do 2 rounds safely, and then let go to mindfulness only. I made many attempts, but found I could not influence the drug at all. All the yogi breath practices and tricks are rendered useless on this drug.

It is a bit like you are on a non-stop, 24 hour a day, roller coaster. You can’t get off. One of the differences is that, I actually like roller coasters for a 10 minute ride.

The ‘Loss of Practice”, as I knew it, made me cry. I was counting on breath practices somehow saving me until the end. My thoughts briefly traveled through hopelessness, devastation and darkness. A sense of being out of control, really out of control, is my breath heart reality right now.

All right, time to get over that devastation and darkness talk, because it doesn’t lead to a beneficial future. If we want to experience the sweet fruits in the future, we cannot plant bitter seeds now. Once I could acknowledge “the loss of practice,” and the way it is now, I felt some movement. I am still working on it.

My formal morning practice today consisted of mudraas and mantraas, devotion, stillness and 2 rounds of Left Right Breath. I made three attempts with long breaks of breath awareness in between. When I tried 6 in a row, it was awful and more disruptive than helpful.

When I would engage traditional Buddhist Mindfulness breath awareness, it increased my anxiety. My heart and breath are racing so fast with so much blood pressure from a heart that pumps really well.

When the doctors and nurses look at my numbers they are ecstatic. The drug is working perfectly according to general guidelines of human dosing. While sitting my systolic diastolic pressures are holding steady at 108/72, 99/66….. 75 beats per minute.

The problem is the 75 beats per minute. This new heart pumps four times (?) the amount of blood than the old heart. My old heart would have these same lovely blood pressures…. but at 48-55 beats per minute, with a heart that barely pumps blood at all.

Subjectively, it feels like blood pressure is spiking and it is not. It is the high number of beats per minute with a much more powerful heart, that is making me feel like I have high blood pressure.

Everything has changed in side. The meditation points are not where I left them. This may take a couple of months to claw my way back.