Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Upcoming December ILD Support Group Focus


The December ILD Support is going to meet next Tuesday. Dr. Kevin Barrows, an integrative medicine physician and director of clinical programs, including mindfulness programs is booked to talk with us about Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. 

As part of the season's celebration, the head of the group also arranged a cookie exchange. I am still deciding what to make to share.

Susan and I have planned to meet for lunch at Park Chow before the meeting. She has taken classes through the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine and meditates daily. It has helped her with living in the present and not have the panic feelings I sometimes get during the night when I think about the future. She is so calm and so focused and I really admire that about her.

My long ago class learning a combination of imaging, tai-chi, yoga and other relaxation techniques failed. It's not that I really didn't enjoy the classes at the rehab hospital over the hill, it was that the classes were from 3:30-5:00PM. Rush hour. I would rush out to get onto the pass then sit in a lot of slow moving traffic and then have a frustrating trip home. The coup de gras was when the road itself was closed due to an accident and I sat in my car for over an hour in the cold waiting for it to reopen. The calm, relaxed person was arriving home tense and out of sorts. I never went back after that. But, I did learn some techniques that I still used when I really can't sleep. 

I am looking forward to going though some of the techniques with Dr. Barrows during the meeting. Maybe it is time to return to working on this part of living with a bad diagnosis. There are fantastic places in town right on the ocean which offer classes in meditation and yoga, both good for those of us with lung diseases.

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