Once more, Again and Again and Again; or Return of the Localized Night Sweats

[I'm exhausted.  What follows is just some rambling meanderings as to what has lead me to this point, sitting in front of the computer screen, typing while doped.  I went from crazy sore to too numb to sleep.  So I type.]

The current problem with the puppy, other than it being a small dog, a yippee little shit, a teething terror with the jaws of a piranha and a taste for my flesh, and has a puppy brain, is that it's too damn cute to not fall for.

Even Maya, the terror of puppies, loves this little brown furry land piranha.  Of course, Maya is deaf, so the yippee portion doesn't bug her much.

No, I like the dog.  I may even get used to the small dog concept.

*     *     *     *     *

The real problem is that this is harder than I thought it would be.

When I do my little jog/swim/jog, the ONE FUCKING THING I have been able to push myself with, the one way I have been able to really experience some progress, actual tangible progress, not simply subjective, I really do give it everything I have.  I hit the "I wanna quit and walk home" moment within a block of leaving the house, and no matter how well things go, I fight through so many pains during the outing that I am mentally fried when I finally get home.

I'm spent.  The tank is empty physically, the pain is everywhere, and the mind is like a scratched record, skipping, sliding and looping.

Enter Willa.

*     *     *     *     *

I mean, the puppy has been in a pen while I was out for 2.5-3 hours.

I go straight to her and pick her up to take outside so she can relieve herself (though a few times the excited pup went as I bent to pick her up).  Then, she becomes puppy spaas.  I do what I can to entertain her.

I don't get to recover from my rehab.

The next thing I know, the wife and kid are home, and I am desperately tired.

But now it's time to be Dad.  So, I do what more I can, though poorly at this point.

*     *     *     *     *

All the while, the body keeps changing.  It's high up the back now.  The kink/knot/fold is noticeably mixed with whatever it is that so often prevents me from swallowing.  It hurts my chest, and my right arm feels almost entirely unhinged, held on by some perversion of a tendon, still twisted beyond belief.

But I know some of the changes have been real, because the night sweats have returned.  They remain limited to the exact spots where I feel myself unfold.  The pillow of sheet beneath the spot is drenched when I awake, but nowhere else.

It must be like R.E.M for the negotiated muscle groups.

*     *     *     *     *

I'd sleep in, but the new alarm clock goes off.

My daughter wakes up to the puppy biting her nose.  She wakes and plays and takes both dogs outside to do their business.  She then wakes her mother.

I wake up shortly afterwards, when the puppy is finally biting too much, too hard, and creates the "No, no, no, No, No, NO, NO, NO, NO!" alarm that my daughter becomes.

Good thing she's cute, too.

A Willa Of A Week

Things got bad.  Major swelling in the neck, jaw, and right ear have been quite overwhelming.  Eventually, I was given strong antibiotics.

I don't think the pain is a simple issue of an ear infection.  It has to be related to tensions, portions as yet unwound but under high torque and pressure as a result of previous adjustments with physical posture still not altered enough to compensate.

Anyways . . . I endured, and still endure.  I have yet been able to not require Narco for the pain.  I have yet to sleep better than one 3.5 hour session in the past 5 days (I think I've managed 10 hours).

So . . .

*     *     *     *     *

It was not exactly the perfect time for a new puppy.

*     *     *     *     *

We have settled on a name (for now, anyways), complete with Titles:

Willa, Cutie P'tutie, Queen of Doughnuts

Lizze and the wife provided the titles as Lizzie crowned Willa with a rubber doughnut squeeky toy, creating simultaneous "Oh, Cutie P'tutie" and "Queen of Doughnuts" declarations. 

Had a pic (or good lord, video) of that moment been possible, the content of this blog entry would have needed health warnings for those suseptible to death or injury by excessive cuteness.

*     *     *     *     *

She is a chocolate miniature schnauzer, and I feel completely out of my league (like a zit faced nerd high school student escorting a supermodel to the Prom).

She is unbelieveably cute.

Now, my last two dogs were both cute.  Matilda had been so "ugly cute" as to take second place in a Contra Costa County Ugly Dog Contest.

But both of them were mutts.  This dog is just sickeningly near perfect.  It's a good thing AKC does not allow chocolates (I believe they call them livers) to compete, or there is no way this one remained available for us at 11 weeks old.

*     *     *     *     *

Unfortunate to be in a trough of pain at present, but the boost from Willa has been substantial.

I have been shocked by how our 14 year old, Maya, the lab/boxer, archetype of a dominant female, has handled things.  She has been incredible.

There have been accidents, and the puppy is too tiny for Maya, creaky and heavy limbs, to try to play with, but she has been both incredibly tolerant, and seemingly more happy than she has been in years (this is the real surprise).

Recently over pneumonia, limbs hurting possibly much more than my own, she has been pretty much a food/treat oriented dog with moments of "yeah, it's nice of you to scratch me" sprinkled in.  Since Willa arrived, possibly mirroring the smiles and laughs by the rest of the family, Maya's tail tends to be higher and wagging more joyfully than it has in years, probably 5 years or more, since Matilda went blind. 

It's also all over her face, at least when pointed at us, not Willa.  She is still sending messages toward the pup, but the lip has only been barely lifted once, and Willa has done things that would have gotten other dogs on death's door just a year ago (as I prevented when my Mother's new dog growled at Maya upon entering OUR house for the first time - she wanted blood for that insult). 

It's day 3 now, and Willa has been bouncing on Maya's head.  Unthinkable.

It does get a bit depressing, however, knowing Maya just won't be able to play with Willa much, if ever.  I just don't know what she could do without accidentally crushing the pup.  On the few occasions she gets spry with us, she does not really possess body control anymore.

*     *     *     *     *

So, just as Summer is arriving, I also get a new puppy in my life.  Even the truly horrific physical hurdles of late, again keeping me from the pool and exercise, only bring moments of depression.

I'm miserable.  Make no mistake.

Yet, I'd be in despair otherwise.  Even moments of agony can't stop visions of uber-cuteness from bringing a smile or two.

Back at Wit's End

The change was abrupt.
I was treading water, then
At the bottom, drowned.

*     *     *     *     *

I thought Summer was starting.  I thought I was gaining momentum.  I thought I was possibly getting better.

I still may be, but it doesn't feel that way at the moment.

Just days ago, I was on the verge of getting a puppy.  It didn't happen.

*     *     *     *     *

I have been telling myself that the Moore, OK tornado is what sent me into depression, but it was before that tragedy.

It was the puppy.

I admitted to myself just how alone and empty I have been, and am.

It's a harsh reality I knew, but had not accepted.

So, I had decided, even though it will be difficult physically, that I need the puppy.  The physical cost is necessary.  My emotional state is desperate.  I'll take more pain for a bit of love.

Then, it didn't happen.  Wrong puppy.

And I'm left feeling very empty.

*     *     *     *     *

I'll keep looking, but I won't just jump at the first available dog.

There has to be a bit of magic.  There was with Matilda.

I won't get another without some kind of feeling that it's the dog for me.

I could use something good to happen along the way though, cause I'm back at Wit's End, that cul de sac off Insane Way.

One Odd Action

I did the jog, swim, jog thing on Thursday, the weather having returned to warmth.

It was interesting, to say the least.  My upper arms and shoulders are really finding a new position, and during the jog home, I found myself much more upright than usual, without the effort it would normally take to concentrate on remaining so.

Last night, however, I had a terrible time trying to eat.  My throat just wouldn't let me swallow.

It is not fun to spend a whole day alone.  Then, when the wife and kid finally return, and I spend 40 minutes choking, coughing, and spitting in the bathroom because I tried to eat dinner, the day goes from unfun to shit.

Anyways, I hit the spa after my daughter went to bed.  There, while trying to trace some of the tensions, I ended up (as best as I can express) swallowing my throat with my neck.

It's the best description I can come up with.

Picture a snake with a mouse half in it's mouth.  It's swallowing motion to send the mouse a bit further in it's mouth is what I am getting at.

It was like the muscles in my neck were able to swallow my throat a bit further down towards my chest.

It felt pretty odd.  I was quite overwhelmed for a while.

*     *     *     *     *

The kicker was that I was able to swallow food afterwards, with only slight discomfort, compared to the complete inability a few hours before.

Moreover, it seems to have freed up some more of my right shoulder.  The jog, swim, jog was much more productive today, and the seeming change of posture during the jog, being more upright, was even more pronounced with very little effort.

And the dizziness stints were very minor today.

Such a roller coaster.

Weeeeeeeeeee!

My Leftists Agenda

[An update as to the latest issue.]

The progress has continued, though the swimming has slowed with a return of cooler weather.

I've gotten strength in parts of my shoulders which never had them before.  This, in turn, allows them to move to new extremes and several releases have been quite promising.  I, too, can perform a controlled back arch that I couldn't have imagined only weeks ago.

Yet, a problem has finally surfaced which I have long feared, and hinted at before.

I have long noted that my two sides seem to reflect issues.  The right shoulder needs to develop one way, the left the other.

Most often, however, when I try to stretch, or make adjustments, I use both arms the same way.

More often than not, I assume, this has been harmless, as the adjustment occurs on one side, where the other side maintains the status quo.  It may have been a longer process because of this, but progress was still happening.

Now, I am not so sure.

My left thumb, quite easily, becomes a lightning rod of pain.  It's like the tendon going along the side of the thumb to the left wrist is pulled too tight, from the shoulder, and any pressure on the thumb brings intense, rather sharp pain.

I can do an adjustment to the left shoulder (I can't quite explain it - it's like pulling the arm up the shoulder, which sends slack to multiple other places), and the pain instantaneously goes away.

However, I have as yet been unable to identify what I am doing that returns the left arm to this painful position.  I only know I do it as soon as I let my guard down, and I do not maintain attention anywhere near as well as I did 7 years ago.  It's been happening 10-15 times each of the past 4-5 days.

Don't get me wrong.  The pain level has gone up, but it is not as mentally taxing as when I feel like a knot exists that I cannot figure out how to undo.  I am not at wit's end over it.

At least not yet [knocks on the desk].

There is a part of me that envisions this puzzle as one of the last.  Should I figure out how to properly rehab both arms at the same time (a maneuver that will no doubt feel awkward as all hell at first), I will find myself on a path much more directed towards where I want to be.

One can hope, anyways.

Change The Channel (A Political, Apolitical, Rant)

[While I spent a great portion of my last sleepless night going through different ways to extrpulate on the "braid" concept, which included pictures of the body made of braids, demonstrating how a kink in one deep spot shifts the entirity out of alignment, better explaining both my overall theory of the human condition and the pain I personally suffer from trying to "unbraid, then correctly braid" myself together again, I found myself thinking politics.  In truth, I'm thinking governement in general and how exasperated I am with my own country.  So, here . . . ]

I have a 6 year old daughter.  She's pretty much the reason I continue.  She is the back brace that stops so many, so many, last straws from breaking me completely.

And while my physical, mental, and emotional states limit me to being less than 10% the Dad I want to be, I have managed to plant a few seeds in that brain of hers.

*     *     *     *     *

Commercials are the bane of a parent's existence.

They fuel the need machine that is my child, as if the things she actually needed were not enough work, especially when just putting together a meal presents one with physical issues.

I have not cured my daughter of commercials, by any means.  She pulls every manipulative stop out after each new desire hits her.  [Though it would be much more fun to write them out, demonstrating both her brain power and the hell of being a parent, it would take too long to do justice, and it would send this entry into an entirely different direction.]  Yet, she does know that commercials are "trying to sell you something."

Sure, she does not totally understand this concept in terms of the inherent deceptions of marketing campaigns, but that seed exists.

*     *     *     *     *

There is one set of commercials in which I have trained an automatic response from her, which has become one of our games, one of my favorite games.

You have most likely seen them, a man sitting in front of a group of kids asks a question, they discuss, and eventually the screen solicits AT&T Wireless services.  There are a bunch, most are pretty funny.  I particularly love "Wait!  I'm watching this," while the man watches a boy do two things at the same time.

Each commercial of this set starts with the man asking a question.  My 6 year old refutes the answer given to this question.  It has become an automatic response.

She can be in the other room, practicing typing on some computer game (which blows my four-finger-one-thumb-typist mind) while I watch a sporting event on TV, when she'll hear, "What's better, bigger or smaller?"

Before the commercial even gets going from that point, she'll scream, "Bigger isn't always better!"

Then, we'll start giving examples: bigger owies, bigger car crashes, bigger messes, bigger servings of [insert food you don't like], etc.

This makes me happy.

*     *     *     *     *

What does not make me happy is that our government has become a giant commercial.  It exists, seemingly solely, to advance the profits of corporations.

While facially evil, Citizens United is only the tip of the iceberg.

Our politicians are the actors in the commercial, paid to play a part.  Granted, most do so unknowingly, just as you can get most any kid to smile and say they love McDonald's Happy Meals (at least I hope most do so unknowingly - a hope greatly hurt by the current lack of transparency in trading stocks off of governmental knowledge), but the results are the same.  Everything, EVERYTHING, is geared to perpetuate the stranglehold corporations have on this country.

Our democracy has become an illusion.  Our votes serve corporate interests, the only question really being which ones.

Just like a commercial, our government manipulates us into believing we want or need what those producing the commercial want us to buy.

*     *     *     *     *

I cry often.  It's no secret or surprise, given my pains, their duration and all.

Usually, I'll cry over something good happening, fictional or real, because I so long for something good to happen to me.

Two days ago, I watched Lincoln.  I wept, often.

This time, it was because I saw evidence of politicians actually trying to do what they objectively believed was right.  Back then, the corporate interest was slavery, and it took a war and politicians of integrity to beat those interests.

I simply cannot even imagine men being able to work within our government to do what is right today.  Even should a few somehow be elected, even should several get elected, even if they were men willing to "commit political suicide" by calling for the people of this country to stop buying the products and ideas this governmental commercial is selling, they could not possibly make any real changes, not in my lifetime, anyways.

What I am trying to do to myself is infinitely easier than the prospects of our government actually beginning to serve The People.

And so I wept.

*     *     *     *     *

Yet, maybe, we can plant some seeds.

[It's a departure, but I felt like venting.  I'm a bit bothered that I do not have the energy to go back for a proof read at present, so forgive first draft the errors that surely exist, please.]

4 Swims In-to Bed Head

[The following is by far the worst entry I have ever submitted.  I'm a mess, and so is this attempt.  So I'll let it ride, as an example, a warning, to all other idiots like myself that ever attempt to write something for people to read while a mess physically, mentally and emotionally.  If you, yourself, ever believe you may be suffering from physical, mental, and/or emotional incompetence, yet feel compelled to write something and post it on the web, remember what you are about to read, honestly, and think better of it, and walk away from the computer.  If just one reader manages to avoid a tragedy such as the prose that follows by following this advice, then I guess my shame and embarassment over the following is worth it.  Sigh.]

I got back in the pool last week, three times, and once so far this week (ungodly high winds today).

The song remains the same - extreme progress with rearranging shoulders, hips, with something "new" - core changes (since there is always something "new," it still remains the same, right?), subsequently followed by dizziness, then soreness, then a sleepless night.

I'm too tired of trying to explain the progress, but I'll note it is definitely including aspects of my core with the shoulder and hip changes.  This I do find promising.

The lack of sleep, however, is working me over something wicked.  I have no energy for optimism, though I suppose I am quite optimistic about the weeks to come.

*     *     *     *     *

I have a new metaphor (surprise!), another go, trying to express what I feel like at times.  And true to form per previous attempts, a more literal observation can be taken from the metaphor, I suppose.

The metaphor - unbraided hair.

Imagine, regardless of type, freshly brushed hair is how your body is supposed to be aligned.  Doesn't matter if it's straight or wavy for these purposes.  Just go with your own hair, but make it long if it happens to be short.

Braid it.  Leave it in the braid for a week.  Unbraid it.

So, my body, or portion thereof, feel like a bunch of unbraided hair for a few days after a successful adjustment.  Nothing lies next to each other.  Waves are pushing bends.  Hair goes in every direction.

The only possible comfort is to go back into the braid, but that can't happen anymore.  A genuine adjustment tends to be a one way ticket.  Some segment of me finds it's proper position.  It is not going back, at least not easily.  Yet, all parts connected to it, which had managed to function by creating a braid, are now unbraided.

Enter the opposite of comfort - discomfort, uncomfort, acomfort, anti-comfort.

*     *     *     *     *

So, the above, as I sat in front of this computer trying to work out the prose for this entry (which I gave up on and went free form - my apologies), made me realize what horrible bed head I have known every day of my life.

Well, not every day.  There are all the days, like the current ones, in which my head is shaved.

I don't have a good looking shaved head.  It is not horrible, either.  But this way I don't deal with bed head.

And I should also note that I have ridiculously fine hair, which does make for worse bed head.

*     *     *     *     *

Not anything profound, but the odds are, if your bed head is crazy-every-which-way bed head, as opposed to one-spot-pushed-funny bed head, you are out of alignment.  Granted, you are not likely perverted like my body is/was, but I'll bet you also have restless leg syndrome.

[I would hope anyone that has actually tried to read my rants and ravings can guess my position on "restless leg syndrome."  Yes, doctors labelled a phenomenon and throw a sedative at it when the person is really just out of alignment.  The body wants to be in alignment, and the legs are trying to do so while your conscious self is no longer running the program - very much as I believe is the case with R.E.M., the eyes unwinding the day's work - but that's a post for another day, one I probably will never write.]

*     *     *     *     *

A beyond poor entry, but I've had some issues.

I don't think I can articulate may way into expressing what I know to be true.  It just can't happen, unless read by someone with a similar situation.

What I feel happening to my body, I believe, is so outside normal sensory perception others experience, I can't possibly do it justice.

Consider acid.  If you ever took acid or mushrooms or some other hallucinogen, you can try to explain to someone that has not what it was like.  You could do an incredible job, such that that person might believe they know, they might even be able to parrot what you told them such that others believe they have done the drugs.  Yet, you know they don't have a clue. 

Not until they dose.

It's actually arguable that even those that have dropped acid don't really know what it is like when they are no longer under the influence, as seen by the "oh yeah, I remember this" moment an acid freak has the next time they drop.

Have I mentioned I attended UC Berkeley.

Anywho . . . my point.

*     *     *     *     *

It may well be that I am better off NOT trying to explain this, at least until some inspiration sets me back to prose, so much as to recommend what others should do.

And with that, here is my first bit of advice -

All children should be exposed to yoga and a form of dance which stresses posture.

Get them to activate all their muscles through yoga, as unbalance increases exponentially otherwise as they grow and live.  Then, get them to realize positions of proper posture, as these will give them moments when there body is most balanced, in effort.

If your not a child, odds are your fucked.

Not as bad as me, of course, but seeing that any well meant efforts could turn you into some fraction of me, I wouldn't recommend it.