MF MS 10
It starts like an electric shock boring into my right shoulder, like a bolt of lightning! The pain is intense, electrifying! And then it passes, washing over me like a hot rushing wave. Like a chilling release. I bear it bare it, grit my teeth, brace myself. Or I rub my right shoulder vigorously, and thanks to my dear friend / spiritual advisor, I know to move my arm more, move my body, be as water.
Now it’s the time of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. I haven’t been watching it, but when I do see a news brief, or a link to an article on the phone , I really want to pause and look at, and honor the strength of the athletes, the balance, grace, and grit, of those who are competing. The Best of the Best. Ability, not dis-abled (very disempowering word.) I think maybe I should pay more attention to the Special Olympics, and not allow, “I can’t” in the door. I think I can, I think I can. Whenever I’m at the gym on the elliptical and see the Olympics on the TV before me (or any sports, for that matter) , I feel re-ignited to push myself more, because I must!
MS (emmes) means truth in Hebrew. I limp down the hall, lose my balance, drop glasses, and I can no longer type or write, eat or cut with my once dominant right hand. So I really feel the MS has evolved from RR MS, Relapsing Remitting, to Secondary Progressive MS. Whereas, I used to have such severe symptoms such as optic neuritis, seeing through an icy veil, losing the hearing in my right ear, losing the feeling in my hands and feet and torso, as well as other skin stuff -tingling and the’ phantom itch traveling around my arms, hands, collar bone, and back, the side of my face palseying, holding a grimace, to dizzying vertigo when I move my head too quickly, and the debilitating fatigue that sometimes accompanies me. Each of these symptoms would last six to eight weeks, and then mostly abate. It was a really hard road to travel, those first 15 years.. But now, I don’t seem to get those exacerbations, thank goodness, though my walking is compromised. I walk with a wooden walking stick, a ‘staff’, as it has been named, or a purple aluminum cane. And now, I wear my groovy new custom made, foot and ankle brace. Made to my body’s very specifications!
Oh, but did I used to walk! I was a hiker! I’ve hiked in the Wilds of the Colorado Rocky Mountains, California forests, and by the seas- both Pacific and Atlantic. New England forests, New Mexico mountains, the Hudson Valley woodlands, many many many walks. It was on these hikes that I would write, speak, and memorize poetry. That was my time to cleave to the divine- devetkut hashem. Cry out to God, converse with the universe- so, God time, creativity time, physical activity time, inspiration time. I was once called, “Pride Walker”, by a master of movement and drama. Now that is a name I am glad to be called!
My neurologist will not change my MS designation from RRMS to Secondary Progressive MS. This is likely because the health insurance companies will refuse to pay for the medications with that title of disease. So tell me, what is a person with secondary progressive MS supposed to do then?
Again, left to the universe , I need to ask myself, is my faith so strong that I truly know that God will heal me? Or rather, through my body, G-d can shine G-d’s healing light. Send your emissaries, Most High one- mayachorai Raphael! I’ve put the healing Hebrew words to a lovely Lakota melody: Ana Elna R’fanala- rfua sh’layma. (a complete and total healing- body, soul, and spirit.
I’ve felt that these past twenty years of illness, and from earliest sensation and memory , of the body’s indelible art of being an instruments of the divine, and I also know that I need to take an active role in my own healing. so I work out at the gym, and I try to eat well, though I’m not on any particular diet: raw, vegetarian, gluten free, dairy free or otherwise. And I know, that my body has the innate ability to heal itself from any imbalance. So now, I’m doing the ondamed machine, ever grateful to the healers who are offering this to me. Ondamed. Is a biofeedback machine that tansmits electro-magnetic energy to my body, in the hopes that that will trigger such a reaction in myself that will bring about healing!
Here I am, ‘Hineni’, still hopeful, still believing, but I’m not really waiting- I’m just living, and sometimes I’m damned frustrated- . Still I’m smiling. As I sometimes say, I’m grateful even for the challenges. Every morning, when we thank G-d for restoring our soul to our body, we say, “abundant is your faithfulness.” “Raba Emunahtecha!” If G-d has faith in me, then shouldn’t I have faith in my body’s ability to heal!
Thank the Path
Hiking the back woods, an odd thing happened.I realized, that though I’ve walked these paths a thousand times before-Nothing looked familiar, and though I knew where I must be, I had no idea where I was.Maybe I was seeing with new eyes, as was suggested, but I think that everything- bush, tree, flower, stone, was not the same as it had ever been before! All was changed, an is continuously changing- as am I, as are you! This is not the same rose your father gave you at graduation, or that you carried down the aisle in your sister’s wedding, or that blossomed on the bedside, filling the room with its essence, the morning you mother passed away.
This rose presents itself to you! Touch its gentle petals, breathe deeply its life scent, see this loiving being burning in its divinity! I thank G-d, who illuminates my path. Those who hold me up along the sometimes overgrown and convoluted way. And the very path itself! The decomposing leaves pressed in mud, the bright orange eft scurrying away from dtopping acorns, the tiny spotted toad leaping onto my hand, and off again. The mushrooms that open as flowers, and the flowers that turn to sticky burrs. All this is new, and now, and me- honored here.
by, Yiskah Koock