The healer got sick

The healer got sick. The healer got tired.

There are those of us who work in the healing arts. I'm proud to be one, a healer. I don't think I always heal directly. I think the way it works is, when I play, I open a portal in some people's souls, and my spirit and theirs sort of fuse. It becomes a dance of magic. It doesn't work all the time. But it works when I let myself be real, which is pretty consistent, and when other people take off their masks and their armor. I don't seem to have any armor. That makes it tough to live in a world that's not exactly brimming over with loving kindness, but I manage somehow.

So I had a conversation with my friend Andi today. She's a fine pianist. She said that she had attended a camp where there were a lot of amateur pianists, and that she had a great time being there. I said that I thought that amateur musicians were often more likely to make music of substance than "professionals", simply because they weren't placed in positions where they had to prove themselves every time they played. They play for fun, or self-expression, or to learn about things. Pros have to be ON all the time.

Andi said this:

"The classical pianists that were there were playing fast, technical music, fast and furious. They were all competing. The amateurs were just having fun, and they were playing all these beautiful pieces that never get played, simply because they don't show off the technical brilliance of the pianist."

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Now, as some of you may know, I'm not as young as I used to be. Unless you've figured out a way to defy physics, neither are you. As we get older, things happen inside of us that we never expected in our younger years, and they're not always good things. But sometimes dark clouds really do have silver linings, and that's how I'm choosing to looking at this particular dark cloud.

For the past four years, I have had terrible bouts of tiredness. I don't mean the kind of tiredness where you just get a good night's sleep and that fixes it. I'm talking about a pervasive bone-weariness, a lethargy that at times makes the simplest activity seem like a major expenditure of energy.

We're all like little suns, atomic furnaces that burn fuel and emit heat and light, joy and sorrow, creativity and work, all the things that make us who we are.

My tiredness was more profound than I may ever be able to describe.

Somehow I managed to play concerts through it all, but there were times when, just before I walked on stage, I wanted to walk the other way and just leave the concert hall. If I had done that I would have been sued by the promoters. But I was getting to the point where I didn't much care. I was THAT tired.

I flew to Brecon, Wales, in Great Britain, to play a concert, and wisely allowed myself three days to rest before I played a one-hour concert. I slept almost every single minute of those three days. About all that I saw of Wales was the inside of the hall, the keys of the piano, and the ducks outside of my hotel room. At least that's all that I clearly remember.

I figured, at 60, that I was dying. "Strange," I thought, "that I should die so young, but I guess quality is better than quantity." And I'd console myself, noting that I'd made a slew of records and CDs, most of which I could live (or die) with, and that I've loved and been loved.

Then, last week, I went to my doctor for my regular checkup, and came back home and fell into what I later found out could've been my last night's sleep... the next morning my doctor called, telling me to get to the pharmacy... that he'd called in a drug that I needed to start taking immediately. He told me some other stuff too, some really scary stuff, but I want to focus on this tiredness, because really, that's what the past four years have been about.

Unbelievable fatigue.

And the really scary stuff isn't so scary, because, when you're this tired, not much scares you!

It turns out that I have hypothyroidism. Mine is not not a mild form. My thyroid is dead as a door-nail.

It turns out that I've been walking around for four years with little-to-no thyroid activity. My thyroid was most likely cutting in and out, like a bad stereo speaker. Some days static, other days, nothing at all. The thyroid gland regulates every single function of your body, and you can't live without it: you go into a coma and die. Turns out that I did nearly go into that coma, but was awakened by my partner just in time.

So now, every day for the rest of my life, I have to take a synthetic version of the hormone that the thyroid gland is supposed to produce on it's own, something called Levothyroxin. Meanwhile, my thyroid itself is out of the game forever, over with, kaput.

Hello, Levothyroxin.

Goodbye, thyroid gland.

I've only been taking the drug for three days, and it takes months for it to fully work and (hopefully) get me back up to speed. But just knowing WHY I was feeling so very very bad is enough to take some of the weight off.

I've been dealing with a whole laundry list of symptoms:

Weakness
Fatigue
Cold intolerance
Constipation or diahrea
Weight gain
Depression
Joint and muscle pain
Thin, brittle fingernails
Thin brittle hair
Paleness
Slow speech
Dry flaky skin
Puffy face, hands and feet
Decreased taste and smell
Thinning of eyebrows
Hoarseness
Overall swelling
Muscle spasms and cramps
Muscle atrophy
Uncoordinated movement
Joint stiffness
Hair loss
Drowsiness
Appetite loss
Ankle, feet, and leg swelling
The inability to deal with record producers

What a horrible four years I've had. Being an optimist (I actually am, really really!) I made it through. But it's been hard to really give my best while dealing with such a formidable opponent as thyroid disease.

I never focus on personal subject matter in my on-line writings. I'm of the generation that still believes in good taste, propriety, and privacy. But I bring this up here because of what it's taught me, what it's done to - and for - my art, and what it means for my future, at least as far as I understand it at the moment.

It reminds me a bit of what Keith Jarrett went through, and I can only say I admire that man with all of my heart and soul. What a trooper! When one is so tired that just getting out of bed is a major miracle, it's a real accomplishment to walk out there in front of a thousand people and play your heart out.

Here's an excerpt from an interview that Keith Jarrett did with Terry Gross on Fresh Air (my interview with her is here):

Mr Jarrett: I had to change everything about my approach before I could even start to play again. And "The Melody At Night, With You" was - - there won't be another recording that's more important to me, in many ways. But one of them that I can explain easily is that I had not played for a long time. And I didn't know if I would ever play again.

And when you -- it's something I did since I was three years old. So when I was able to sit at the piano without being sick and play a little bit, there was a way of dealing with economy that is way past anything I can imagine doing when I'm well. It's hard to describe.

It's almost like the disease made it possible to deal with the skeleton instead of the surface, you know--just the heart of things, because there was no energy for more than that.

Ms Gross: What about the mental focus, though, to figure out what the skeleton is--where it is?

Mr Jarrett: That came--comes and goes. And I was already on the therapy that I'm still on at the time. And it was one of the things that was slowly--the connection between my brain and hands was starting to return enough that--and I added kind of a way of thinking about playing that music. I didn't want to be clever because I didn't want to get into my old habit patterns. In a way, that's what an improviser always wants. And, in this case, I was forced to be that way, more than ever. And so I was starting at zero and being born again at the keyboard. And that's what comes through, I think.