Surgery and Em’s first day of college – those were both very trying days. Lucille, Mom’s cousin, is very intelligent. She met the doctor and really liked him, which is comforting, more for my mom than me. I was comfortable with my decision on the surgeon. I just didn’t want to have to do this. I want my body to heal. I know there is a reason. I just have to find it.
I came through surgery just fine.
He ended up taking out 2 lymph nodes. After the surgery, when they got me into the wheelchair, I began shaking like a leaf. The nurse told me to stop shaking. I told her that I had just undergone a serious trauma and I needed to shake. It is a normal animal response to trauma that helps your body process the trauma.
You see, I read Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma by Peter Levine. And I am really glad that I did. This is what GoodReads says about the book:
Waking the Tiger offers a new and hopeful vision of trauma. It views the human animal as a unique being, endowed with an instinctual capacity. It asks and answers an intriguing question: why are animals in the wild, though threatened routinely, rarely traumatized? By understanding the dynamics that make wild animals virtually immune to traumatic symptoms, the mystery of human trauma is revealed. Waking the Tiger normalizes the symptoms of trauma and the steps needed to heal them. People are often traumatized by seemingly ordinary experiences. The reader is taken on a guided tour of the subtle, yet powerful impulses that govern our responses to overwhelming life events. To do this, it employs a series of exercises that help us focus on bodily sensations. Through heightened awareness of these sensations trauma can be healed. |