Connections; discoveries

Disconnection and reconnection.

I spent most of the last two weeks on my back, under the comforter, with a heating pad on my feet. Which didn't always do much, but it was worth a try. I didn't leave the house except for a trip to some sort of medical practitioner, and maybe once for dinner. I didn't drive my car, I was worried that I couldn't do it safely.

I "got back on the horse" by going to church Sunday. I felt very disconnected from all the goings on, I wasn't comfortable with my singing, I wasn't breathing particularly well, and because of various "where we were standing" issues, I had to sit separately from the group (otherwise I couldn't have made it up and down some stairs) before and after our anthem. Fortunately, my big worry (the driving) wasn't so bad, so I felt like I'd be able to make it to school today.

Which I did. But I'm feeling very disconnected from it, and everyone there. Not so much the students, especially the ones I have really good relationships with, but the "goings on" and the "doings" and the various operational minutiae that comprises a typical day at the school... I'm really out of it.

But to be honest with you... I couldn't say that I miss it. I've always been a loner, so being alone is pretty much my natural state. But "disconnected"... that's different. In some ways, I think it's a step forward, to not be attached (in the Buddhist sense), but throughout this whole MS process, I've never really been sure when I'm unattached, detached, or in some sort of denial. Probably bits of all three...

Reconnection. I had a very intense deep-tissue massage yesterday... think "Chinese acupuncture-inspired Rolfing." Lots of work on my neck, back, and legs. Now, you will recall, numbness--of a sort, more accurately "data corruption"-- in my legs was the first sign that something was wrong, and it's one of my most troubling physical MS-dispensed afflictions. But, MAN! During that deep tissue massage, did I ever have sensation. Lots of very clear sensation. Of course, it was nastily painful, it was deep-tissue Rolfing-esque work. But, oh, so much sensation! Sensation at an intensity and an amount that I haven't had in years.

And the cloud that I've been under for the past two weeks, which had been at least seeping away, a little, was very sternly dispersed by the massage. Something very significant that had been stuck, was unstuck by this massage.

I don't care how much it hurts. And "much it hurts"--oh yes. Very much. But, unfortunately, it seems to be doing something good. And simply sending nice clear data through the nerves is also good neurological therapy.

Tomorrow, I have my first visit to "physical therapy." Possibly the only "normal" Western treatment I've ever tried, on this MS trip. We'll see if that does anything for me. I expect that it will; at least, I hope it will. And who knows? Maybe "normal" can work, on occasion.

Stranger things have happened.