Monday, December 28, 2015

Still Kicking . . .

It has been a while since I posted anything.  I got pretty low.

Only mostly dead, however, which is still partly alive.  I am still kicking, and wiggling, and twisting, and contorting.

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In the last several months, I finally got a new puppy, Nymeria.  It was very tough on me potty training her.  Right when progress was made, she was spayed, and spent two weeks with the Cone of Shame on (also had dew claws removed), which has been a horror.

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I am worn out beyond measure, yet the progress continues.  I am closer to finding my center than ever.

Of course, I am also in grade A, first class, pain.

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One bother has been the realization that I can't possibly go to the movies and see Star Wars.

I am not the hugest of Star Wars geeks, but I did grow up with the films, I did have all the toys, and I am a movie nut.  Granted, I have not been to a theater since taking my kid to Toy Story 3, but still.  This is Star Wars.  I am an Abrams fan, loving what he did with Star Trek, and I WANT to see this new movie very much.

It's just, too much pain.  No way I can handle the (drive + lines + hours in a movie seat) without being in fantastical pain for weeks afterwards.

I must wait for on-demand, sadly.

*     *     *     *     *

Among the positives is I may be working out how to explain the "center" to people in a way that may actually click with some.  It is still rough, but hopefully it will be my next post, complete with some math (well, using vectors in an example, anyways).

Monday, August 17, 2015

Summer Post Mortem

Fuck.

*     *     *     *     *

I weighed myself today to discover I had gained 5 pounds over this Summer.  That's more than a first.  Previous Summers had been getting worse because I had been losing less weight, last year only 12 pounds.  That is a 17 pound swing compared to my worst summer in a decade (probably ever).

*     *     *     *     *

The combination of no Adderall, more pain, and worsening of the joints has completely kicked my ass.

I am limping to the finish line.

*     *     *     *     *

While there was some progress, it can't make up for the steps backwards.  It just can't.

I am failing.

My despair is such that I even managed to take a wrong turn while trying to bike home from the pool today.

The body is gone.  The brain is shot, and I don't even got liquor's satisfaction anymore.  :(

*     *     *     *     *

I find myself adding things up, more and more.  I want to die.  I am tired of this.

Will I?  probably not, by my own hand, at least.  Stubborn, stupid, and afraid, I'll limp (or be wheeled, more likely) to the finish line.

Saturday, July 18, 2015

A New Breakthrough

Just as things were at an all time low, I had a breakthrough.

I can't say if it was out of desperation, or simply on faith in what I am doing, but I "rode" some sensations, inward, into my core, into my torso.  It did some changes, ones I always feared I may need to do, ones I fear I am not done with yet.

These changes in my torso, some serious shifting, had dramatic effects on shoulders, hips, and neck.  In fact, I became focused on the neck, a type I can not yet articulate, but which centered on breathing through the nose with the back of the nasal passages elongated (if that makes sense).

*     *     *     *     *

I did this both before and during my swim yesterday.  Things just got plain weird.

*     *     *     *     *

Then, today, back at the pool, my pectorals were sore during this newly found breast stroke.

I cannot stress this enough,  I don't know that they have ever before been sore.  I don't know that I ever before used them, at least not properly, hopefully in a position near where they are supposed to be.

This means that my previous breast stroke, one which used so much leverage from improper muscles (and one which the local swim adult swim coach still wanted me for his relay team because it was fast!), was ALL WRONG!

There is no way for me to know how RIGHT things are now, but it was a moment of progress when one was sorely needed.

*     *     *     *     *

I am so very tired.  I am far too exhausted to write out all the changes to various limbs, however useful it may become in time, to understand better what I have done / am doing.

I'm just spent.

I even refused a hug from my kid a few minutes ago.  I'm in that much pain, everywhere.

*     *     *     *     *

One thing worth noting, regarding the hip changes, the left leg is moving a lot in relation to the hip.  So much so, it becomes quite difficult to walk.  I become unable to put any weight on it at all.  Then, when it settles into place (along with other torso changes), it suddenly can walk, though quite stiffly and sore.

I may be reaching a stage I long hoped would NOT happen, because of how difficult it would be.

Hopefully, I overestimated how hard it would be while I underestimated how hard it was to get here.  I genuinely believe this to be possible.  Things may snowball as muscles build while in their proper position (or close to it) as compared to the strengthening which happened out of position (as if working out with dislocated limbs, wait, oh yeah, that's exactly what I have been doing!).

It better start getting easier, or at least gain some momentum.  Otherwise, I'm fucked.

Sunday, July 12, 2015

Another New Kick

It has been a great struggle of late.

I have not been able to come close to the amount of swimming I was doing by this time last year.  I am barely doing a third as much.

That said, progress is still being made.  My kick has improved yet again. 

I want to go into full details, but am too drained to focus well enough to do it.

The rough outline:  I am generating the kick from much higher up my legs.  When I find a certain groove, it is almost as if I am no longer kicking, no longer using force against the water.  It is much more like both my legs oscillate opposite each other and are snaking their way through the water.

I literally speed up using much less force.

*     *     *     *     *

In just a few days of this, I have had to deal with significant lower abdomen posture changes, which in turn change everything above it.

My chest is a mess.  It is possible the shoulder issues are of such a range as to cascade far around the chest.

As always, the right and left sides are inversions of each other, making adjustments tricky.  When I manage to move correctly, things slide into place almost seamlessly.  When not, it's unpleasant, with resulting discomfort and issues galore.

*     *     *     *     *

Most disconcerting is the difficulty in swallowing I have had these past weeks.  Near every swallow is a chore, often not successful. 

I have even failed to swallow a swig of water on more than one occasion.

When the chest/shoulder contortions are severe, the neck sometimes buckles, sometimes unbuckles (when I did not know it was buckled in the first place!), making swallowing impossible for a term, or alternatively, making me capable of swallowing anything with ease.

*     *     *     *     *

I am unstable on every front, physical and mental. 

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

A New Mess

Not enough focus to do a decent entry, here is the latest.

My left arm has been ridiculously unstable and in near constant pain.

A major shift is happening in my upper core.  I arch backwards, but lean my interior forwards (if that makes any sense), and it has allowed muscle to creep up my back, chest, and throat.  I think it is a good thing.

Yet, it has contributed to significant instability and pain as well, which has in turn caused mental instability.

I am a mess.

I will try to document it if I have the chance, but I am rarely focused for more than a few minutes at a time.

I could be getting close, or I could be killing myself.

I wouldn't mind finding out which sooner rather than later.

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

My Music

It's been hard, a few good days and a ton of bad ones.

I had a two day stretch where I was unable to swallow solids.  On a different day, I couldn't even swallow liquids for an hour or so.  That really scared me.

Plus, the weather cooled again, as it does this time of year, just cool enough to send me back to hibernation mode.

*     *     *     *     *

Although, this time, I have not been playing video games.  This time, I have been diving into my Symphony Pro App in a bigger way than ever before.

It is nice to be able to make music without needing to sit at the piano, where extended playing causes it's own problems that tend to offset the mental benefits.

Anyways, if anyone the comes on here is interested, while I have not published all I write, Here is a set of the music I have been composing on my iPad.

Thursday, April 2, 2015

As Good As It Gets

I turned 44 today.  Yikes.

*     *     *     *    *

I had the best birthday I can remember.

I know I've had better, but they would have been long, long ago, way before the changes started.

*     *     *     *     *

So, today, I -

Woke up to learn George R. R. Martin released a new sample chapter from The Winds of Winter.  This was great.  So much new information to digest and theories to make or adjust.  I spent 1/4 of the day reading it, then going to older books, then re-reading.  Good stuff.

Wrote a song, Nymspeak, based on a friend that also loves the ASoIaF books.  That was 1/2 the day.

Got an UltiMeat Pizza from Round Table, and was able to swallow!

Got Phishfood.

Made great progress on the adjustment front.

Watched the Warriors pull a victory out of their arses against the Suns.

*     *     *     *     *

It may hurt tomorrow, but I have not had a day this good, period, in ages.  There have been priceless moments with the kid, and those will be what my minds eye sees when I lay dying, but for a single day with so much going right and only a reasonable amount of pain, I probably have not had a day this good since I lived in Santa Cruz (the beach can do that).

Wow.  To get such a day on my birthday just plain rocks.

*     *     *     *     *

Positivity here?  Who knew?

Thursday, March 26, 2015

First Swim, Again

This was the most painful first day swimming I have ever experienced.

My left arm was plain wrong.

Whatever new position it sits in, it needs to move in the water in ways I am not familiar with.  I mean, I pulled, I sent the signal to the arm to pull, and the muscles fired as they always have, but the muscles being in new positions made the arm move differently.  I had no power, and there was very sharp pain.

I managed 650m total, pretty poor.

The ride home was torture.  The physical equalization a going on lead to a very odd sensation/happening in my left side.  Perhaps it buckled.  I don't know for sure, but I think parts above my hip went up aroung my stomach, then under my ribs.

It was not an enjoyable experience, but at least I did not lose control of the bike during it.

Last, but sadly, most, I have gained much weight this winter.  I'm up to 226.  Ouch.

I've been heavier.  It is just disappointing after managing to not gain much weight before the new year.  Things just got very difficult, and I ate lots of sweets to avoid complete misery.

It is finally warming up, however, and the fight begins again.  I just wish it didn't hurt so much.

Friday, March 13, 2015

New High, New Low

Fuck.

The changes and adjustments continued yesterday, after that > felt it straightened and things started shifting.

This morning, it dawned on me to measure myself.  I didn't feel taller, but I was curious.

Sure enough.  I was just slightly taller than ever, and a good 1/4 inch taller than I had been in the few times I have measured myself over the past few years, just over 5'11".

Enter panic.

*     *     *     *     *

As one can see, I used to document changes when they happened.  I was reasonably diligent.  If I could physically get to the keyboard or the physical journal, I was documenting changes as best I could.

I knew they were subjective, for the most part, when not describing visible outwardly changes, but I still felt that perhaps some day in the future the sensations would make sense to others objectively, at least as possibilities.

I was motivate.

*     *     *     *     *

Over time, I lost my motivation.

I don't care about proving myself right, or even just finding which aspects of my theories are right.  I want to stop hurting.

I am tired.

*     *     *     *     *

So, with a new increase in height, albeit slight, my first thought was a bad one.  Not again.

I can't go through the agony that followed previous height increases again.  I won't.

*     *     *     *     *

A hope remains, I suppose.  The increased pain (presumably from tensions and tweaks) which have plagued me the past few months, which I presumed to be due to Winter cold and a lack of swimming, could have been a precursor to the change in height, more than those previous times had post adjustment pains which were subjectively so much greater than the status quo.

I can only hope.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

A New Unfold

Simply for the record, as I have not been updating often.

Imagine an arrow key symbol, a sideways V, like this, >.

Now place it at the back base of your neck and rotate it such that the point faces forward, towards your Adam's Apple.

I suspect it was made of muscle, whatever it was, but this morning, it straightened out from a V into a line.  This is how it felt, anyways.

And the back of my neck elongated slightly.

Now, pieces are shifting around, parts at the base of the neck, up to the jaw hinges, and large sections of the right shoulder seem to have slid from behind and underneath the arm around and up towards the spot at the base of the back of my neck.

My bite has changed (though it has been very unstable for ages).

When it happened, a migraine head ache that was torturing me as I tried to fall back to sleep went away in an instant.  Well, not entirely, some discomfort seems to have shifted from the sinuses to the side of the temple, but the pain level dropped substantially.

Where things go from here, I have no idea.  I am hopeful, but tired.

Saturday, January 3, 2015

A Specific OMG Update

Too much has happened since I last wrote.  I can only hope I have enough random journal entries and discussion board comments I can go back and cut/paste at some point to piece together some chronology at a later date.

Suffice it to say, I've made progress, a lot of progress.

*     *     *     *     *

One must be noted, though I won't get in detail.  Christmas Eve, technically 1am or so Christmas morning, I freed something through my right shoulder, which in turn freed my right hip (where usually things go across to opposite side), and I experienced such a change in my abdomen that I became unable to carry the weight of my own stomach/lower gut.

No strength at all, presumably muscles not in position to hold with the flexing they had been accustomed, some muscle memory movements cause extreme abdominal pain.  I became very ill, experiencing sweats and chills and pain throughout the next 40+ ours.

I missed Christmas.

*     *     *     *     *

But I do believe it was progress.  It changed my shoulders.  It greatly changed my right side, allowing wholly new access to muscle and posture and adjustments.

In fact, where I have long used "Unwinding" to characterize my adjustments, I can now, at least subjectively, say it is "Unfolding" that I am doing (and not just because it fits better with While My Guitar Gently Weeps).  The "Unwinding" involved the contortions around kinks.  The kinks themselves, I believe, I am unfolding.

*     *     *     *     *

Anyways, while trying to access muscle previously unknown to me, and thinking of how to describe the experience and practice, I stumbled upon one (a "new to me" movement, not the words to explain the process):

I'll say, I widened my hips.  More specifically, I seemingly spread the muscles around the right side of my hip further right, further from center, which allowed my right leg to lift outward to the side in a manner it never had.

Then, the OMG part.  As the leg lifted, the muscles on the right side of my abdomen moved right (away from center - sorry, the word for this eludes me at present) and up.  Then, the muscles of my right side moved up and around my chest.  An aside, one new aspect has been the muscles previously behind the right shoulder are have been freeing the right side of my back to expand, which also goes into my neck and brings substantial changes in my neck/jaw/head posture.  The cascade brought about by the leg lift extended all the way up into the back of my neck along this same path in a way I can only describe accurately with the words I uttered in the moment: "HOLY SHIT!"

*     *     *     *     *

Shortly thereafter, I realized the leg could now do a motion I believe a physical therapist had tried to get me to do before.  In truth, it is an exercise I was able to do, unlike so many which would result in sharp shooting pains in locations that did not make sense to the therapist (product of the knots/kinks, I believe).  The difference this time is that the movement used muscles as they were meant, and presumed, to be used.

I may have taken a huge stride.

*     *     *     *     *

Of course, feeling guilty that I have not done any updates in so long, I came here instead of trying to do more and repeat the movement.

That said, I know, and have repeatedly demonstrated to myself, that any progress I make, I can build upon.  I can repeat the movement, even if it takes weeks to find, or I can find the endpoint and build upon it.  So, I decided that at least this bit of documentation was more important.

*     *     *     *     *

So now, back to unfolding, and football, and video games, and reading.  And pain - this cold is tormenting me.

I laugh as I write this, because I do not even know where this new motion is leading, I abandoned it so quickly (very unusual for me) to come notarize it.  Per Vonnegut, so it goes.

I can't wait for Summer, or at least a warm Spring, to get here.