A new year

It is January 1st and from the window I can see trees, green plants and grass, a white dog playing, a blue sky with some white, high clouds slowly passing by. Everything is quiet, a soft landing into 2012. I feel happy, glad to belong to this Universe. The trip to Ithaca continues: because even when you land in Ithaca, the trip doesn't end. Still many things to discover, to learn, to enjoy, to share. And perhaps the best way to express the feelings is through the eyes of kids. We discover, learn, enjoy and share better if we keep the spontaneity and curiosity of kids. And it is so touching when a kid comes and says "I did this for you!". So here are my memories of New Year's Eve.

aortic

AORTIC DISSECTION: A SURVIVAL KIT

In the morning of Saturday March 26th 2011 I suffered an aortic dissection. A few minutes later I was admitted at the Hua Dong Hospital (affiliated to Fudan University) of Shanghai in "very critical conditions". I was treated for 9 days, and then I went through two operations, a peritoneal dialysis on Monday April 4th and an aorta surgery on Tuesday April 5th. Surgery was successful, the problem is now under control and I am safe. Less than three weeks after the operations I am home, I am independent, I can walk and go out, have a shower, eat any kind of healthy food in a balanced way, make love, in a word I am slowly going back to a "normal" life (if life can ever be "normal" after such an experience: I personally doubt it. After this, life become so precious, exciting and beautiful that it is difficult to consider it "normal", and one just wants to enjoy it as much as possible, in a very conscious and positive way).

Aortic dissection not always allows such a positive outcome: in my case, I strongly feel that a few factors combined together to favor a happy ending of the story. This is why I decided to accept the kind invitation of Doctor Li Li, Vice Director of Vascular Surgery at the Hua Dong Hospital (Doctor Li has directly followed my case; he is the second from right in the image here above) to write a short comment about my personal experience on his website (which I also post in copy on my blog) with the hope that it may be useful to others (patients and their families) who could go through a similar experience.

Aortic dissection doesn't usually have symptoms, therefore it is almost impossible to prevent. In my case, it was a strong punctual pain on my chest, totally out of the blue, like if someone had put a knife in my right lung. Nevertheless, the day before I had experienced a sudden, acute pain in my left jaws, like a strong toothache, during a moderate physical effort: it could have been a signal, but I decided to ignore it. However, my first personal recommendation is:

1) act immediately: as soon as you feel pain in your chest (or even a sudden, inexplicable strong toothache for that matter) call an ambulance or ask someone to drive you to the most qualified hospital in the neighbor.

When I arrived to hospital, no more that 10 or 15 minutes later, I was almost unable to walk, pain in the chest was becoming stronger, and was joined by strong pain in the back, violent headache and stomachache (stomachache became so strong later that I could not eat or drink anything for five days before the operations, and I had to be fed by intravenous drip). For hours I was only able to tremble and repeat "it is very painful, it is very painful". I even recall having hallucinations. Despite my wrong conviction that it could have been a lung problem (due to the fact that I had a lung operation for a bullous emphysema twenty years before) in a matter of minutes the doctors in the hospital correctly pinned down that it was a cardiovascular problem and more precisely that the walls of my aorta were collapsing and possibly breaking, with the risk of aneurysm. When they told me what was happening to me, the first reaction was, quite understandably, to panic. Even if no one says it, you immediately understand you are in a life-threatening condition. I had an extra reason to panic: my father had two heart attacks and then passed away because of an aneurysm. I felt like if a heavy, unwanted genetic heritage was going to make me pay a very expensive toll. And here it comes my second little piece of advice:

2) accept the facts: don't panic, don't hate what is happening, don't refuse it. Even if you don't want it, it is happening and it is happening to you. The best way to get ready to react is to accept it and focus on positive response. I didn't hate my father for the heritage he had brought into my veins: in a moment I understood what he went through in his own time, I felt him close to me, I felt that he was holding my hand and that he was ready to fight together with me. Since then, I have never felt that I was alone: this attitude led me to listen in a more positive way to doctors, to my girlfriend, to my friends and family, to my inner hopes. It was no me alone against an unfair destiny: it was a teamwork (me, the doctors, my girlfriend, my friends and family) against a specific problem that although tough and complicated could have been solved.

And since we are talking about teamwork, here there are the next two suggestions:

3) trust your body: the aggression of the illness is very violent, and the medical and surgical response is at least as violent. The dynamic of the events exposes your body to continuous risks and the body balance becomes extremely delicate. I have done active sport on a regular basis for forty years; I am not overweight, I've always cared about what I eat and drink, and despite the fact that I used to be a smoker (which of course didn't help prevent my vascular problem, more likely the opposite) I felt very strong from a physical point of view: I therefore trusted the capability of my body to resist to those aggressions. I knew it was going to be difficult, but I also knew that my body could make it. Treat your body well, if you can: walk an hour a day, exercise, drink a lot of water, eat well, sleep well, do yoga and meditation, do things that are good for your body. When you will need your body to be really strong, when you will need to count on your body to survive, you will not regret to have taken good care of yourself;

4) trust the doctors: this is not an easy task because it doesn't only depend on you (as the previous point 3) but also on the doctors who follow your case, on reciprocal interaction. I find it very important though, because if you develop trust for your doctors, you relax and make their work easier and at the same time you develop a team spirit (because you feel that everybody is genuinely, passionately working to overcome the enemy: your illness) and the doctors become your coaches: therefore you listen to them when they ask you to do impossible things (like to remain motionless in bed for days despite the unbearable pain in your back) or when they make you believe that you can reach unexpected results (like successfully surviving a dangerous operation, as if it was like winning a very difficult football match).

I have been very lucky: the entire staff at the Hua Dong Hospital, doctors and nurses, proved to be highly professional, extremely well trained, competent, updated, and gifted with an evident sense of humanity and the capability to approach the patient from the right angle. I am grateful to every doctor (senior or junior) and nurses which I had the chance to interact with; in particular, I have been personally, deeply touched by the work of Doctor Li. I found he had the rare gift to be able to say to me the right things at the right time, with the right tone, with the right smile: and by doing so he got my unconditional trust. I fully believe that this greatly helped to make his work and the work of his colleagues successful.

I also have to thank you another doctor, Doctor Fu from Zhong Shan Hospital in Shanghai (also affiliated with Fudan University). Doctor Fu joined the team of the Hua Dong Hospital which performed my aorta surgery and brought his very valuable experience and knowledge to the operation room; I am therefore also grateful to him for his engagement and availability. I sincerely hope that every patient can count on a professional team as reliable, competent and human as the one I was so lucky to have.

The next piece of advise is to me as important as it may seems redundant:

5) find the right motivation to survive: in fact, it may seem meaningless to say that we need motivation to stay alive. Of course, we want to stay alive. Of course, we don't want to die. But the truth is that life is also hard. Most of us struggle to keep a balance. Most of our dreams don't come true, and most of the time life is not what we expected it to be. We experience delusion, frustration, sometimes rage. Giving up sometimes may seem to be a reasonable option. Well, don't give up, if you can. In my case, the urge not to give up, the urge to survive, the almost certainty to make it depended on two elements: my girlfriend, who has been close to me all the time - and in particular a conversation I had with her alone, just before the second operation, which made me feel how important it was to win against the illness - and my friends and family. When you feel that there is people around you who sincerely loves you and really cares about you, finding the energy to fight becomes easier. When you have love and friendship in your life, "you never walk alone", as the hymn of a famous English football team says. I wish all of you to always feel that you are not alone. Our destiny may not depends entirely on us, but in my experience I strongly felt that my wish to win against my illness counted a lot, and that wish was multiplied by all the people who physically or mentally held my hand during those difficult moments.

And finally, the last little suggestion (this was also an important element for me):

6) make an effort to see things from an higher perspective: when I entered the surgery room for the second operation I was of course afraid. Before getting the anesthesia I had a very long nail inserted into my neck and another smaller nail in my wrist, which didn't help me to stay calm. But after the first moment I had the feeling that at a certain point, after you and the doctors have done all you can, the fact that you will re-open (or not) your eyes after surgery ultimately depends also on whatever you want to call it: chance, destiny, god, the energy of the universe...

Before the operation, my girlfriend showed me two Buddhas she feels particularly close to. In the surgery room, I felt the presence of those two Buddhas. Despite the fears and tension, I started to feel very calm, relaxed, safe. When the doctors started to give me the anesthesia, I was ready to release the tension, entrust myself, and I was confident that things were going to go well.

We are small human beings, life is bigger than us. Love life, look also at the spiritual side of it, and perhaps life will love you back. I wish this to happen to all of you, wherever you are, whatever your condition.

Twenty-seven months sharp after posting my last comment on this blog, in the morning of Saturday March 26th, completely out of the blue the walls of my aorta started to collapse and break. They call it "aortic dissection". It was like having a knife in my chest. In ten minutes time I was almost unable to breath and walk, and I had pain everywhere: head, stomach, back. One hour later I could have been dead - a chance that was made less likely by the perfect reaction of the person who was with me and of the doctors of the Hua Dong Hospital of Shanghai, where I was admitted in "very critical conditions".

I spent one week in hospital in absolute immobility, suspended between life and death, sedated by morphine. Then I had two operations, on Monday April 4th and Tuesday April 5th. There was up to a 90% of chances that I did not wake up from the second one. But everything went well, despite the odds: I woke up, surgery had been successful and the problem is now under control.

I spent the whole following night awake, listening to all those sounds and noises (cars, motorbikes, birds, people, silence) that I had thought I was not going to hear anymore.

The day after, Wednesday April 6th, I took the first picture of my new life, the one here above. Over my head there were bottles, bags, tubes, machines, screens, all of them connected with my body and veins. I thought that the cross on top of the pole holding all those bottles and bags was a bird flying over me. A metallic, sympathetic bird carrying fluids of life for me, the Beatles' Blackbird.

Life, death, pain, fears, hopes, hallucinations: it was the most terrible nightmare and at the same time the deepest, stronger emotional experience of my life. My life will never be the same, I will never be the same: enough to restart to write on this blog, I believe. There are many things to say. And the most important one, the one to celebrate: my trip to Ithaca is not finished yet!

Oh, and together with a new life I have a new name. I am An De Lie now.

On the way to Ithaca - part III: Mexico, que viva Mejico!

...but at the end of the day, it was good, really good to be in Mexico so que viva Mejico!

On the way to Ithaca - part II: Mexico, soledad

...at the same time, I experienced a sense of loneliness which may not be strange at the beginning of a trip like this one. Searching for Ithaca it is not easy. 

On the way to Ithaca - part I: Mexico, amistad

Cherish your friends always. Especially when you are on the road, whichever road it is, wherever it may take you. The first step of this special trip was Guadalajara, Mexico and this is to say thank you to all my old and new friends there: Sonia, Giorgio, their beautiful daughter Luna, Ines, Isabel, Patricia.... I love you all, and thank you for being there.

North America, Oct.08 - part II (it's already the past)

Now that some time passed by, what do I remember of the rest of my Fall North America Trip?

Clouds...

The colors of Autumn...

The hope...

The memories, the desire...

The blue blue sky of San Francisco...

(a perfect background for the new Limn heart)...

And no, I am not tired. I want to see more of this planet and keep on looking for my Ithaca.

Interlude 01 - Kenny Garrett

Kenny Garrett, the alto-saxophonist of Miles Davis in his last years (with a portfolio of co-operations with masters like Freddy Hubbard, Mc Coy Tiner, Herbie Hancock, Elvin Jones and more recently Pharoah Sanders among others) gave a CD release concert at Iridium last night. The CD is called Sketches of MD and it was recorded live at the same Times Square club. I went to see him after dining at Ruby Foo's, my favorite Oriental restaurant in the area - mostly for romantic reasons.

From time to time I have been wondering how John Coltrane would play today if he could come back - a stupid question, but how many stupid questions we ask ourselves every day then. Of course John Coltrane was what he was because he was born in a specific time and place and therefore it can not exist something like a today's John Coltrane, although it would be a beautiful thing to have him back. However, when Garrett started to play I couldn't resist the temptation to close my eyes and think about that wish. 

The introduction was powerful - there was inspiration and rage and a spirituality that recalled A Love Supreme - and made me feel happy, very happy to be there. OK, Garrett doesn't play tenor saxophone (but makes his alto sound like a tenor at times) and OK, he gives a lot of space to Hammond sound in his band (and I still prefer classical piano although Benito Gonzales - the young musicians on keys at the concert- is blessed with a tremendous technique and made a truly impressive introduction of the third piece of the concert, Intro to Africa) but he plays with a grace that comes from a perfect blend of technical mastery and creativity. He doesn't reach the intensity of Coltrane, who was immense, the closest thing on heart to the Adamo that almost touches God's finger on the Cappella Sistina; but he has still time to grow and he will, and he kept me happy to be there all along the concert.

Even more so when he played a duet with Mulgrew Miller at the piano, inspired by a Japanise traditional song (Garrett's last studio album, Beyond the Wall - with a revealing picture of the Great Wall on the cover - is influenced here and there by Asian music). At a certain point, Garrett started to inject a vein of African Arabic music into the theme, creating the mirage of a mosque in the middle of the Honshu island; then he started to fragment the theme, almost with rage, leaving pieces of it floating in the air. Then he got tender again, gathered again those pieces together one by one like a child who collects snowflakes with his hands, and closed the piece with soft, oriental grace. Not many musicians out there are capable of doing the same.

Then the band came back and they ended the concert with Happy People, a funky tune that sounded very appropriate as Iridium was full of happy people at that point.

I found out that Kenny Garrett is just one month younger than me (he was born on Oct. 9th of my same year). Now I have two of his CDs signed by him, and this is me with him - "the real Kenny G" as the guy at Iridium introduced him on stage - and my evidently happy face:  

North America, Oct.08 - part I: Once upon a time...

Once upon a time, there was this good boy who was always organizing everything well in advance, all the details, a real virgo, everything well organized before hitting the road. Then he realized that one of life's favorite hobbies is to re-mix the cards, no matter how well you plan your schedule. So the good boy started to feel less ashamed not to behave like a good boy all the time, abdicated from virgo and signed up as rat, and passed the ball to life: "if you believe you are so good and funny, then show me how you play". So this time he left with just a return ticket and 3 weeks in North America with no reservations, no arrangements, nothing more than a guideline and the wish to stay on the road (in the real sense: fly as less as possible, drive as much as possible). He arrived on a Monday afternoon in Houston, Texas and discovered that Air France (no comment.. otherwise someone could say that Italians have a prejudice against those French people and it is no true, it's just them, they never get it right) lost his baggage. Life was laughing at him again: "even if you don't make plans, I know how to bother your no-plans plan.." 

Then the day after he got his bags and was on the road, from Houston to Austin, from Austin to Dallas, from Dallas to Kansas City, from Kansas City to St. Louis, and then crossing Missouri north up to Chicago, Illinois.

Six days, six cities, hundreds of miles under big, clear skies. The first night he slept in a cheap motel and imagined to be a beatnik. The second night he slept in a better hotel with a secret desire in his mind. The third night he couldn't sleep. The forth night he thought of how easy would be to get lost - how easy it is to get lost when you think that nobody would care, that probably nobody cares about you even if you want to believe that no, there is someone who cares. Then the fifth night he elaborated the satellite theory and had a better sleep.  

Then while on the road he also noticed one funny thing: when you drive, the more you drive the more the sky becomes dark. So he thought: if I stop and put the reverse gear and drive backward, will the sky start to brighten up?

But when you have a no-plans plan, and therefore you don't plan to die, you don't drive backward on a North American highway. You drive forward, and the sky becomes darker, and you never know what would happen if you could use the reverse gear. Like in life. 

Then the sky becomes so dark that you see a last hint of light on your back and enter into the night. He entered into the night and had dinner in a place in the middle of nowhere, with the parking place full of trucks. The floor of the restaurant was sticky and made a funny sound when he walked on it, a sound like: "swchtwucht, swchtwucht".

 

Then he got out of the dark and he was in New York City.

God had blessed him with a marvelous present: an apartment all for him for 5 nights, a very nice apartment and free of charge, so he could do what he always does when he travels: pretending he is not a tourist or a business man but a local instead. So on Sunday (only one week from when he left, and already so many things and so many cities and so many thoughts) he walks from Battery Park to Tribeca and then Soho, where he meets another rat, this one a big rat:

  
And then he realizes that the more you walk the more the sky becomes dark. He thought about starting to walk backward but was too shy, so he lost the chance to see if in that way the sky would have started to brighten up. The sky got darker, the shops started to close and there was not much people left in Soho.

So he turned east towards Little Italy where if you pay there is a guy dressed like one of the Soprano's with a big fat cigar in his mouth that sits at your table (if you are outdoor, if you are indoor he doesn't have the big fat cigar but still looks pretty much like a mafia guy) and you can take a picture with him. He walked faster and soon he was in Chinatown. This is him in front of  the Shanghai Cafè, who knows why:

, and this is what he saw when he sat inside the Shanghai Cafè and thought: "the dumplings look good here but I'd rather prefer to be in Shanghai", who knows why...

Then it was the night and so many people going who knows where and why in New York City at night.

 

Maybe to play pools, drink cheap whisky and smoke cigarettes and wait for an angel to come and bring them to paradise.

Summer: a trip into myself and my future

Yes I went to a business trip this summer, but the truth is it was a trip into myself and into my future. And it was a beautiful trip. We always look for new doors to open and that trip was a door behind which I see a possibility of happiness. That's it, sometimes there is no need to say too much.

And that one (yes, "that one", an expression that now after the last Obama/McCain debate will sound forever as understated arrogance and disrespect... but if Obama was "that one" I am happy to be a "that one" too...) is me just before leaving. It's me at the Bruce Springsteen concert (another "that one" then...) at the Camp Nou in Barcelona. His songs often talk about being on the road, the concert was great and a great way to start the trip. In the old times before a long trip they were going to the church to get a benediction, that was my benediction.

0608 Step Twelve - Seattle (last stop)

I noticed that in every city someone left a message hanging on the walls for me. Someone who wanted to make me think. Think about myself and my life. Thank you, whoever you are. This was the message in Seattle:

All around Seattle the nature - the lake, the mountains, the Puget Sound - is beautiful. From now on I see more beauty in downtown Seattle too. Sometimes beauty is a state of mind. This sky for instance now to me looks like a Magritte or a Kandinsky painting - I even see a couple flying in that sky holding each other hands (do you?) 

A few steps away the phone rings. I answer the phone. A voice says: goes to the Public Market. I hang up and think: why not?

The Public Market is a colorful place where you can buy fruit and fishes. It's lunchtime, I am hungry, I go the restaurant. They make me sit upstairs. There is a nice view. 

At the table in front of me there is a couple. They sit on the same side of the table, they talk and look into each other's eyes and smile and from time to time they hug and kiss each other. Then they go. holding each other's hands. Where did they go? Maybe in a place where they could give each other more kisses. Love is a beautiful thing. It can be painful too. But it is beautiful.

When I leave the restaurant I see this wall:

One wall, two different pieces, next to each other. At zero distance. I think that maybe love is this: to be one and two at the same time.

After this deep thought it's time to go. I leave Seattle even if I would like to stay, perhaps escape on the Rocky Mountains. But I follow the line that takes me elsewhere.

But where I will really go from here, I don't know. Sometimes your mind goes one way and your body the other way. I think I know where I want to bring my mind and body but it will take some time. How long? Maybe I should ask Alexander, the man who knows everything. Or maybe not, and keep on traveling my journey to Ithaca.

 

0508 Step Eleven - San Francisco

At the four corners of Union Square in San Francisco there are four hearts and four thousand homeless. There is much more poverty than love, in San Francisco and everywhere else, even if there isn't any reason for that.

Then on Friday evening all those who have a second home somewhere on the beach or the mountains or the desert go away and leave the homeless alone. The parking lots are empty, quiet, sad, beautifully sad. Also the streets become empty.

So you can read better the messages left there for you. It's my life. How do I want to live it?

It's all about me. They want to make me feel important. They are trying to sell me something.

And now that I found love, what else I need? The courage to go for it and embrace it and cherish it and share it and enjoy it, perhaps?

Or maybe I just need a laundry. You bring them your shirts which smell of your body, of dust from the street, of your efforts to be a human being, all of your hopes and dreams. And they give you back clean, no-smell shirts so you can put them in your bag and go somewhere else and start all over again.