Saturday, November 23, 2013

Metal; mind; improvement


Well, that's quite the combination.

A bit of bladder-related education. I'm currently, and probably will be from now on, in the Cath Club, for proper and 100% controllable bladder emptying. 

But here's the thing: Bladders like mine can, according to my urologist, "overflow." Not literally, of course (oh boy, that'd be "exciting," wouldn't it?) but when the bladder hits a certain capacity, whatever that may be--and unique to each bladder, of course--it'll just start emptying itself. Not completely, just "some," whatever that may be. It might explode with excitement. It might just dribble out. But that's the "overflow," overflowing, but not emptying. At all. So you go for the cath, bring the bladder below the threshold or better yet, down to functionally empty, and poof! Leaks, gone! Exploding, gone! And all that stuff will stay gone, as long as bladder is empty enough to keep it below said magic number. 

And of course, like all things MS, how often you do this is up to you, and your bladder. Every four hours? Every three? Every six? How much [fill in the blank] are you drinking and how diuretic is it? All sorts of complicating factors, but just be sensitive, and when the "Oops! Gotta go THIS SECOND" flags go up, give it what it wants, and reach for the catheter.

Because the Thrall of the Antichrist Insurance Company didn't think I needed the catheters that the MD under whose care I fall and, unlike them, who has watched me void, knows that I need a certain type and prescribed them, of the type and quantity that he as a person who KNOWS ME regarded as important, I'm still waiting for them to cough them up. The Catheterists said it'll be here Tuesday… I gotta do a lot of catheter washing in the meantime, something my urologist says I can do but the catheter manufacturer says not to do. Having tried it, I can get three, maybe four uses out of one, but once these are gone, they're gone, and wheee! I'll weeeeeeeee…….. 

But here's the spiritual thing. I've been doing a lot of intense spiritual housecleaning. Getting out of my soul things that just don't belong there any more... 

Which is what the large intestine does for us all. The classical five-element acupuncturists call this official "the Drainer of the Dregs," which is pretty much what the physical large intestine does too.

And not to put too fine a point on it, I needed to take a pretty severe spiritual "dump," and get some things out of my mind, heart, and spirit.

And here's the weird thing… I suppose not really "weird," but yeah, weird…

I had to be manually deimpacted (yuck) multiple times in the hospital, have had to do it for myself (double yuck), and in the hospital had to have more than a few enemas (yuck again) to get anything out. Nowadays, yes they do have me on stool softeners and that sort of stuff, to obviate the impaction, but since I started really cleaning out my mind/spirit and letting go of things in the spirit of the season of Metal… I haven't returned to "flawless and effortless in every way," but at least I have been able to empty myself without requiring the least assistance. Doesn't always happen at the same time of day, and my GI guy told me that anything between twice a day and once every two days qualifies as "normal," but going at all, without intervention, has been… wonderful. As a floor-mate of mine said in college, "Sex is great, but nothing beats a really good s--t," and dang, was he right.

The Science of Mind church folks say "As a man thinks, so is he." Apparently, as I've just discovered: As a man thinks, so poos he.

You won't find that in the writings of Earnest Holmes, at least I don't expect you will, but at least for me… it works. 

So, change the way you think, and everything will change. Sometimes in the most surprising, and welcome, ways.

Next on the list: forgive my body from "going south" as only MS, and age, and life, can take it. Today I'm able to stand up long enough to turn my computer on, and even with my hands not doing so well with fine motor control, my hands are doing better.

Improvement is... improvement. With no side effects beyond...

Improvement. 

I'll take it.

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