UTI, This Down Dog's for You!

Pratyahara, the fifth principle of Ashtanga (eight-limbed) Yoga, means "to withdraw the senses."

Urinary Tract Infection, a common infection involving extreme fever, chills, and pain, means "when the senses give you the finger."

There has to be some kind of curse on this blog. Dana picked the theme for June and blogged about it, and her dog went missing. I picked the theme for July and blogged about it, and I get a freak infection that I've never had in my entire life.

When I get sick, I get the cold. Once I got the flu. I only stopped teaching for three days. I've never had to go to the hospital, and that damned flu was the only time I ever had to go to the doc because I was sick in my entire adult life.

Last Thursday, my body betrayed me. Last Thursday I began a roller coaster of fever as high as 104.9, chills worse than a chihuahua, nausea, sweats that would put Niagra Falls to shame, and headaches that made me want to curl up and die. My poor addled brain felt assaulted. I was supposed to go to New Orleans for the weekend!

By Sunday, I had found a rhythm, a pattern, and a mantra. (My body is at peace; I will heal myself.) In a state where even most restorative asana was beyond me, the yoga found me. Instead of being mad at my body, feeling personally affronted, and obsessing over how awful I felt, I began to observe myself. I became hyper-aware of my temperature (sans thermometer), my heart rate, my digestion, and my pain, and in doing so found most of it to be more tolerable than I had previously thought. I would lie in the dark, awake and alert, cataloguing the idiosyncrasies of my physical body.

It is always exciting to reach a new height of meditation, but I still would've given it back if I could have avoided my week from Hell.

I finally went to the doctor on Monday, received the dreaded shot, had some blood work done, and got a prescription for antibiotics. (Now I get to observe myself trip over my words and lock my keys in my car.) By Thursday, the fever had gone for good. Friday I began to feel human. And I started teaching again today, Monday.

I began to do more asana over the weekend, slowly coming back into my body. It helps me feel normal again. As I take a downward facing dog and my heels don't touch the ground (never-ending battle) and the backs of my legs feel like they're being reborn, I wonder how people can live without doing this. And I'm reminded of why I do it, and why I teach you to do it. I'm not trying to get in touch with Vishnu or become enlightened or win my yogi angel wings. I have a deep respect for the philosophy, and it is a very spiritual practice for me, but I really do it (and teach it) because it makes life better.