Let’s Get Physical!!

In the early 1950s, Murray Bowen shook up the world of psychiatry by theorizing that you couldn’t treat an individual in therapy without exploring that individual’s relationships with the other members of their family. After all, that group of individuals were emotionally connected and what one member did naturally effected the rest. Over time, Bowen found that each member of a family played a designated role in the system and followed certain rules in that role. Adherence to those rules mandated that each individual was bound to react or respond to the other individuals in pretty predictable ways. Those interactions produced a stable system of behaviors – functional or (more likely) dysfunctional. Part of individualized therapy then was the recognition that if they changed, the other members of the system would push-back and try to maintain the status quo. If the individual insisted on the new behavior moving forward, eventually, the other people in the system would have to adapt and hopefully grow into a healthier system. Of course, how long that adaptation took was anyone’s guess.

This might seem like an odd place for me start a blog post about my physical health, but over the last several months I’ve come to appreciate more and more the physicality of my illness as a system in flux. When we moved out of the manse in 2014, many parts of my body were misbehaving but I was certain that the only thing I had to do was clear my system of the mold and everything would return to “normal.” I made great strides in the months following that move, but a significant deficit in my left foot remained. That particular part of my body drew my attention and my focus. Fix the foot and go back to “normal.” After the fall in ‘17, it became my right side – from the hip down. The issue with the left foot became secondary. Regain strength in the right leg/foot – go back to “normal.”

A few months ago Robin and I put together a collection of photos from just a few of our trips that could run as background slideshow whenever our Smart TV went into sleep mode. It was running one evening in the background when I glanced up and noted the picture I included above. Do you see the problem with it? With me?? This shot shows the beginnings of a dysfunctional system. My hips are tipped forward unnaturally but my shoulders are still in alignment with my hips. What I know now (but didn’t know then) is that this stance is the culmination of several years of nerve damage to my brain and spinal cord slowly deteriorating my ability to stand and walk well. It only got worse from here.

Robin took this picture in 2010, as I stood on a black sand beach on the Big Island of Hawai’i. I scrambled over and down rocks to get to that spot on the Pacific Ocean. Obviously, I was still walking…we did numerous hikes on this trip, including an uphill, up rock steps climb to a waterfall. As far as I knew, I was okay. But the system had been changing, slowly, for quite a while. And since the change was incremental, my brain didn’t alert me to what was happening and the rest of the system simply adapted to maintain balance (in this case, literally). The brain found other neurological paths to follow in order to keep me upright and moving forward, even if it had to hold and move me in ways that weren’t quite ‘right.’ It took four more years for my brain/body to finally say “enough” and scream out for my attention. It took three more after that for them to stop me in my tracks. Totter. Totter. Totter. Crash.

You might think that’s the end of the story. I certainly did for a while. Hell, neurologists did for a while. Once you got to the point that you couldn’t walk well, you might as well sit down. Here’s your wheelchair. But what I now know (thanks to my online coach) is that there are 94 quadrillion neural pathways from your brain to the rest of your biological system. And just like it did on the decline, the brain can find new routes to move your body correctly once again. The system can be fixed. Just like with a family, it takes one piece to start behaving differently…better…and then time for the others to get on board with the change. How much time is anyone’s guess.

I’m doing several things all at once to make this system, my system, operate better. Exercises. Myofascial release. Chiropractic adjustments. Supplements to suppress autoimmune dysfunction and improve nerve function. Adding small inconsistencies to my walking environment – noise, place, surface. {Since your brain craves consistency, changes in environment are especially troubling. I walk like a 2/3-3/4 “normal” person in my own house. Other places are slowly becoming more comfortable as well.} Each time one of these things “works,” the system has to adjust. Which is why those who see me on a consistent basis might think I’m getting worse while those who don’t see me often realize I’m moving better. It’s an up and down battle at the same time it’s an uphill battle. But the trajectory is up. Totter. Totter. Totter. Walk.

I don’t know where I go from here. I mean, I know where I go from here – just not where the blog goes next. There’s so much more to tell. So much more I’ve learned. Stay tuned!