by Jody Berger
In the car, my mom drove and I stared straight ahead at the faux-wood finish on the dashboard. I had a vague notion that the sky was clear and that the radio was not on. I couldn’t articulate what just happened. I didn’t have the language to explain that two experts had tortured me for two years and, without admitting their incompetence or asking my forgiveness, then had determined the experiment a failure and asked for another shot at me.
And the next time, they weren’t just going to come at me with pliers and drills and wires. They wanted to come at me with knives. They wanted to cut off my tongue.
I think the lesson I took from the experience at the time was: do not trust medical professionals to know what’s best and always double-check their suggestions. The lesson probably stayed with me subconsciously through my appointment with Silver and into Vancouver, where I panicked when Christopher and Guy wanted to have a meeting about me, without me. But luckily, new information leads to new understandings.
At thirteen, I thought the orthodontists were out to hurt me. Three decades later, I think they were probably doing the best they could with the tools they had. They just didn’t have very good ones. They didn’t think to ask the kid what she wanted or what she was willing to do to get there. Neither my mother nor I knew to ask their plan or goals, and we didn’t know how to evaluate either option. We all assumed that their idea of best outcomes and acceptable trade-offs matched mine—or that their ideas were the only ones.
As a kid, I was angry that no one consulted me. Three decades and a half dozen doctors later, I understood that a doctor couldn’t possibly point me toward my goal if I wasn’t clear on the goal myself. And if the doctor didn’t consult with me, it was up to me to make sure I was heard anyway.
If I were to see another doctor, I’d want her to work with me like a coach might. I’d want someone to understand that I’m at point A, want to get to point B and need to take an active role—working with my body, not against it—to achieve results.
I was sure doctors like that existed—I’d met them in Canada and California. There must be at least one in Colorado too.
CHAPTER 15
Mexico with Mitra
As September rolled into October, I was still riding my bike, practicing yoga and seeing Bruce when I could. My feet still felt strange, and I wondered whether it was neurological in nature or related to the lesions, but I chose to continue researching it on my own for the time being, rather than see another doctor. (I’d already seen so many!) Inspired by Mindsight, I collected books on brains and healing, with titles like The Brain That Changes Itself, by Norman Doidge; Perfect Health, by Deepak Chopra; and How Doctors Think, by Jerome Groopman.
I also wanted to reclaim that trip to India, so I emailed Mitra and asked if she were taking students again and when. She wrote back to say she had no plans for India but was taking a group to Troncones, Mexico, in November and I could join them.
Of course I went.
The first morning in Mexico, just before eight o’clock, I unrolled my purple mat onto the hardwood floor. Above me was a thatched roof held aloft by rough-hewn posts that looked like young and naked trees. The walls were nonexistent. From where I stood, I could see the pool and six bungalows around me and the beach and ocean before me.
I inhaled the warm coastal air and looked over the sand to watch the Pacific curling in on itself and racing toward me and then away, toward me and away. I shut my eyes to listen and realized that even without seeing the water, especially without seeing it, I could feel its relentless and replenishing power. I stood with my eyes closed, breathing and listening, until I heard people join me on the hardwood under the thatched roof.
“Take a comfortable seat,” Mitra said, bringing me back into the palapa. Everyone had arrived. All six students were present. Class was about to start.
We sat down cross-legged facing our teacher and, behind her, the ocean. “We will practice yoga twice a day,” Mitra said. “And I will ask you to journal and share your thoughts with each other.”
The six of us sat upright, with our backs straight and our eyes perked like puppies, looking happily to our leader for love and direction.
“I will ask you all to be intentional,” she said. “We are here for a week, and today I will ask you to write about your intentions, what you hope to do here.”
Then Mitra introduced the first chakra, which is located at the base of the spine and governs survival, security and passion. And she led us through a series of poses designed to energize that chakra. Mostly, we lay with our backs on the floor, working our lower bodies, lifting one leg up and out to the side, then the other, then both legs straight up and holding them there until we heard Mitra’s voice: “And down you come.”
As we worked our lower extremities, Mitra said more about the first chakra and told us what Mother, Mitra’s spiritual teacher and a student of Sri Aurobindo, said about survival, security and passion. As we strained minute after minute after long minute to hold each pose, working against inflexibility and incoming fatigue, we listened to Mitra say, “Little by little,” except from her mouth, the words were softer, sweeter and the Ts weren’t really there. It sounded more like, “Lillel by lillel, your hips will open.”
At the end of the two-hour class, she had us lay flat on our backs with our legs long on the floor for the final time in shavasana, the corpse pose. In this resting pose, the body and mind integrate all they have learned in the hours leading up to the pose. My limbs felt heavy and happy as I inhaled the warm, coastal air and listened to the water racing toward me and away, toward me and away. I felt tears rolling down the sides of my face, and I realized they had been gathering and growing under my eyelids until they found their way to the corners of my eyelashes and rolled to freedom. They were happy tears. I realized I too felt free, and I was overcome with gratitude.
After class, I met Mitra in the little beachside restaurant for breakfast, and before everyone else arrived, I told her I had cried in shavasana because I was so grateful to be right where I was. And as I told her, I started crying again because I knew it was true. As strange and scary as my crazy journey of diagnoses and misdiagnoses through the health-care system had been, I was grateful for all that I was learning. I knew I was on the right path.
“Thank you,” Mitra said. “Thank you.”
After breakfast, I walked on the beach, wrote in my journal and walked the beach again.
At about three in the afternoon, I was walking back to my little bungalow and saw Mitra sitting in the pool. From anywhere near the pool, you could see the ocean. On one end of it, the wall came up toward the surface of the water then flattened out for a couple feet so we could sit on the ledge in six inches of water. I sat down beside Mitra and finally told her in detail why I had to cancel the India trip nearly a year ago, in January.
I hadn’t seen her in person since then and didn’t check in with her again until I was ready to put the whole episode behind me and try for India one more time.
At the time, I said yes to Mexico and didn’t go through the whole story of my medical odyssey. Even if I had wanted to, email seemed inadequate. And for whatever reason, I hadn’t thought to call.
So, sitting in the pool in six inches of water, looking out toward the Pacific, I took what felt like the first chance to tell her what had happened to me.
And I told the story in its entirety. I told her about the tingling and how it came and went and how I didn’t think it was a big deal. I told her how Silver said I should get the MRI before I left the country and how the MRI tech hassled me about what the contrast dye cost and how she said using dye was so unusual. And I told Mitra how scared I was and how badly I just wanted to get to India so I could relax.
Sitting nearly hip to hip in a swimming pool under the warm sun, I told Mitra how, after the MRI, I was home organizing my gear to pack for India when Silver called to say I had MS. I told her how scared
I was, how I couldn’t breathe.
Without a second’s hesitation, Mitra wrapped her arms all the way around me, really hugged me with force and love and strength, and said, “Oh, baby.”
Her movement was so swift and so sure and so powerful that I realized this was all I wanted. A big and certain hug with a heartfelt “oh, baby”—this is what a mother does instinctually, and this is what I had wanted my mother to do. This is the way a mom tells a child that she will survive, that she is safe.
This is what I wanted when I was five years old and my stomach ached. This is what I wanted when I was thirteen and the orthodontists threatened to shave down my tongue. And this is what I wanted when I graduated college with a mountain of debt and no clue what to do in the world or how to pay it all back.
And mostly, this full-body hug with a simple, straightforward, sincere “Oh, baby”—this is what I wanted my mom to do when Silver told me I had MS.
Until this moment with Mitra, I had no recollection of an experience like this, an embrace so strong and supportive that I knew I would survive. And without any knowledge of a hug like this, I didn’t know it was what I wanted and I didn’t think to ask. When I told my mom what was going on, I didn’t feel held in response. I felt pushed away, and still I kept emailing her, kept trying to convince her, because I was still her child and still believed, unconsciously and despite all evidence to the contrary, that my mom could deliver.
As I sat sobbing and unwinding in Mitra’s arms, Mitra delivered—she held me and held me—and it felt like the first time anyone had ever done this for me. Mitra’s hug and love felt so nurturing and, at the same time, so foreign to me that I sat bewildered and unwilling to let go of this full-body, completely emotional and totally unconditional love.
With the sound of the ocean over my shoulder, and this small Iranian woman wrapped around me, I felt so good and so safe and so reassured.
“Oh, baby,” she said, and that was all. “Oh, baby.”
After a while, we had more to say, but we didn’t stop hugging or crying.
Mitra and I sat holding each other and sobbing and talking as I told her the rest of the story about my adventures with the callous people at my HMO and the lovely, caring men in Canada. I explained how I was so desperate to figure out what was really wrong with me and cure myself that I got a 3-D picture of my brain in California, discovered Deepak Chopra’s book, and decided I’d like to learn more about Ayurveda because it sounded like a more holistic and gentle way to assess what was going on with my body.
“Oh yes!” she said and again, her accent was so fun that yes almost rhymed with race, although the one-syllable word had two beats and sounded like “yay-es!” when Mitra said it.
Still hugging and sitting hip to hip in six inches of water in a lovely little swimming pool under the full sun in Troncones, Mexico, we laughed and talked and cried until we were finished. We didn’t rush or even realize whether anyone had come near us. We just stayed in the conversation until it was complete, and when it was, we learned that the hour had slipped past four o’clock, closer to four thirty. We jumped and scrambled back to our rooms to change clothes because Mitra had a yoga class to teach and I had one to take at four. Whoops…
We reconvened in the gorgeous, wall-less yoga studio near the water.
Ninety minutes later, my limbs once again felt strong and my lungs felt large. When we lay down in shavasana for the second time of the day, I was again overcome with gratitude because I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be. There wasn’t a chance in the world, no matter what anyone said or whatever was happening anywhere else, that I was meant to be anywhere but in Troncones with Mitra and the five women who were laying on their mats all around me. There was nothing I was supposed to hear other than the powerful Pacific, and there was nothing I was supposed to feel other than the warm wind coming off the ocean.
That night in my bungalow, I fell asleep listening to the soft whir of a ceiling fan and the subtle clicking of geckos talking to one another.
In the morning, I went back to the palapa, eager and energized. For day two, Mitra moved to the second chakra, which is located just below the belly button and governs creativity, emotions and sensuality.
“Water is the element associated with this chakra,” Mitra said. “It concerns flow and movement.”
And with that, Mitra led us through two hours of forward bends and cobras, downward dogs and puppies. At the end, in shavasana, my mind was nearly clear. I could hear the ocean and nothing else. No thoughts, no self-talk, nothing, just ocean.
After class, all of us migrated to the café and ordered eggs, fruit and coffee. We talked about the class we had just completed and classes we had taken before. Two women in the group, Beth and Diane, had gone to India in January when I didn’t go. As they talked about the time they spent there, I felt regret that I hadn’t been a part of it and comfortable enough to tell them why I wasn’t.
“I wish I had gone,” I started, “but at the time I was so scared. As I was organizing my stuff to go on that trip, a neurologist called to tell me I had MS.”
Six women at the table all looked suddenly and intently at me. None looked scared. None looked like she pitied me or felt sorry for me. Each one of them, still wearing their yoga clothes and their post-shavasana calm, looked at me with interest and openness. They looked like they cared and wanted to know what happened.
So I told them. I told them about Dr. Silver and the doctors in Canada and what I learned about vitamins B and D and their impact on the nervous system. I told them about how I felt in my body and how my mind churned in terror.
I talked to these women like I had known them forever, and I felt I had. I told them how scared and helpless I felt dealing with each doctor in Denver and how empowered and excited I felt working with doctors who believed that healing was always possible.
“How did your father handle it?” Beth asked.
“Really well,” I said, somewhat surprised by the question. “He was great, wanted to clear his schedule and come with me to Vancouver.” At the table, all six faces brightened to hear this. “It was my mom who didn’t do so well,” I said and watched their expressions lose the light.
Three of the six women at the table were mothers and all of us, we all had mothers.
“At first, on the phone, my mom seemed to be tentatively listening, but then the next day she seemed to change to say I was doing everything wrong and that I had to fly to Detroit to see her doctor. When I said no, it sent her spiraling out of control. One day she was like, ‘You’ve brought this on yourself because you don’t share your emotions with me.’ And the next day, ‘You’re just like your father and you’re going to die.’ And finally she said, ‘How could you do this to me?’”
Six women gasped in unison. “What?” Diane asked.
“I know, it was so crazy that it kinda snapped me out of my stupor. I had been trying to have a conversation with her, trying to negotiate to get what I wanted, and when she said that, it was like, ‘Well, I can’t do this right now. I have to focus on my health.’”
Around the table, over the half-eaten plates of fruit and scrambled eggs and avocado, I saw six faces in various phases of anger and sadness. And on all of their faces, I saw kindness and care and concern. And I saw a desire to help, a wish to be with me on this journey and to make sure I knew I was not alone. And I wasn’t. All of a sudden, I knew I wasn’t. I had big sisters and little sisters and maybe moms too. Even though they weren’t my mom, they were moms, and they knew how to do the mothering thing. They just sat with me, listening to me, not jumping in to offer advice or criticize or condemn. They were just present, sitting at this table in this moment, listening to me and being with me as I recounted a really terrifying time in my life.
And we sat at the table until the conversation was complete. No one rushed. No one looked at her watch or made an excuse to get up fr
om the table. I felt supported and loved and accepted. And for the fourth time in two days, I was overcome with gratitude.
By day five of this Mexican yoga retreat, we were all so close to one another that we were sharing passages from our journals as if sharing our most private thoughts and fears was no big deal, as if we did it all the time, without fear and without judgment. We were becoming the people we wanted to be, bigger, stronger and braver. This transformation seemed to be happening inside of five days, but I knew the process of growing healthier in mind and body had started months earlier.
Later that afternoon, back in my bungalow, before our second class of the day, I grabbed my cell phone and went to the restaurant to take advantage of the wireless connection. I’d been checking my email once a day, deleting or ignoring all the notes except ones from Bruce. He was also in Mexico, at his new house in Cabo, and we were checking in daily.
I typed a quick reply to him, told him how grateful I was to be right where I was, surrounded by the ocean and warm air and fabulous feminine energy. I wrote that I loved him and hit “Send.”
Then I scrolled through the rest of the emails and found one from my mom.
Hello Jody,
I keep thinking about you and how much I miss you and then I realized that although you are my daughter, I don’t really know you. Nor do I think you know me. Can we “meet” and get to know each other as we are now?
I love you,
Mom
I hadn’t had heard from her since May. It was now November. (Granted, I hadn’t contacted her either.) Six months had passed in such radio silence that I’d figured it might be permanent.