New Prescription

A real zinger of an acupuncturing today. Two nasty blocks (fortunately doc was especially adept on the second block when he hit III-1, "Bright Eyes," although I can still tell that I was needled there earlier today), some other powerful points.

(A small aside: I notice a lot of my MS-blogging colleagues muse about their injectables, and the rocky journey their DMDs take them on. I'm not on those, so I talk about acupuncture points. Different pokes for different folks, as it were.)

Most important, though, was our discussion about being a little more insistent when necessary about my medical needs, especially viz-a-viz requesting accommodations from work--for example, physical therapy is more important than meetings I don't really need to attend except to make other people feel like I'm participating. (Two things people don't really understand at work: sometimes what few medical accommodations I ask for need to taken a little more seriously; and I spent thirty years of my life as a technical writer whose job it was to figure out undocumented software and explain it to others, when I say I don't need to attend a canned "training" it's not snootiness, it's that I can train myself faster and more efficiently than the trainers can, thank you very much, so don't take it personally if I'd rather go to physical therapy than software training. And oh yeah, see above, "what few medical accommodations I ask for need to be taken a little more seriously.")

But what really struck a chord with me was him passing along what his teacher always said to him: "Take care of yourself, my son." Taking care of myself is something I really need to be better at. It's not just "sit down when you need to sit down," it's "Do things for yourself that heal yourself, even if it's something small and simple."

So I've taken the news applications (like Huffington Post) off my iPhone; I don't need to read endless stories about people talking s**t about each other, I've got far, far better things to spend my time on. I listened to brand new I've-never-heard-=it music the other day, for the first time in a long time, just listened; it was wonderful.

I have a lot of things I need to do, and I have things that I actually need to do. Some of them are big, but many of them are small and simple.

I need to actively, intentionally, take care of me.

I really don't know why I find that so hard...