The Day I Met His Holiness the Dalai Lama

This is an excerpt about the time I met His Holiness the Dalai Lama from an essay I wrote recently. He was in Albany in the spring of 2009 on a promotional tour. Before his speech to a sold-out crowd, he met with a dozen or so reporters and photographers from the Capital District. It was an experience I'll never forget.

He seemed taller in person, and for someone who travels the world with such frequency at his age, I thought he was quite nimble. His Holiness the Dalai Lama was moving down a line of reporters, thanking them after a media briefing. His people urged him to hurry up--especially since he had talked with the reporters for nearly an hour instead of the allotted 30 minutes, pushing him even further behind schedule. But he insisted on greeting each one. Some asked for autographs, and amazingly he complied without having to stop moving. As he approached me, I held out my hand. That was when he stopped right in his tracks.

“You’re shaking,” he said with a laugh, as if to wonder if I were cold. In the fractions of a second that followed, my brain wanted to laugh with him or explain I was nervous to meet him. Instead, my mouth uttered five words that were difficult to tell even some of my closest friends.

“I have a thyroid disease,” I replied.

Indeed just about a month before, I was diagnosed with Graves’ Disease. It is an incurable, auto-immune disease that, for me, required radiation and a daily pill. I had lost 30 pounds in the four months prior to diagnosis--a byproduct of my speeding heart rate and metabolism. So was my trembling.

His Holiness immediately placed his palms over my throat, bowed his head, and appeared to say a meditation. After a few seconds, he was finished. Then he looked me in the eyes and said, “Be happy.” Just moments before, he had told us reporters that happiness is the purpose of our lives; however, 18 months would pass before I understood what he meant.

Battle of the Eye Pain

The last two days have been somewhat unusual for me. It’s as though my eyes have challenged each other in a duel to see which can cause me more pain. Wednesday my right eye won--a rare feat. Today, my left eye returned to dominance.

The feeling of hurt is indescribable. At times the sensation is like someone poking the edge of a book into the top or back of my eyes. Other times it seems like my eyes are so dried out they doesn’t want to move. Then there are times when the pain is dull but constant. All the while tears constantly form, a sign my eyes are desperately trying to provide the only comfort they know how. It doesn’t help much anymore. I use eye drops, but my eyes protrude so much that the drops mostly roll right down my cheeks. Sometimes I close my eyelids--as best I can--but that’s also no cure.

The good news is this usually only lasts a few hours at the start the day. I figure my eyes are drying out at night, and it takes that much time of tears, drops, and blinking to return the eyes to comfortability. By the end of the day, I’m usually no longer in pain. But I always carry tissues around with me to wipe up the excess tears. It’s a reminder that while much of the pain is gone, the problem is not.

The better news is that this kind of sharp pain was much more common than it is now. A year ago, this was happening on a daily basis. Today, it happens once every week or two (although the discomfort is constant), which is why I say that having two consecutive days of intense eye pain is unusual. I don't know why things have gotten better in the last year -- or worse in the last couple of days.

Once in a while, though, I will have absolutely no pain or discomfort problems with my eyes while I sleep, during the morning, or throughout the day. I try to make a note of what I ate, how much I slept, how much water I drank, the stress I felt, etc., in hopes of repeating whatever I did to make it go away for that brief amount of time. Unfortunately it seems like there’s no rhyme or reason to when those days come and go. I guess it’s just luck.

You can see below that I've posted four images with this post. These are how my eyes looked on Wednesday morning. The first image is how my eyes now naturally look thanks to Thyroid Eye Disease (or Graves ophthalmopathy). No, I'm not trying to look surprised or open my eyelids wide. When I took this picture, I felt like my eyes were "normal" or relaxed, probably the way you feel now. Obviously, they look much different. The second picture is how I try to squint my left eye (on the right side of the picture) to make the protrusion less noticeable. It's not perfect, but an improvement. The third picture is how my eyes look with glasses on. The fourth is how I try to hide the protrusion while wearing glasses. Again, it's not perfect, but it helps.

Nevertheless, you can see how puffy my eyes are -- that's from the buildup of fatty deposits and inflamed muscle behind my eyes. If I go through with the orbital decompression surgery (and every day I lean a little more in that direction), they'll shave away parts of my skull to create more room for the eye and inflamed tissue. You can also see how exposed my eyes are and how red and dried out than can become. You can see why from just an aesthetic perspective why I had to take a break from anchoring and reporting. Who wants to see this on the news? Of course, there were other reasons related to my Graves Disease to stop working, but this is the most visual.