Why yoga is precious for my failing body
“We’re not the body, but a lifetime of identifying with a vessel that’s animated by life can be a hard habit to break. As humans, we’re always and only life itself, briefly occupying a handful of stardust before we’re scattered again to the four winds.”
Those words are from my recently published book, Journey Home: Essays on Living & Dying.
They resonate now for many reasons.
I have a daily yoga practice that is especially precious to me in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic that is sweeping the world.
I am grateful to have the time and a tranquil place to do my practice at a time when so many people are suffering physically, emotionally and financially because of this unprecedented disaster.
While I am physically well and able to be reasonably isolated from exposure to the coronavirus, I still harbour the feelings of dread that are spreading like a contagion as millions of people across the globe are being devastated by the pandemic.
By contrast, my yoga practice fills me with peace and soothes the tense and tangled muscles that accumulate each day from using a body to move about the world.
During today’s practice the thought occurred to me that there’s no one more deserving of my love and mercy than me. That practising yoga is a precious gift I give myself.
Not only does it bring me peace and joy, but it is an act of self-love. A recognition that I am not merely a body. That I am love. That I am the world. That I am infinite. And that my practice aligns me with these eternal truths.
Another reason the practice is precious is that my body is vulnerable and slowly crumbling.
I have multiple myeloma, which is a cancer of the plasma cells in the bone marrow. Bone marrow is the soft tissue inside bones where blood cells are made and plasma cells are a type of white blood cell that normally produce antibodies that fight disease and infection.
Widespread growth of the cancerous plasma cells in the bone marrow leaves little room for normal blood cells and this causes a range of problems, including weak bones, anaemia and reduced immunity.
Myeloma is treatable but incurable and when treatment fails the cancer cells cause lesions in the bones that make them weak and brittle in a way that’s similar to the effects of osteoporosis.
Also, as the cancerous cells proliferate in the bone marrow they tend to spread throughout the skeletal system, causing catastrophic pain in areas such as the spine, ribs, pelvis and limbs. This is why it is called multiple myeloma.
When I was diagnosed some five years ago, the cancerous plasma cells accounted for 70 per cent of all plasma cells in my bone marrow. The bones in my ribs, spine and skull had hundreds of micro-fractures in them due to the mass of proliferating cancer cells. Moving my body was an agony. Strong opiate drugs were almost useless.
The day will come when the cancer is uncontrollable and with it will come increasing pain, decreasing mobility and eventually an inability to do my precious yoga.
I recently read a medical paper about a 32 year-old male myeloma patient who’s had a similar treatment path to mine. We’ve been on many of the same drugs and both seen out cancer levels go up and down over the years as our doctors prescribed several lines of chemotherapy to keep downward pressure on the cancer, which tends to ‘break out’ and proliferate after a while.
Here’s an excerpt from the paper that stopped me in my tracks:
The patient remained clinically stable, with slow biochemical progression after transplantation. In July 2007, a fifth line of treatment with thalidomide and cyclophosphamide was initiated. A partial response was achieved, with grade 2 neurotoxicity, which lead to treatment interruption after eight cycles. Four months later, progression was documented with bone pain and an increase in bone marrow plasmacytosis. A sixth line of treatment with lenalidomide and dexamethasone was introduced and a partial response was achieved. This treatment continued until November 2010, when the patient was admitted in the emergency room with paraplegia due to dorsal vertebra collapse and spinal cord compression. [i]
His spine collapsed, compressing his spinal cord and caused paraplegia. Myeloma had caused such damage to his bones over the years that they finally buckled and broke under pressure, leaving him a paraplegic.
He’s been in treatment for 15 years. I’ve been in treatment for five. He is on his eighth line of therapy. I’m on my sixth and he has been on every drug I’ve been on, plus a couple more.
The point here is this: if the goal of medical treatment for myeloma is to avert death and complications for a time and to remain as healthy as possible, the end game could mean catastrophic failure of the bones, immobility and paraplegia.
I consider this every day during my precious yoga practice. For now and perhaps a while longer, may it continue to bring me peace and strength and flexibility should mybody eventually fail and crumble. As I’ve said, “we are not the body, but a lifetime of identifying with the vessel that was animated by life can be a hard habit to break.”
I’m trusting that I will be able to meet a vanquished body with acceptance when that day comes. I hope I’m equal to the wisdom that we are not merely bodies but infinite. That, “as humans, we’re always and only life itself, briefly occupying a handful of stardust before we’re scattered again to the four winds.”
[i] Cristina João, Carlos Costa, Inês Coelho, Maria João Vergueiro, Mafalda Ferreira, and Maria Gomes da Silva, Clin Case Rep. 2014 Oct; 2(5): 173–179.
Dan Gaffney MPH is a teacher and author. His new book and podcast series, ‘Journey Home — Essays on Living and Dying’ was published in November 2019.
