Loss is a Gift - An Unusual Poem

Blessings are big.

Blessings are small.

Some of them you might not notice at all.

Instead you notice them when they are gone, 

And mostly when you start to bawl.

When tears roll down

And eyes squinch up

And your nose turns red as a rubber ball

You notice a blessing you had but lost

And you forget all the others that still exist.

Can you walk? You are lucky.

Can you see? Lucky too.

Can you wipe your red nose that looks like a kazoo?

Your arms are working, your fingers move. 

You noticed you cried, your brain is not a sieve.

You remembered you had it, your cortex is in tact 

(You're not even sure if the cortex does that!)

Your reasoning is sound, you are THAT aware

You now know that you have it "up there."

For only those with memory forget

With reason comes judgement, and sensing a threat

Your anger is normal, but to feel it takes feelings......

Now, wiping your tears takes on a whole new meaning.

Next time you wonder why you're not Tebow,
Nor Gisele, Obama, Beyonce or Leo,

Ask yourself if you can wipe your tears

And feel lucky that you are still in the years

Where your body works, and your mind still commands it

Someday you may have it all go away

That day may be closer to today

Than you'd like to think

(And others would too).

Loss is a gift.

It reminds us we had "it."

So celebrate gently

Your blessings disguised.

Superfood = Superlife?

Every day new superfoods emerge. I have my kitchen cupboards full of them. One of the latest is mulberry leaves. These are supposed to make you lose weight. Personally, I prefer the mulberries instead. So do silkworms, so I am in good company. Also recently exploited for weight-loss supplements are lychis (yuck). Then there are quinoa and chia seeds, the breakfast of Aztec and Inca champions. And cocoa. Then there are goji berries and coconut-anything. I can eat a whole meal of superfoods, if I want to. This is not even counting the normal anti-oxidant foods we already know about, like blueberries & raspberries. (Wait, they are supposed to be weight-loss food too, right? I see a trend!)


All this superizing of food means that finally the food industry is acknowledging the value of natural food as the missing link to providing the building blocks that our body really thrives on.

But the most missing link of ALL, the original superfood, was the Tree of Life. Yes, according to Old Testament history there is one food that carried the secret to longevity. It was located in the first Garden, Eden, and had the magical ability to make you live forever.

[Picture credit: Gustav Klimt]

We were banned from eating that tree, after Eve ate the Fateful Apple, so people like me wouldn't have to live forever in chronic pain. God then said man would eat the fruit of the ground, nuts, grains & vegetables, instead. However, just the fact that a live-forever substance existed is a good reminder that what comes out of the ground has the power to heal us & keep us alive for a very long time.

No natural fuel, no go.

So the next time you eat, think about your food & how it nourishes you. What nutrients in this particular food make your life better by eating it? Natural foods may no longer make you live forever, but they can sustain the life you do have a lot better than factory-created munchies.

Don't believe me? Just ask Popeye...

Could there be chronic Hope?

Hope is a 4-letter word for those of us with chronic pain. The reason is - it is chronic. There ain't no escaping it for long...And we are sick to death of people telling us we will get better. God will heal us. Blah blah blah. We want to shout 4-letter words at them, and they are not hope!

But, some people do have hope. And I love to celebrate them. 

"A Promise of Hope" is the book written by Autumn Stringham. I read it today, with tears in my eyes, and a good feeling that somewhere, people are finding hope & health. My mom sent me the vitamins & minerals referenced in the book, EMPower. (Some are called Plus at the end.)

I am starting these vitamins today because I have long suffered from a history of deep dark depression that leads to suicidal thoughts. I have also, clearly, been long affected by chronic nerve pain, exacerbated by anxiety. I am hoping for some relief.

I will let you know...

You shall not surely die. Really? Dammit...

I talked with a friend today about eternal life. How many of you with chronic pain would like this? Please post to my blog. Assuming there are NONE of you, including myself, I will share another tidbit. My grandmother, who I never heard express pain, willed to die. God bless her generous soul. She who gave up life as she knew it to fulfill my grandfather's dream and open a school in San Pedro Sula, Honduras (now called CEA for short)...got tired of living. At about 100 years old, she had had enough. With only one living friend from her childhood, she decided to stop eating. My family couldn't let go, so she lingered a couple more years until, mercifully, she passed on. We all mourned her and celebrated her legacy, as it was a remarkable one.

Which of you would have been the devil to keep her alive without pain, and without friends? Let us say she had Pain With Joy? Which of you would have been such a bastard to keep her alive against her will, for either reason? 

And yet, let me ask you what you think of God. When Eve ate the forbidden tree, he knew that now all of us would love with pain and suffering. After all,  it was the Tree of Good and Evil. Since she already knew about good, what do you think came out of eating that tree?

Yes, you know it. Evil.

How blessed is it to live forever with evil? An eternal life of that would be pure misery. Would a God of love like that? Not really.

So who said you will never die? Hmmmm.

The Serpent.

The devil.

In a world of pain, death, temporary removal, is a blessing. Me, I rather agree with God. Only in a world made new, with no pain or suffering, would I ever want to live forever. I would never wish life as we know it eternally upon even my worst enemy.

I do look forward to a resurrection to a life without pain. In that world, eternal life is a blessing, not a curse. But the devil does not offer that. Only God does.

So the next time you judge the desire of a chronic-pain-filled or elderly person to live, think to yourself: am I wishing them a blessing or a curse?

"He sleeps." said Jesus about Lazarus.

I will wish that also, when the pain is too much. Only with a painfree world do I want to live forever...just like my grandmother.

Raiki Rocks - Third-party & Self-Administered Raiki

If you have nerve pain, where would it be most logical to put your emphasis on healing? Yes. Your nervous system. The LAST place the medical profession focuses on. There isn't a profitable drug for THAT! Enter raiki.

If you have ever tried acupuncture & experienced how your body channels open up with it, raiki is the same. But there are no needles involved. I believe you have the strongest results from a person with really good strong energy, so bear in mind, when you try raiki, your results will depend on the person administering it. If you get no results, try someone else, don't just give up on it.

I found two ways of experiencing raiki: through a professional, and self-administered.

First of all, raiki makes sense for people with FMS. If you assume FMS is a degenerated nerve disease or disorder, it also makes sense that anything that improves or soothes your nerves will make you feel better.

My raiki specialist, who I will call L, is just fantastic. I first noticed when she gave me a facial and put her hands on my face. I was like whoa, what was that? It affected my brain immediately. Just shut off the obsessive thoughts (that people with chronic pain have) like a light switch. She said I did a little raiki. I had already heard good things about it, so I signed myself up for a real session.

I enjoyed it because there were no aggressive moves that hurt me (as some well-meaning massage therapists have done). There were no needles. But I felt all the blocked places, mainly my abdomen, open up. I cried a river and drank a lot of water afterward. I felt energy I hadn't noticed for years. I felt, for a brief period, normal.

I have since been a couple more times with similar, but not as dramatic results. However, each time I have noticed my nerves were supported. My pain went down considerably, and my mental state improved. I would recommend raiki for anyone with pain. Longterm results aside, it sure improves pain in the short-term.

So how did I figure out this also works on yourself? By accident. I was in NY in a hotel where I couldn't sleep because the people upstairs were stomping around all night. I was excessively stressed and upset, and of course my pain level went sky-high. My stomach tightened up in knots (my biggest problem contributing to my nerve pain, or result of...). Then I thought hmmm. What if I put my own hands on my stomach like L did? What if I put the soles of my feet together so the energy can flow around in a circle? So I did that. I created an energy circle, and - amazingly enough - my crazy energy started to calm, and I began to normalize. Of course it wasn't as helpful as having someone else do it, but I learned something new. You can manage your own energy flow. I am guessing this is why when you meditate you sit with your legs under you, with the soles of your feet touching the back of your knees, and put your hands on your legs. Sound familiar?

Circular energy...

Hey, don't knock it until you tried it. And you should, if you have chronic nerve pain. After all, your nerves are IN you, you own them, and you can manage what they do (unless, you have MS, in which case, it really sucks).

More to come on raiki, as I experience more...

Balance - Healing by the "Time for Everything" & "Natural is #1" Principles

Balance is imperative to recovery. Or to managing pain. Wherever you are along this spectrum, here are some things to consider. And my recent findings: If a little is good, a lot is not necessarily better. For example...I have been using the grounding pads that you can find on earthing.net. They are great. If you sit with your feet on them, you immediately feel the benefits. Calmer breath from your abdomen, a sense of peace, lowered pain. However, if you sleep on them every night for hours (or two of them) like I have been, you may find out - you become imbalanced. Like on edge. Like what happened to me? I can't RELAX!!!

So I asked my organic-farmer-and-all-things-healthy guru stepdad, Arnold Schmidt, why, and he told me...that cows only sleep on magnetic lines of the earth for a few hours at a time, and then they move off them. Are grounding pads the same as the lines of the earth? Hmmm. They aren't marketed as that, but they might be. How easy is it to replicate real, natural things with manmade ones? Not at all.

Which leads to point #2...

Fake is not real. Blue lights are NOT sunlight. I was wanting one, because they are recommended by Tim Ferris in the 4-Hour Body. Imagine my happiness when my friend gave me one, saying she had received several from a family member and had an extra one. Imagine my surprise when after 15 minutes of setting one up at work, I got a migraine, sick stomach, and my eyes hurt. It was so intense that I am reliving the symptoms reading this. Thank goodness for Amazon and Google. Because I started reading and realized that blue lights can lead directly to blindness. Yes, macular degeneration. Lesson learned? Man-made things are not equal to natural ones. God's handiwork cannot be replicated to satisfaction.

When you are managing your pain, pay attention to your body. Keep in balance. Remember, day turns to night...spring turns to fall...and there is a time and a place for everything.

Pain With Depression - When Your Joy Goes on Holiday

Superwoman I am not. I've been very depressed lately. As in very.

For a number of reasons I think.

One is, I ran low on guaifenisen, my life-with-any-value-saving drug. I had ordered from Fludan.com, my super-awesome supplier for the past 5 years, & they had delayed shipment due to the need to fix the pill stuffer or something like that. In the meantime, I started rationing my supply to about 2 pills (1200 mg) a day & my pain symptoms went up & up, I found it harder to breathe, I wasn't sleeping well, & all the symptoms of FMS started coming back. Such as lack of mental clarity. Such as ... I ... started ... staring off into space again... mind totally blank...and found...it hard to move... my body. Basically, my brain started shutting down.

Finally I heard back from the wonderful folks at Fludan who explained the fluke & generously sent me extra product to make up for it. I got my shipment today from the post office & took 4 pills immediately. My energy popped back up, I went to the gym to work out, I could breathe, I had Tigger-type bounciness, and generally, my yummy, awesome, smart, self started to return. This all on a rainy day. So yea for Fludan & guai!!

The second problem was that we had the holidays. Holidays are taxing for everyone, most of all for those with chronic pain. You add a few extra activities and a whole lot more emotional taxation & we are basically almost non-functioning.

Then, thirdly I started a new job. Wonderful. My commute is lowered from 1.5 hours per day, including 2 train rides and 1/2 hour of walking in the elements (did I mention it got to zero degrees this week?) to now a 10-minute ride in a pre-heated car. Yes, a remote starter was among my gifts for Christmas. Coupled with a programmable thermostat in my house. Warm to warm to warm, goes my commute, work & home now. Oh. Yes, but there is the problem where I merely changed jobs. I didn't change my attitude TOWARD it, I still was stuck with the old stressed out me.

But I digress.

So I was crying on my couch the other day from my lack of hope for any of this improving, when I happened to watch the cool & awesome Tim Tebow before the Pats game. Yes, the one where the Broncos got, what, 15 negative yard plays, while we, the Pats, broke records? Where you couldn't even SEE the Brady plays, they were already over, while you were yelling at Tebow "LET GO OF THE BALL!" Yes, that game.

So Tebow is speaking before the game to a cute little girl named Bailey, and talking about the really important things in life. Such as how she put life in perspective for him. She had had 73 surgeries.

Here I am on the couch crying as I hear this, and it also puts life in perspective for me. I thank him, and I thank her. Depression aside, I am not dying. My body has turned on itself (thanks to biowarfare), my countries are unleashing deadly force on us unsuspecting tax-payers (said instigators of biowarfare), we are sick and in pain (hopefully we will buy the prescribed meds & boost the pharmaceutical industry coffers) - YET I am not dying.

Somehow, after I saw the cute smiley girl, I was no longer depressed. Yes, I was frustrated. I was in pain. I was sad. My situation did not change. But my perspective did. Somehow, she was finding JOY amidst her PAIN, while I was not.

Today is a new day. I am no longer that depressed. Yes, it is still there somewhat, but some of the joy has returned. I remembered what the goal is. Life sucks. For all of us in varying degrees. For some more than others. But still, there is JOY.

You just have to seek it out, and hang with those who self-manufacture it. The cute smiley girl did named Bailey. And I want to be with her, in the game of joy-making. Though I cannot identify with her condition or experience, I do want to share her joy.

Where is the joy? I think I found it again - in her.