Readings vs Medical Dx (26.1.6, 32.4, 21.1.4)

[YinFire]

In February, I woke one day with a painful, achy lump seemingly in my ear/throat/neck... I noticed my shoulder blade was tender when I massaged the route of the pain, but didn't know what could be wrong.

"Reason for neck throat pain", I ask: 26.1.6 to 46

I imagined something starting to grow, or push through my neck. I'd been doing a liquid cleanse and exercising, and also feeling faint when I moved even a little, but the lump and pain was my biggest worry. I called my doctor, and was told "We take all lumps about the head or neck seriously; please go to urgent care." Once there, the doctor said he felt something near my thyroid, and ordered a CAT scan.

"Energies governing lump in neck": 32.4 to 46

I'm convinced something is growing. I feel it. They felt it. The 46 confirms it, I thought. Then the doctor returns and pulls a seat to my bed. He tells me my potassium is scary low, and if pills and a 4 hour potassium IV didn't bring me into normal range, I'd be admitted, but let's get ready for the CAT scan. I'm shaking. My son is home alone, my battery is dying, I'm thinking I'M dying...

"Result of CAT scan", I ask: 21.1.4 to 23

I prepare for the worst. I saw the 23 and assumed I'd have something that needed to be split from me. Surgery, for sure. The tech who administered the test was jovial when I came in, but seemed somber when he bid me "good luck" as i was rolled back to the emergency room.

The result? Nothing. No lump. No swelling. Nothing strange at all. The lump my doctor felt? Just normal tissue and fat. The potassium depletion, however, was due to my having been releasing more fluids via crash dieting than I was putting back in. The "globular sensation" I felt was from pulling a muscle that ran from my shoulder into my head, but possibly also a dried parotid (salivary) gland. I'd been foolish about losing weight quickly, and nearly died (my heart was erratic without potassium).

Would any of you have seen that I had nothing, kinda, to worry about in re the lump? Did any reading show what was happening in me? Did the lines correlate with my body in some way? I've been rereading these for weeks now, and decided to see if someone else can tell what the Yi was revealing. Still a novice, perhaps obviously, but eager to enhance my ability to interpret how the Yi talks to me. Thanks for any help.

 

[rosada]

Reason for neck and throat pain?
26.1 Danger is at hand. It furthers one to desist.
So this tells us you've been doing something that's caused the problem and you ought to stop it. (Interesting this line follows 25.6 which refers to some sort of innocent action - crash dieting? - bringing the misfortune.)
26.6 One attains the way of heaven. Success.
This line is about honoring a man who knows how to get past this trouble - your doctor who prescribed the potassium?

There are some I Ching experts who know which lines refer to the various parts of the body (like the first line refers to feet and the top line refers to the head) so perhaps they would have been able to get more out of this toss. For me, I would have just seen these lines as saying, "You've been doing something that's caused this condition and now you need to see a doctor - but it will turn out well." 46. Pushing Upward might have referred to the need to run a variety of tests to pile up a number of clues to solve the mystery. Or perhaps it meant the problem was caused because of small things you did over time, or that the problem would be healed by slowly rebuilding your Potassium reserves.

 

[Liselle]

Well, in hindsight (and it's very nice to have these to think about knowing it ended up relatively well):

26 to 46, just the hexagrams, might have meant something like "taming, one step at a time" (which is what you did)

26.1 - before anything else, stop panicking - and/or stop this foolish diet right now. Those were the biggest dangers, your fear and the diet. (26.1 moving by itself changes to hexagram 18 (this is called the "step of change") - corruption, sickness, darkness, negativity, angry ghosts - since it's the "relating hexagram of 26.1," it's how you felt, what you believed.)

(Edited: just realized I'm being confusing , so I put "relating hexagram" in quotes. Your reading was 26 changing to 46. A reading has only one relating hexagram, and in this reading it's 46. But we have an interpretive tool when there is more than one moving line, called "steps of change," where we look at each line change separately, as if it's a little mini-reading. So for this one:

26.1.4 changes to 46
26.1 changes to 18
26.4 changes to 14

The term we usually use for the hexagram which results from a step of change is zhi gua. Gua means hexagram in Chinese, and zhi is a possessive, or means "towards." So 26 zhi 18 is "26's 18" or "26 towards 18." All this is detail I probably should have avoided getting into. I'm not a good explainer. :bag

26.6 - oh this line. I've heard of several experiences, at least one of my own, where people receiving it have a bad thing happen, but then a good thing follows. (If you're in [url=""https://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showwiki.php?title=Hexagram-26#Line-6-experiences]WikiWing[/url], look there for examples.) The step of change here is hexagram 11, which seems to indicate events "flowing" very fast. (E.g. in my own example, someone was released from the hospital amazingly fast .)

Lines 1 and 6 - there's a big gap there, which can be reflected in events. Another way of looking at the reading overall might be "this will be tamed very quickly by taking the necessary steps." It wasn't even that many steps - which (!) might reflect the interaction between lines 1 and 6 (a big leap, jumping right from start to end) and the relating hexagram. I believe 46 is usually a longer, harder slog. I'm rambling because this is interesting - the more usual nature of 46 is influenced by its interaction with Great Taming as the primary hexagram, and shown by the "1 and 6" structure of the moving lines... something like that

(I definitely would not have understood that beforehand. Thank you for giving Professor Hindsight a megaphone to yell in my ear )


Energies governing lump in neck, 32.4 > 46. Maybe either "there are none!" (i.e. nothing is really wrong, there is no "energy" at work in the way you were probably thinking about it), and/or "an empty, dried up salivary gland" (of course I know nothing about glands, dried up or otherwise, but if it wasn't dried up would it be more pliable and not feel like a lump?). Relating hexagram 46 - my guess is, again, the way for you to "relate" to this is to take the necessary steps.

I think that reading might have had a chance of being comforting, if you weren't also simultaneously fainting and feeling a lump.


Results of CAT scan, 21.1.4 to 23. 21, Biting Through, investigating, finding the truth. That's exactly what CAT scans do. 23 - you're right, 23 can indicate surgery, but "stripping away" can also mean exposing and revealing what's under the surface, which is again what imaging tests do.

21.1 - well, when in a CAT scanner you're not supposed to move. Any chance they put actual restraints around your legs? Metaphorically it might have meant just stay still, mentally. You're exactly where the doctor has put you, where the doctor says you have to be, and that's not a mistake. Maybe there's a certain freedom in just accepting that? Let yourself feel taken care of? Your part in this is over (you went to the doctor), so now maybe sort of shut yourself down for the duration?

21.4 - as the very last line in this series, it says "good fortune," which is how it ended up: nothing is seriously wrong (assuming you stop starving yourself!). "Dried, bony meat" might indicate the salivary gland? Or the potassium depletion, maybe? (When meat is dry, it's "depleted" of what would make it not dry?...these are both very wild guesses.)

The "metal arrow" in 21.4 can be contrasted with "golden metal" in 21.5. A metal arrow isn't as pretty as gold, but it is very useful. Possibilities: the diagnosis wasn't as bad as you feared, but it wasn't a clean bill of health, either (which might have been more "golden"). There was indeed something dangerously wrong (the potassium), but fortunately it could be fixed with the right "tools" (the metal arrow). Also, an arrow gets to the heart of something, which this did. You went there for one thing, but they uncovered something else and got to the heart of the problem and its solution. Now you have a useful arrow - the knowledge that you shouldn't go on bad diets ever again.

Oh - look at the step of change for 21.4 - 27, Nourishment. Gee.

(Thanks again for posting this!)

 

[Liselle]

By the way, welcome to Clarity! (I just noticed this was your very first post.)

 

[Liselle]

Another thought - Great Taming is also called Great Accumulation or Great Farming (contrasted with hexagram 9, Small Farming). Part of its meaning is to master something, so that one can move from subsistence to thriving. Both ideas might be involved here - your worst fears were tamed, but you were also shown ways to "master" your health.

 

[YinFire]

I've absolutely stopped the starvation, and never will do it again. My dried gland theory, when presented to the doctor, got a shrugged "maybe", but they hadn't seen anything to corroborate anything abnormal. I just know I felt something.

@Liselle: I LITERALLY learned to move from subsistence to thriving, as I began eating in a way that has given me strength and energy, making me want to go for walks and other things that have helped me drop weight naturally. I have no recollection of if or how I was restrained in the scanner, but I was oddly calm. Relieved I'd soon know, for better or worse, and just surrendering.

@Rosada: I think the 26.1 went over my head because I would never have considered fasting or dropping weight something unhealthy that I needed to stop. I'd done liquid meals all of February, and planned to resume eating the very next day (this happened on 2/28) but in my journal that morning I wrote feeling like my body was a car with no steering wheel, that I was disconnected in a major way from what I needed to function. I would drink water, and my mouth would be dry again by the time I pulled the bottle away. My tongue was like sandpaper, which I'd never experienced in previous fasts. Now I feel silly for ignoring those symptoms, but I just assumed I'd balance out once I was eating again.

It's just so weird that I felt something in my neck/throat, and so did my doctor. I never would have gone in just for weakness or dehydration, so it's so bizarre that we each believed I had a valid reason to come in. I got a 46 UC when I asked if I should go in (or just rest up and/rehydrate), and I'm so grateful it wasn't murky about that. I live in a major US city, and more than once that night I was told "It's really good you came in", when I expected a scolding for wasting their time with a sore throat. Thanks for the feedback. Because this was close to a life or death matter, it's been hard to not keep picking at the readings. There were over 12 hours between the first reading and the one after the doctor confirmed he felt a lump, and I'm just lucky my heart kept running on empty. Maybe I should have asked about the weakness, not the lump, to get a more emergent response? 26.1.6 just doesn't scream impending death to me.

 

[YinFire]

WAIT!! Liselle can the "angry ghost" you mention from 26.1 be the phantom lump?

 

[Liselle]

WAIT!! Liselle can the "angry ghost" you mention from 26.1 be the phantom lump?

I don't know. If it's ringing a bell with you, it might be. (It isn't a "phantom lump," though, is it, if you and your doctor both felt it? It's just not anything bad, from what you've been told.)

What Hilary (Hilary Barrett, in case you don't know yet, is the owner of Clarity) says in her book about the ghosts in 18 is this:

In ancient China, ancestors angered by neglect would send sickness and misfortune. This is corruption: something dark, like a curse, lurking under the surface of life and manifesting as patterns of negative experience. We don’t have to believe in angry ancestors to be haunted by corruption, whether we inherit its darkness from our past, our culture, or through our parents.

But "angry ghosts," per se, don't figure prominently in every hexagram 18 reading. The more I think about this - and to your point about 26.1.6 not screaming "emergency" - 18 can mean finding hidden causes. That might be more likely for 18 in this case. (Although the angry ghost could be whatever it is that causes you to embark on drastic diets - maybe. I'm speculating.)

I'm trying to think more about the 26 > 46 reading...what you thought was the problem wasn't the problem, but it was what you asked about...

You asked "Reason for neck throat pain". A few possibilities:

- Yi might know the reason, but you still don't, even after doctors and tests. So if Yi had answered your question very directly, you might never understand it. (I sort of think of those as "biochemistry answers" - helpful only if you're a biochemist and can recognize what you're being told.)

- if Yi would have said, "oh, don't worry about the neck and throat pain, it's nothing," you might not have gone to the doctor, or at least not as quickly.

- on the other hand, if Yi would have given you something hugely alarming, you might still be really worried about it even after good test results and so forth. You might think the doctors missed something, that you need more tests, and so forth, simply because "neck and throat pain" was what you asked Yi to address.

(I think I've said slightly different things in different places in this thread, which is confusing, I'm sorry. I make a guess, then think of something else and have a slightly different thought...)

 

[YinFire]

I've been returning to reread your replies and think things over. I wasn't able to ask the right question that day, because of what I believed was normal (pain) for achieving health (gain). I'm embarrassed, but grateful I got the point. Thanks all.

 

[Liselle]

I've been returning to reread your replies and think things over. I wasn't able to ask the right question that day, because of what I believed was normal (pain) for achieving health (gain). I'm embarrassed, but grateful I got the point. Thanks all.

Actually, I'm not sure I understand what you mean (sorry). Do you think you should have asked a different question? If so, have you thought of one you think would have been better?

I'm partly just curious, and partly I'm asking because a lot of times I have trouble with questions myself.

Also, the idea of trying to come up with just the right words for a question when you're kind of worried you might be dying...eek. As I said, I don't find it easy under normal circumstances.