Month: July 2023

Recovery & Repair

Thursday, July 27

Today at the top of my walk in the garage, I experienced thirty seconds of good form, and it felt like it would continue to improve. Then Simbo — Orvieto’s cutest dog –trotted in, form collapsed, and I was unable to get it back. But the feeling of contentment those thirty seconds gave persisted through the evening.

Symptoms improvement that has lasted a week or longer:

  • Urge to pee matches reality, no random leakage
  • Ability to don earphones in one smooth gesture
  • Daytime drool greatly reduced
  • Freezing in place increasingly rare
  • Tremors in arms and jaw significantly reduced

I feel hopeful.

Recovery & Repair

Tuesday, July 18

I wish the bad typing symptom were not so active these days, I have a lot to say. To cut to the chase; tracking symptoms can be like becoming fascinated with what should be thrown out while cleaning the attic. But ever-changing symptoms of the past week aside, I have often had a familiar sense of deep security, and a recognition that recovery is real and ongoing. The symptoms are part of a healing process that accelerates in opposition to how deftly I can set them free. That being said, as of today symptoms have returned to default levels, and while I am certain that self-induced pause has been turned off (with periodic revisits out of habit) I’m not certain about biological pause, and if it isn’t off yet, what to do next. In the meantime, I wait for symptoms improvement to cycle around for a bit longer than five days, which seems to be the pattern.

[the following is from Stuck on Pause by Janice Hadlock]

“Biological pause from trauma sometimes fails to turn off automatically after the body stabilizes. In these cases, the Five Steps can be used as a prod to turn off pause. Sometimes, biological pause fails to turn off because the injury remains unhealed due to the severity of the injury or mental dissociation from the injury: the body cannot heal that which it doesn’t know exists. In these cases, treatment of the injury and/or re-association with the injury will often lead to spontaneous completion of the Five Steps.”

On his own Roman recited a list of improvements in my condition that he has observed in the past year or so; it was impressive.

Recovery & Repair

Tuesday, July 11

Cynthia spent three or more hours daily working mostly with yin tui na and qigong techniques. The week following, that of July 3, was filled with improvements, both subtle and obvious. All of these lightenings of symptoms have happened before for a day or two, but here is a list of changes that held for five days or more.

Movement: It is easier to initiate movement, most notably with my feet. That also means no freezing in place and not halting before I change direction. Although the ease has diminished since Sunday, this is still the case after more than a week.

Restless Leg Syndrome: Incidents of RLS are both less frequent and less severe. This also survived the week.

Walking: Until Saturday there were periods of “strong” walking that felt more grounded and fluid. On occasion my arms relaxed and swung a little. This is gone, for the present.

Drool: There has been a persistent reduction of saliva, especially at night. Continues thus.

Sleep and Comfort in Bed: There is a major improvement in quality and duration of sleep, plus greater ease in finding comfortable positions, and in turning over and making physical adjustments. Turning over became difficult again on Monday night, though less so than what was previously normal.

Internal Factors: I am more forgiving of myself, kinder in my thoughts, and gentler in recalling memories, and I am grateful for joy when it appears.

I dearly wish I could live within walking distance of Cynthia for a few weeks, or find someone as generous, kind, and informed as she to continue treatment. When I can type more easily I intend to write more about what we encountered during our afternoon sessions, and of ways I am trying to continue with those practices on my own.

[the following quote is from Recovering from Parkinson’s by Janice Hadlock]

“Only if you understand what it is you are truly trying to change will you be able to rest easy in the knowledge that you are, in fact, healing from Parkinson’s disease after pause turns off. Your doctors and loved ones might assume you still have Parkinson’s disease until their snappy and highly inadequate visual assessment shows that you no longer have any residual trace of impaired motor function.

Doubt can cause people to re-invoke self-induced pause. Don’t.

You know the changes and healing you are going through even if no one else perceives them or acknowledges them. Savor them.”

Recovery & Repair

Wednesday, July 5

My dear friend Cynthia is a certified acupuncturist, Chinese herbalist, and healer. When I asked her if I could fly her here from her home in New York, I had few expectations that she would have the time, but Janice had sent me instructions for how to treat restless leg syndrome that needed someone well-versed in Chinese medicine, and who speaks English. Cynthia said sure. She and her husband would be vacationing in Cornwall at the beginning of July, so she would arrange to come to Europe ten days early and spend them in Orvieto. I was thrilled.

Cynthia can feel a person’s qi, or vital energy – how it flows, where it is blocked, when it is running backwards – and was able to teach me to identify some of that phenomena myself. She gave me several hours of yin tui na each day. My sleep improved, I had hours of strong (if far from perfect) walking, my mood lifted, and gratitude soared to new levels. The RLS still bothers me but I am left with tools to deal with that myself.

What follows is from Recovery from Parkinson’s by Janice Hadlock and is profoundly true.

“Recovery symptoms are not a straight line. But to the extent that there is some degree of predictability, one can assume that return of fully normal motor function might be one of the very last things that occur during recovery. What might occur prior to a return of healthy motor function is resumption of nerve sensitivity, spastic, infantile motor function, back pain, heightened sensitivity in nerves that go to the bladder, exhaustion, and very often, an overwhelming, new sensitivity to heart feelings, and so much more.”

Cynthia also took this week’s photo.