Tuesday, October 25
Yesterday’s personal theories about zombie naps and related subjects were blown to bits by today’s reality. The details are not worth getting into. Suffice to say that I will try to suspend my mental habit of figuring everything out for myself, and turn instead towards taking each day as it comes.
Things that came with this day include:
Roman has been massaging my legs morning and night since early July 2021. He said that for the first time the calves are supple instead of hard. (Six days later, they continue to be so.)
There were several periods of ecstatic love, Sunday, yesterday, and today.
The feeling of assurance regardless of how talented (or not) movement is, continues.
Janice’s response to this week’s report; “that gradual improvement is really the test. NOT having all the symptoms be completely gone by today or tomorrow.”
Wednesday, October 26
Walking has been wretchedly difficult all day (though it started down that path yesterday) and putting on glasses or inserting hearing aides (and the like) is arduously slow, but typing is good enough that I wrote and edited an 800 word article for Orvieto News on last Sunday’s concert. That felt like a return to life.
As far as movement goes, I let it be what it was. Interesting result perhaps; Teo the Tabby walked four out of five laps on the sagrato with us and waited for us at the ramp for the fifth; dogs were friendlier than usual (and so were people).
Thursday, October 27
I slept nine hours with an hour break around four. Movement is laborious, though typing is not bad. I still feel safe. To our great disappointment Teo didn’t show up for our walk tonight. I hope he knows he is always welcome.
Friday, October 28
Sleep last night was interrupted at around 04:30 by a dream-induced need to reposition my limbs. When attempts at doing so yielded no relief, my sleeping mind decided to crawl out of bed without plan or strategy. I flailed and twisted and groaned and finally pulled myself over the edge, heart pounding like a hammer. I’d done something similar several months ago. The difference this time was that while my body was frightened by the experience, the mind was not. Nevertheless my body’s fear discouraged further quality sleep.
I mentioned last Sunday that I could not stand and clap at the same time. What I didn’t say is that I couldn’t clap at all for longer than about three seconds. A couple of weeks ago, Janice responded to my post by saying that I was essentially recovered with mopping up to do. I prefer the war metaphor; the longer the conflict the longer the reconstruction – meaning such things as relearning to execute repetitive movement. I decided to apply effort towards that relearning, and by this morning I could clap. Stand by for more.
Saturday, October 29
Walking was so hard in the morning, and I was so tired all afternoon, I was surprised when the evening walk turned out to be pretty decent; controlled, rhythmic, and quiet.
Sunday, October 30
A week ago when I wanted to give Maestro Cambri a standing ovation, I couldn’t clap my hands. In truth, I’ve been unable to clap for well over a year now. Repetitive movement needs to be automatic in order to sustain itself, and one of the characteristics of Pause mode is the lack of automatic movement. So, Sunday before bed I began to re-train my hands to clap. By Wednesday evening I could applaud for ten seconds before I ran into a wall. By Saturday evening, I was able to clap for a minute or more.
As I mentioned before, Janice recently responded to a week’s report that I have recovered from the root cause of PD – being stuck on or habituated to Pause mode or Pause mode mental habits – and that now I have mopping up to do. The example of clapping is, I believe, what much of mopping up will look like.
Natalia helped me regularize my inter-lap exercises, this morning, and they coincidentally involve repetitive movement, as well as isolation of movement and tension. For the past several weeks, my hands tighten when I walk. The more fluid the walk, the tighter the hands; they want to grab hold of something for stability, and the aftereffect is severe muscular pain on the outside of the wrists. Today we discovered that when I slowly close and release my fists and fingers while walking, the hands remain relaxed.
The next few months are going to see a lot of that kind of thing. They are also going to see my becoming suddenly tired during exercise as the brain learns how much dopamine to produce and where and how quickly to release it. In the meantime, there may be accompanying mood swings. I will deal. Just be careful not to spill on others.
Monday, October 31
The streets were filled with angels and demons, witches and wizards. My evening walk included a few echoes of Bob Fosse (unsustained but fun). I didn’t wear out during the five laps, but was fairly wasted afterwards. Yesterday’s Zoom meeting of our PD support group was profound. Typing today were better done by a team of hyperactive kittens. Have a good week.