When momentum uses inertia

Isy / November 28, 2020November 28, 2020 / adaptation, brain care, critical thinking, Dept. of Blith. Obv., loved ones, mortality, neurogastroenterology, perspective, radical presence/radical acceptance, self-care

That last post, about acknowledging the shimmering sense of mortality I’ve lived with for nearly a year? Well, I kept meaning to post an update, but I’ve been having too much fun making progress elsewhere, and simply dropped the ball. I often think, “oh, I should post that on my blog,” and then – pain diseases being what they are – when I shift context to hop online, I’ve forgotten what it was and quickly get sucked into something else.

At the risk of using terms improperly, I found myself explaining this normality of painee existence as a sort of “acquired ADD.” As it happens, our brains get changed in the same places and pathways that ADD brains live in, so that our scans look amazingly similar. Those ADD-like symptoms are definitely not imaginary. I have found myself using adaptations very much like those I’ve read about in some of the terrific books on ADD. I recommend reading up on it. There’s a ton of helpful material on how to manage with and work around these attention issues.

I miss blogging. So, I hope to automate (or at least simplify) moving information here from social media. There are still interesting questions to answer, and I think that useful info we generate in pain groups should find its way to a more stable, searchable medium.

I have been sinking into this life, having acknowledged that inward message about its likely brevity. I’ve been here a year, and love my little flat more and more each day. I’ve been rearranging, creating more usable space within the same square footage. It’s delightful!

I keep the picture that reminds me of those who made this happen over the decorative fireplace, where it looks wonderful, and send grateful thoughts to its source/s – even when reaching out in real life only creates confusion and misunderstanding. We humans generally, and painees particularly, sometimes realize we don’t control how others receive us, but we can steer our own thoughts. So, I maintain this practice of gratitude, because that’s who I am and always have been, and wait for better times.

More health problems? Certainly! I will write about the gastrointestinal circus another time. I’m currently working on digesting a drink of water, and I’d prefer not to think about it until that’s done. This is the big, hairy, stinking follow-up to the first sign of trouble nearly 2 decades ago, which I wrote about (with disgusting toilet humor, inevitably) over at the post Intestinal Fortitude.

Apart from one misunderstanding and that additional body system, this life is amazing. Bit by bit, I’ve been getting a broader pool of professional and personal help and support. Bit by bit, I’ve been coming up with adaptations that bring more art, craft, and productive time into my weeks, although I have to be careful (of course) about changing tasks and changing position and managing time better than I really want to. For instance: “No,” I had to myself yesterday evening; “you don’t get to finish that row of adaptive crochet! I don’t care how pretty this is, or how soft the yarn. These helpful tools only improve my function, they don’t correct the problem! Put. The yarn. Down. Thank you. Now go do something else.”

So I did.

And then I treated my right forearm with everything in my toolkit. And then I made myself promise not to pick up those tools for at least two more days, because that’s what it takes to recover when I’m forgetful enough to do crochet on a couple of consecutive days. Change those tasks! Figuring out a crafty solution is not as important as protecting tomorrow’s ability. Or even tonight’s. I can use myself hard, but I’m not allowed to use myself up. I don’t count on a ton of recovery time.

I’m back to using dictation software, in order to make better use of my arm time. The stylistic difference is clear to me, but it probably doesn’t matter. This is a good compromise to make, although it’s not necessarily an easy one. Dictation is a strange, slow way of speaking, and it forces me to think in chunks rather than in thoughts and words. But hey, it works!

Times are changing. Whether or not the current American president behaves any better, whether or not the next American president has the moral courage for fundamental changes, whatever, times are changing. My own possibilities are opening up, and I’m not holding back. I didn’t even know I was, but boy, things have changed since I stopped trying to eke everything out! I’ve got things to do, and I’m not waiting any longer to do them.

If I were more self-conscious, I’d throw in a bumper sticker-appropriate remark here. I’m out of ideas. I’ve got other things to do now. Maybe next time. Maybe. 🙂

Take care of yourselves. When you can’t, take care of each other. When you can’t do that, take care of your world. It helps.

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Active presence

Isy / October 1, 2020October 1, 2020 / activity, basics, CRPS knock-on effects, imp-possible, mortality, nutrition, perspective, radical presence/radical acceptance, what works

I love the term “radical presence” because it feels radical to jump the barrier of overwhelming emotion to land face-to-face with the moment and be able to look straight at it regardless. However, in practical terms it’s the opposite of radical — it’s conservative in the classic sense, because it puts us back into the realm of what’s demonstrably real and solid.

Therefore, conservative presence is the same as radical presence.

What a wonderful object lesson in putting political branding aside.

However, for the sake of clarity, I think I’ll start calling it “active presence”, as it usually takes an act of will.

When I was working as a nurse, an important part of the job was teaching people what they needed to know in order to go on better: dress the wounds, improve activity, improve nutrition, manage impaired systems (immunity, pain, respiratory), take care of relevant organs (heart, liver, pancreas, kidneys, gut, brain) and so on.

I’m sorry to say I was too idealistic at first and found myself being scoldy. The word “should” showed up a lot; worse still, “shouldn’t.” Argh! Words I’d love to take back!

I finally learned the key principle of teaching & training around life skills, especially primal ones like eating/drinking/moving: people have to start from where they are, not from where anyone, including them, thinks they should (ugh) be. The ideal is not relevant, only the real.

The first step, therefore, is to find out what that reality is, no matter how egregious. Their best hope of improvement is almost always in small, manageable steps, starting right from their current reality.

This led me to my first understanding of active presence: change has to start from this eating habit, this activity level, this degree of self management. No others exist yet! Trying to pretend they do only builds castles in the air.

However, I’ve seen patients of mine go, for example, from couch potatoes with snack-stocked shops and triple-bypass heart attacks to organic-grocery-owning half-marathon runners in a couple of years, by starting with tiny stepwise improvements: cardiac rehab class, to slow walks, and on up from there.

There are no guarantees (it’s easy to joke about people with great life habits getting hit by a bus) but hydration, nutrition, fresh air, and exercise tend to pay off tremendously– usually after a clunky adjustment period, as body and mind lurch through the initial changes.

Of course, the time that new habits take is going to pass anyway. Would you rather be reaping rewards at the end of it, or find yourself back in the rut that put you into medical care?

I’ve said exactly that to many people, with honest attention. This isn’t a trick question, nor is it an occasion for smarm. It’s a key question we all have to ask ourselves periodically throughout our lives, in one way or another. Everyone has the right to contemplate and answer that question honestly, even if the real reaponse is, “I like my habits/my rut, I see the trajectory, I know where it will take me, and I accept that probable outcome with open eyes.” I’ve had people say that, in tones varying from sweet concern for my feelings to roaring defiance. It’s all okay; it’s their call. I’d ask if they’re interested in cushioning their fall or minimizing damage to others, tailor suggestions accordingly, and then call their physician to adjust expectations and ask about/offer any ideas for mitigation over improvement. (It was never a total surprise to their doctors.)

As a patient, I have made — and continue making — complex changes in order to stay as well and functional as possible. I’m persistent like that. To me, being incapacitated is intolerable. I’d rather have better options.

“When you’re alive, anything is possible. It’s being dead that seriously limits your options.”
– Jodi Taylor

Active presence puts me on ground firm enough to step off from, and actually get somewhere. I’ve been living with a strong inward nudge to simplify, focus, and hurry up, because I don’t have much time left. It may be fallacious (I hope so), my subconscious working to override my “completion anxiety” about larger works. Given the accuracy rate of these deep, strong inward messages up to now, I’d be a complete idiot to ignore it. So, I’m simplifying, focusing, putting my ego (which is where this anxiety resides) off to one side, and buckling down on building the structure of my legacy in my head. I’ll discuss that more when there’s some output.

Dying is horrible. I don’t want to do that, ever. I’ve started to, a couple of times, and I’ve seen far too many loved ones go, especially those with these diseases. No words, no words for it… That said: Being out of this relentless, grinding circus of delicately-balanced tolerability, with horrific and likely further life-limiting consequences for certain mistakes? Really looking forward to being done with it! There will come a time — at some point, for me as for anyone — which will suck, and shortly after that, I’m absolutely certain there’ll be an end to this (extremely well-managed) biological terror and the unimaginably cruel pain that drives it.

I have this stubborn inner nudge that it’s not far off for me personally. That’s definitely NOT my choice, it’s the circumstance I find myself in. Without having wanted or chosen it, I somehow find acknowledging it to be hugely freeing!

That is intensely weird, I know. Also uncomfortable and maybe bitter and sad.

But that’s what is true for me, right here and right now.

From here, and only from this point in my often tortuous reality, can I move on.

I accept that.

Here I am.

Time for the next little step. Who knows where it’ll take me in the long run?

Let’s find out.

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Focus

Isy / September 27, 2020 / adaptation, brainiac, CRPS knock-on effects, home-hunt, imp-possible, loved ones, meds/drugs, neurogastroenterology, neurotransmitters, perspective, radical presence/radical acceptance, tools and techniques

There’s a lot going on.

My own health took a hard dive late last year and the damage continues to evolve…

…On top of an increasingly human-hostile political system and increasingly deadly climate.

Fun times.

So, yeah, sitting here on a big pile of crap. But that’s not the problem.

What really bugs me is this relentless, quiet, basso-profundo voice murmuring in the back of my brain, “Hurry up. You don’t have much time. You, personally, don’t have time to waste. Pick your focus. Nothing else matters. Get to work. You don’t have much time.”

I used to have a lot of projects running at once…

I didn’t tell anyone, but I secretly hoped I’d be able to run again. I used to run 4 miles up & down a canyon in the redwoods before work most days. It was glorious. Before that, on the other coast, I ran 5 to 10 miles along the banks of the river in Alexandria, Virginia, because it felt good and kept my head clear for work on the HIV ward. I ran from one place to another because it was faster than walking.
Yeah. Well. Between dysautonomia screwing up my circulatory responses and adrenal glands, the tissue fragility of mast cell dysfunction vs. undiagnosed EDS offering to rip holes in my tissues again, and the recurring exercise intolerance, I can let that one go. I enjoyed it at the time, look back on it fondly, and intend to be grateful for that much.
I was going to start a business with a line of absolutely stellar pain creams I came up with. Seriously good stuff! It’s at least as good as the medical marijuana salve I used to make from top-shelf medical-grade bud — but totally legal everywhere! I was looking forward to getting that out to my fellow painees, doing some good and making some money. (Comment if you’re interested. I could be persuaded to sell my stock-on-hand.)
Instead, I’m willing my recipes and equipment to a friend who knows people. She can get it out, and make more when that’s gone. Meanwhile, I’ve got a few hundred bucks locked up in the only exception to my “2 piles” rule for money: 1 pile (my paycheck) for monthly expenses, and 1 pile (an insurance account from the Worker’s Comp branch of the higgledy-piggledy US system) for treatment and survival. That 3rd pile, which belongs to the business and only to the business, is gathering dust. It might help her get started.
As regular readers know, I once hoped to make my own safe home to age, work, rest, and die in.
The downside to owning a home is clearer than ever, and to a limited budget and limited body, it’s a disaster waiting to happen. That dream is dead, staked, burned, and the ashes are buried at the crossroads.
I love fixing sh-tuff. The dopamine wave is delicious. However… too many piles of sh-tuff waiting to be fixed, plus associated tools and supplies.
I’ve donated, bartered, and tossed away more than I even knew I had to spare. So far, I don’t really miss it.

Months ago, I gave up all my arts & crafts except writing and drawing. (And making masks.) I came up with some chirpy sounding reason, but it was about clearing my agenda and narrowing my focus.

There’s something intense about that voice. I look back and realize I’ve been responding to it since before this GI crisis evolved. Thinning out my pursuits. Thinning out my belongings. Thinning out my life.

Narrowing my focus long before I could hear the words this clearly.

For awhile, I thought it was a symptom of wonky chemistry, as I’ve had to do that medication square-dance that people who need neurotransmitter stabilizers have to do now and then. Chemistry is pretty good in here now, and that voice is clearer than ever.

So, here’s what there is to work with:
* I’ve done a lot of writing and training.
* The biological-sciences part of my brain has kept its doors jammed open, despite all the other closures.
* I’m an honest enough historian to know how too many people have been shut out of the process of using their health care systems, due to gender, race, class, and lousy sociohistorical times.
* Me and my friends have developed some powerful tools for being seen and being believed.
* Also, we’re pretty delightful cartoonists. (Hey, it’s a great teaching tool!)

It might be time for all of this to come together. My mission, should I choose to accept it, is to “drive” turning all this into a body of work that can continue teaching, training, and translating between chronically & profoundly ill patients and the rest of the world, long after I’m gone.

I have only 2 jobs now: stay as well as possible for as long as possible, and craft that legacy.

It’s frightening to contemplate pushing everything else off my plate, but the experience of the past year has shown me, over and over, the peace and release that happens after.

I don’t have to find the perfect home, although I’d sure be grateful if it landed on me and sucked me right in. (I can’t pack myself up to move one more time.) I have to make this one work better, and get on with the rest of my life. I honestly don’t think I’ve got a lot of time.

But then, I’m not sure that’s the point. Maybe I just can’t focus on more than 2 jobs anymore.

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Chaos theory

Isy / September 19, 2020September 19, 2020 / adaptation, critical thinking, CRPS knock-on effects, imp-possible, martial & internal arts, mortality, perspective, radical presence/radical acceptance, tools and techniques

As regular readers know, I’ve had an eventful life. The past 20 years, particularly, have been a circus of bizarre improbabilities, oxymoronic paradoxes, and irreconcilable conundrums. My life reads like a dystopian comedy, if your sense of humor is sufficiently twisted.

This is why I’ve got the category “imp-possible” going in this blog. It looks merely cute, but it has a lot of layers. Imps could be little devils, or little fairies, or little children. They emphasize the power of the small. It feels like the only power left. “Imp” also suggests the power of the unexpected.

As the current American president’s so-called “tax cut” comes home, the US Disability Income management agency, Social Security, has decided to trim costs in anticipation of their lost income: they’re cutting my pay, on the grounds that the Worker’s Compensation element of US health care paid me off for being hurt. Separately, they handed over a bunch of health insurance money so Medicare wouldn’t have to pay for my work-related treatment.

Social Security confused the two, and then added zeros to the left of the decimal, divided it by 12, multiplied that by the square root of Guatemala (I’m making this up, just like they did), slapped a bonus on it, and decided I make OVER $5,000 PER MONTH and they’re going to count 80% of that and dock my pay by ~$160 per month…

I’m allowed to make over $5,000/month? Where? How? Sign me up! But wait… huh?? You think I actually have $5,000/month???

Yeah, I’m confused too. (The payout was good, but not that good: I got a sturdy, 10-yr-old car and a year’s worth of rent in a clean, dry cottage out of it.)

That $160 is what allows me to keep my pain-cream-making gear & off-season clothes in storage *and* pay for my writing course at the 50% discount I negotiated with the teacher (I’m doing that course instead of buying books & music for a few months.) I’m not sure any of that counts as extra these days.

They said this would be (future conditional tense) reflected in my pay as of December 2019 (whaaaaat???)…

Either they’re as confused as the rest of us, they’re in even harder denial about which year this is, or they’re setting up to make the pay cut retroactive in case they decide that that’s in their best interests. Also, Social Security being who they are and the current US administration being who they are, this feels like the first move against our lifeline, not the only move.

… I’m sitting here speechless again. Happens every time I think about it.

This is on top of the brutal horrors of approaching winter (relentless agony, burning brain, incapacitating fog), no bathtub (CRPS’s disruptive surface effects creep up my legs and over my back and make my shoulders, hips, and right arm into bloated purple sausages wrapped in electrified barbed wire, with no way to push back), encroaching mold (which multiplies everything, including mast-cell hyperreactivity/disabling allergies, heart dysrhythmias, gut problems, and it adds respiratory diseases to the mix), and gastroparesis so bad that every other day I have to do a big ol’ — you don’t want to know. Trust me. Even I can’t make it funny.

My psychotherapist is savvy, sweet, and has that merciless faith in her client that the best of them wield like surgeon’s tools (yes, this is relevant, hang on through the curve)… I fell apart completely in our virtual visit and whispered in stricken tones, “I don’t know if I’ll make it this time.”

After acknowledging the depth and legitimacy of my feelings and recognizing my prior successes against staggering odds (she does know her job!) she encouraged me to see the breadth of creative possibility embedded behind, “I don’t know.”

I blinked, because that sounded pretty darned merciless, even for a top-flight psychotherapist. (Keep in mind that surgeon’s tools include, not just scalpels and silk, but electric saws and the sprung barbs known, deceptively, as towel clips.) She wouldn’t give up, though.

I agreed to accept that as a working hypothesis.

On reflection, that thought began to feel more like pre-2019 Isy, before my heart got ripped out and stomped on a little too hard by a few too many, and my system fell apart so badly in the storm of it. It began to feel more like the Isy who, 13 years ago at the start of the Hell Years, looked around at the absolute rubble & blasted mess of everything I thought defined my life, and realized someone was still there doing the looking, so there was still an “I” and I wasn’t done yet. It felt more like the Isy who made the term “imp-possible” a regular category. I didn’t know where that would lead me, but…

I didn’t know how to finish that sentence yet.

This morning, while listening to an audiobook that’s a romantic comedy about overthinky nerds (still relevant; hang on through one more curve), I used the toilet successfully for the first time in months, without having to resort to the apparatus hanging nearby for the thing I’ve had to do that I won’t tell you about. (It involves soap & warm water, nothing too ghastly.)

I use audiobooks to keep my brain from overheating. It gives me just enough to focus on that I don’t drive my thoughts off a cliff, and it’s not so intrusive or demanding that I can’t do ordinary tasks at the same time.

This one had gotten to a part where the author discusses basic chaos theory: chaotic systems (and I defy any biologist to come up with a more chaotic system than a dysautonomic human body with longstanding central pain syndromes) … where was I? Right. Chaotic systems tend to get more and more chaotic until a sort of tipping-point is reached and they reorganize at a higher level of criticality.

What the heck does that actually mean, anyway?? What do they mean by a higher level of criticality?

Partly, it means that a lower level of energy is required to maintain that state of chaos, even though it’s still a higher level of chaos.

And that (I thought, as I looked up at the equipment I was going without at last) meant that I could do more coping with less effort.

Once you’ve prioritized your needs hard enough and developed your adaptations effectively enough, it gets a whole lot harder to throw you off your game.

I can work with that.

The next level of chaos is here. I have no idea how it’ll unfold. That said, I’ve already reorganized at a higher level of criticality.

I’ll meet it somehow. I don’t know how. I’m still here doing the looking, so I’m not done yet.

In honor & memory of Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

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Sizing the Covid-19 problem, for real

Isy / September 7, 2020September 7, 2020 / basics, Covid-19, critical thinking, perspective, radical presence/radical acceptance, self-care, translating Medical Jargon into Plain English

Like many, I’ve been watching the extraordinary infinity-ring circus of Covid-19 with rising confusion.

I hate being that confused.

So, I thought about how to cut to the chase. I investigated mortality figures, looking for clarity on the competing narratives about the actual danger posed by Covid-19. (This is aside from the epidemiological information, which is hard work for me and possibly beyond a lot of people. Look into attack rate, latency, and lag if you want to know more about the reasons for its spreadability.)

This boils it down to one simple, definitive marker:

How many die? Because that’s the point.

Comparing mortality numbers

This is all out of a U.S. population (as of 2019) of 328,200,000.

Annual US death rates from various causes in 2019 (or 2018):

36,560 … Highway fatalities (2018.)
5,250 … Fatal workplace injuries (2018.)
48,236 … Adverse medical events ending in death (including surgical problems, allergic responses, medical devices, prescription errors, and fatal drug overdoses.)☆
61,200 … Seasonal flu, 2018-2019 season.
15,820 … Those with HIV, of all known causes (2018.)
Fatalities due to Covid-19 in the US in 2020, only up to Sept 1:
About 180,000

Expected to exceed 200,000 in 2 more weeks.

🤯😱💔

Questioning the data

If this number were as low as 2X the nearest competitors, I’d have dug into the question of just how bad the Covid-19 reportage is.

(Hint: lots of problems, some pushing the numbers up, others pushing the numbers down.)

It’s nearly FOUR TIMES higher than the nearest causes of death. Even I can’t pick a big enough hole in that number to change the outlook!

Bottom line

This final figure is inescapably bigger — in only 8-9 months! — than any other major/relevant cause of mortality in an entire year in the U.S.

So… death by Covid-19 is a real problem. A huge problem.

It’s a real, huge, problem.

Please protect yourself & others: don’t share air or germs.

Self-protection skills

For my fellow chronics, don’t be too worried. Surviving this is a 3-part skill, and you’ve mastered much worse. You can do this.

1. Dilute your air. 🌀
2. Protect your airway. 😷
3. Wash wash wash. 👐

Here’s what that means:

1. 🌀 Get as much air as possible around you. Avoid recirculated air. Open windows in closed buildings. Dilute, dilute, dilute your air. Even a little! (Work within your constraints.)

2. 😷 Cover all your breathing apparatus with something that meets these practical criteria for masks that protect *you* as well as others:
A. Seals: doesn’t gust air out the edges and passes the “doesn’t fog glasses” test.
B. Protects: has enough material/filtration that you can’t see any light specks peeking through, when you hold it up to the light.
C. Doesn’t vent. (Apart from exposing others, venting can also create weird ripples for super-small viruses to ride back in on. Look up “Venturi effect”.)

After reading mask tests until my eyes bubbled, I agree with these guidelines. Plus, no codes to remember!

3. 👐 Wash, wash, wash your paws & whatever you touch or touch with. Alcohol will do in between times.

Dealing with questionable cleaners

After two painful toxic exposures, I learned that 40 proof in a spritz bottle smells better, is easier & potentially cheaper than the gooey store stuff, and is far safer than methylated or isopropyl.

Alcohol-free folks: look into spritzing 3% hydrogen peroxide, which kills viruses faster than Clorox (watch your clothes, it can bleach too), proven essential oil blends, or even soapy wipes. Read labels for virus killing info.

Summary

THIS IS NOT IMAGINARY.

The death toll from Covid-19 is horrific — no matter how small the comparative R’s are.

It really IS a huge problem, still unfolding.

It’s appropriate to take it very seriously — and intelligently.

You’re not helpless. You really can protect yourself and your loved ones with that simple 3-part skill set:

1. 🌀 Dilute your air.
2. 😷 Protect your airway.
3. 👐 Wash wash wash.

Follow these guidelines for the best chance of staying well.

Reflect: “adequate protection” means masks AND 6 feet (“safer six”.) Both masks and “safer six.” Look around and see where that does or doesn’t happen.

Tip: Most eateries do takeout now, and parks are open for meeting in 🏕🏖🏜🏞.

We all have horrible choices ahead. Hope it helps to have a little coherent, practical, straightforward info. 👩‍⚕️👨‍🔬👩‍💻

Note on, & list of, sources

Sources are all primary data collection organizations within the federal government, which has access to all the original info streams:

– U.S. Census Bureau
– U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
– Bureau of Transportation Statistics (a dept. of U.S. DOT)
– The Joint Commission (of AHQS)
– DHHS-NPDB (National Practitioner Data Bank)
– HIV.gov
– CDC.gov
– EPA.gov

☆A statement along the lines of “prescription drug mismanagement results in >2M injuries and 100,000 deaths annually” is cut & pasted into many articles, some going back to 2005, despite the advances in monitoring and treatment in the past 15 years. Therefore, those figures are meaningless.

I wish politicians realized that made-up figures never improve the debate. They’re only bad for everyone’s blood pressure, at the very least.

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Angel wings & tactical things

Isy / November 19, 2019January 6, 2020 / ANS and fight-or-flight, basics, brain care, brain plasticity, bugging out, CRPS knock-on effects, home-hunt, mortality, nutrition, perspective, radical presence/radical acceptance, recipes, reiki/meditation, self-care, tools and techniques, what works

This morning, I woke up feeling like a butcher knife was lodged in my heart, the memory of barking and snarling voices ringing in my ears. No surprise there; it’s to be expected.

My first coherent thought was, “This needs to be better.” I think that about a lot of things, but this one is mine to deal with.

I pulled one of my tools out of my mental toolkit, and flicked my eyes from ceiling to floor, ceiling to floor. (I’m a side-sleeper.) When I felt an urge to close my eyes, I did. When I opened them again, the butcher knife had shrunk to the size of a stiletto, maybe a medium-sized knitting-needle.

This magic technique is one way of using “bilateral stimulation.” Bilateral stimulation is a way of using neuro-anatomy to manage neuro-chemistry, using your brain signals to heal your mind. There’s loads of material on it in the field of trauma psychology.

Basically, the way our brain processes “sidedness” (the fact that we have a left, a right, a front, and a back) is even deeper than the way it processes strong, primitive emotions, like fight-or-flight-or-freeze. Those emotions tend to disrupt the brain’s normal processing of memory, thought, and decision-making, which can be useful when mastodons are stomping over your village — what you need to do is move faster than you’ve ever done in your life, and not camp on their migratory route in the future.

Most decisions we have to make are not on that order. Even when we live with a brain that keeps wanting to go there, it’s still rarely useful. So, it’s wise to have a few tools that can keep it in check when it’s working “after hours”, so to speak.

One way to do that, which works for most ordinary stressors, is meditation. It gives me practice in creating a still space inside, where I can survey my surroundings, assess things, and choose the best way forward, from this non-triggered space. The “success” of individual meditation sessions is irrelevant to this skill, because it comes naturally as a result of persistently going back to meditation and working on it over and over. Like with many things regarding central nervous system care, persistence is key.

When my skills are toppled over by what goes on around me (cf. my last post! A perfect example of losing it and coming back again), these other tools come out of my “bag of tricks.”

Glancing from one side to another is easy, portable, and requires only some vision and muscular control of your eyes. Pick a spot about 45-60 degrees ahead of you on your left, and a corresponding spot on your right. Flick your glance from one to the other, and back again, not too fast, not too slow. The right speed varies from person to person and time to time. Feel out the point where your system naturally drops to a median, attentive level. It doesn’t feel dramatic or unnatural; I experience it as a sort of a natural pause, as if it’s waiting calmly for something reasonable. Getting someone properly trained in EMDR to teach you what this feels like is really helpful, but you might be able to find it yourself.

There’s a bit more to it: real EMDR training starts with finding, and programming into that deep layer, a “safe place” to go to in your mind; establishing a certain connection with what some call “your wise self”, so you can re-assess your situation and re-evaluate your responses without the triggering; and learning what happens to you, in particular, during the process, so you can self-treat with fewer problems and more success.

Other techniques of bilateral stimulation include the “butterfly hug.” Cross your arms so your hands rest on your opposite collarbones, and tap one side, then the other side. This feels very comforting. It’s not my go-to, because the nerves going through my elbows don’t like bending up that much.

Thigh tapping is widely taught in disaster- and war-related trauma recovery. It can be done sitting, standing, or lying down. Simply tap your legs, first one side, then the other, with the hand on that side. Left hand left leg, Right hhand right leg, back adn forth. The signal demands attention from the brain, which pulls itelf off of panic duty and gets back to processing information and sorting memories in a healthier way.

My physical therapist recently taught me the cross-body crawl. I can do this standing, sitting, or lying down on my back. Reach over with one hand and bring up the opposite knee, then switch sides, back and forth.

This does several things: it provides bilateral stimulation, which calms the panicky system down. It tones the core muscles, especially done while walking! It reminds the brain where the limbs are, which is kind of a huge deal with CRPS, which tends to muddle our brain’s map of our bodies. The cross-body crawl tops my current list of things I wish I wouldn’t do in public, because people look at me funny, but I’m going to do it anyway, because it’s so helpful to me.

I’m also able to focus on nutrition, physically the biggest player in the healing game. I made a green soup last night — Not Chik’n brand bouillon with all the green things I could find in the store that weren’t cabbage relatives (because they push down on my thyroid), and yesterday that was parsley, leeks, mature spinach, celery, and dandelion greens, plus carrots to smooth it all out. I cooked the rather harsh-smelling leeks in butter until the smell sweetened, then dumped everything but the spinach in and simmered for awhile, letting the minerals leach out into the broth. Then I cooked the spinach on top more briefly (so it wouldn’t get bitter) and threw it all in the blender.

As my friend said, “It’s like a chlorophyll bath.”

Meanwhile, as long as I persist in my meditative practice, the work on finding a home charges ahead. It’s a lasting puzzle to the linear part of my mind why an hour spent on meditation makes the other 3-4 functional hours I can squeeze out of the day ten times more effective. I’m gaspingly glad that it does, because it’s a heck of a job to find a safe place for this body.

This cascade of events has carved into my very bones the understanding that it’s meditation that will save me in the end. It’s the axis of my mundi, strange as that may seem to those who’ve witnessed any of my eventful life.

I feel the wings of angels stirring my hair now, and I can’t worry, only take the leap and trust that I’ll fly, rather than fall.

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Protected: Outrageous fortune

Isy / November 17, 2019November 20, 2019 / adaptation, ANS and fight-or-flight, brain care, bugging out, care team, critical thinking, Dept. of Blith. Obv., imp-possible, loved ones, martial & internal arts, money, mortality, perspective, radical presence/radical acceptance, reiki/meditation, self-care, what works

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Floating again

Isy / November 17, 2019November 20, 2019 / adaptation, basics, brain care, imp-possible, perspective, radical presence/radical acceptance, reiki/meditation, self-care

I’ve removed two posts:

“Departure & apology” is moot, completely overtaken by events.
“Outrageous fortune” has the seeds of a good tutorial for navigating intensely difficult, but very predictably-patterned, situations which painies are very likely to find themselves in sooner or later, especially in relation to other painies. (Currently, it’s mostly “bleeding on the page,” which is not very useful.) With a top-flight professional in the field as a cowriter, I think we can turn that into a useful tool which could help limit damage in other situations and provide good tactics and strategies for self-extrication and perspective.

To provide some sort of segue between two very different periods of life, I’m including the end of the second piece here. It seems like a pretty good transition marker.

So now… I spend alternately painful and peaceful hours in meditation. I walk in the fresh air whether it’s warm enough or not. I drink another glass of water every time I pass the sink. This will pass. This will pass. I still live, so I must breathe and keep on. This will pass.

It’s now a week … and already the formless future is beginning to gain a bit of shape. It’s nothing like what I’d imagined before. I imagine nothing now. I wait to see what emerges. So far, my family of origin is leaping onto their shining steeds; high school friends are posse-ing up with an offhand, “That’s Buxton; we look out for each other”; and a meditation center that works for me and a glowing kindred spirit have popped out of the fog, pointing out a way before me.

Meanwhile, the milkweed is bursting its pods — a glorious, silken, dizzyingly delicate reminder of the peaceful beauty of letting go…

Outrageous fortune is starting to come from a different direction now. I will feel whole again someday; I feel it in the wind.

Hours before leaving the city after all that horror, my driver’s-side wing mirror got creamed. The rest of that side is fine, hardly a scratch, but… no wing mirror.

As metaphors go, it’s probably good advice:

Stop Looking Back.

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Protected: A departure & a public apology

Isy / November 12, 2019November 20, 2019 / ANS and fight-or-flight, basics, bugging out, CRPS knock-on effects, loved ones, martial & internal arts, perspective, radical presence/radical acceptance, reiki/meditation, self-care

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Shore Break

Isy / September 23, 2019September 23, 2019 / activity, brain plasticity, CRPS knock-on effects, imp-possible, loved ones, moving/traveling, nature, perspective, self-care, story

There I was, trying to steer the 3-headed rhinoceros that is the de-mold-the-mobile-home project (dubbed “DeStroy DeMold.”) Two of my volunteers had gotten sick with things that could conceivably relate to:

Their refusal to wear respirator masks, and
The craptastic nature of the stuff coming out of the walls.

So, no more volunteers, and I was trying to figure out what next.

With heavy multiple mold exposures.

Detail of a Bosch painting. Whiskery demon holding and reaching for a misereable man. — Bosch knew.

And food poisoning (different story.)

First things first

I declared a personal moratorium on entering my place unless I had to. Ditto for my car.

Counting the inescapable mold-factory of the leaky place where I’m staying, that means I had been sucking in three, count ’em, three, substantially different species of mold. …And feeling very sorry for myself that I was strangely unable to compensate with supplements and air filters, think my way through the end of a compound sentence, get through a pain flare without going zombie, or recover from an ordinary bout of hit-the-opposite-wall vomiting.

Sorry, letting my vile sense of humor run away with me there. I actually did get it all in the toilet; I’m just not sure how.

Attitude adjustment (with cast of characters)

Last week, my gracious hostess Laurie and I realized we had not gone to the shore this year, despite our good intentions. 24 hours later, she had us all set up, and invited her excellent friend & traveling companion Dave along for the ride.

Dave & Laurie are wonderful together. A gal so butch her nephews call her Uncle Laurie and a guy so cis he could — and did — show up in white Gucci snaffle loafers and still look straight, they bring out a gleeful zest in each other that’s contagious.

Laurie was our hinge, the one who is so close to us both, and it was impossible for me to be stranger-shy with their buoyancy lightening everything.

Dave has an enormous, unflappable black lab named Bernie as his guide dog, who avoids being lethargic simply through being so good-natured. Laurie has a teeny weeny toy fox terrier named Vinny who is irretrievably in love with Big Black Beautiful Bernie.

Imagine a stately black galleon with a high-powered white tender zipping around alongside, and you’ll have the image perfectly.

I almost brought the cat…

But five bodies and 14 feet seemed like quite enough.

So: me, a human; Laurie, human, with Vinny, pocket pup; Dave, human, with Bernie, guide dog.

If everyone sucked in their hips, there was just room to pass between the beds in our one room.

The weather was perfect. The waves were influenced by a hurricane out at sea, and were nearly Californian in size and color. The dark sand was almost silky. The water was about as warm as it gets, brisk but not bracing, according to Dave’s well-tested algorithm.

What I did on my vacation

It wasn’t an eventful trip on the outside — mostly. At one point, I saw Vinny heading down to the water, mooning hopefully after Bernie; I almost called him back, but if you’ve ever seen a terrier on a mission, you know that only going over and picking him up would change his mind. Something told me to wait.

Bernie ambled into the lap of the waves, checking on his master. Vinny toddled after, absorbed and elated. The wash of the wave splashed up Bernie’s ankles; Vinny’s little legs shot out to the sides as he tried to brace against the movement, and off he went. His human turned with perfect timing and lifted him out of the water as the backwash carried him to her, knee-deep.

I was braced to race and plunge in for some dog-rescuing, but watching that remarkable little ballet unfold was quite a moment.

Vinny isn’t the only one who got a bit more than he bargained for.

I was having a bangup time, playing at the shore break. Diving under, popping over, and frequently getting trashed by the waves is such a blast. I might have some retriever in me — probably more than Bernie, who couldn’t be bothered with boisterous water.

I saw two waves converge at an angle, and jumped on them to ride the double-act into shore. Little did I know that two other waves had approached that intersection from behind me. I got washing-machined like I rarely have — completely bashed and thrashed and flung around under the water. My sinuses got washed along with everything else. I’m really glad there were no solid objects (besides me) in that water.

I came up hooting with glee — then felt something was amiss.

Somehow, over the surf, the words, “It came out!” reached me from our pretty neighbors on the thinly-populated beach. I looked down and, sure enough, one half of my generous allotment of, um, chest flesh was making a determined dive for freedom.

Wrestling it back under cover was considerably hampered, not only by the cantankerous mechanics of a soggy bathing suit, but by the fact that I was laughing so hard I could barely control my limbs.

I’m over 50. I don’t have to care what people think. Laughing is so much healthier than anxiety!

Most of my exits were much more successful.

But seriously…

Apart from that, we just found the nearest beach on the first day, found the best beach on the second, chatted with the neighbors, walked, ate, told each other stories, and enjoyed the muscular shush of the sounds of the shore. We all got ice cream.

It was transformative on the inside, at least for me.

I found that I kept talking about my childhood and my family of origin — not about life as a spoonie or neuro-nerd or an Isypedia of potentially life-saving information, but about life as something quirky and full of character; if not innocent, then willing to be optimistic in spite of it all.

That was odd, but refreshing.

After a day at the seaside and a good night’s sleep (despite the pillows fighting back against my leaning-tower arrangement), I woke up feeling…

What’s the word…

Um…

Oh, how shall I put it…

What do you call it when you feel like you can tell you’re inside your skin and the mental lights are on and you can tell what’s going on around you? Y’know, zestful and buoyant and present and awake and alive?

Oh right.

I felt more like myself than I had in about as long as I can remember.

THAT was the opposite of odd, though it was totally unexpected.

Mold toxicity: CONFIRMED.
Prognosis: EXCELLENT.
Recommendation: GIT THAT SH-T.
Target: ACQUIRED.

My brain unfolded like an origami map and alternative ways to get this mobile home taken care of — AND paid for — emerged from the crumpled mess of blocked avenues and despair.

And all that quiet, worried persistence about getting in at least one short walk most days? Well, the exercise intolerance packed it in, too — I walked a couple of miles the day before we left, the day we arrived, and the day after; definitely no exercise intolerance, without the wicked mold exposures.

This is huge. So huge.

Being able to exercise opens up new worlds of improvement. Nothing is as stabilizing to every body system as exercise. Few things are as stabilizing to the brain. I can’t even find words for the explosion of gasping hope I hardly dare to let myself feel.

My planner is about to explode. I’ve got things to do this week! WOOHOOOO!

A word to my longtime readers & fellow spoonies (a wise & canny crew)

Remember all the times I’ve said that it’s sometimes just a question of getting through one day, one hour, or one breath at a time, and that there is always an afterwards?

This, my dears, THIS looks like an afterwards worth surviving long enough for. Let’s see what I can make of it.

May we all have the right care, the right meds, the right supplements, the right routine, the right friends — and the right breaks.

Coda

30 hours

Five years of no ocean
ended at last:
the waves curled almost Pacific blue
and crashed most assertively;
soft silky sand
burled them mackerel-patterned
below utterly spotless blue skies.

I ran out all daffy abandon
“Hi water! Here I am!”
and the waves came to greet me,
and beat me, and rub me all over
like a pack of retrievers convinced I held food…

A smug Californian, I dissed the sun’s vigor
But turns out I do burn — quite well! —
on Block Island
in mid-September…
but oh, it was worth every sting.

Rainbow sky melts above while returning.
Sun rivers and I’m stupid happy
One glint, one shimmy, and all I can smile
is eyes locked on water, waiting for more.

Shameless plugs

DJ Fabulous! LaurieB, a local fixture at sober fests and community events, works in Western Massachusetts. She plays all styles, genres, and eras of music, specializing in all-ages events. She gets people smiling and moving and having a good time. 🙂

David Roulston, Esq, is the sort of lawyer every community should have. He does, or has done: probate & wills, criminal defense, designing implementation of legislation, mental health and community health, poverty & homeless issues, and business law.

Laurie took almost all of the photographs. When I mentioned I’d credit her, she said, “I think they’ll figure it out. Who else is gonna take them? The blind guy??”

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