7/18/08 The progress is slow as all neurological things are, so I tend to not update things every day when there isn’t much noticeable change. But something happened last night and I think it’s a step again in the right direction.
Some background first……I’m continuing to juice daily and take enzymes to keep the digestion process working properly to keep my blood clean. What does that mean? And what is the difference of enzymes and eating healthy foods? Big difference. To greatly simplify it, my friend and mentor in my quest to rid myself of this disease, Tom, explained this to me. The white blood cells exist to fight virus and infection by attacking foreign stuff in the blood. When food particles make it into the bloodstream as a result of improper digestion, the white blood cells have to finish off the digestion process to clean the blood out. This reduces the cells’ ability to fight infection, and when that work of the white cells is overloaded, it leads to sickness, flu, colds, etc., and for some of us unlucky ones, more serious disease. Pretty much every adult onset disease has this root cause in common. In short, if the white cells are chomping food, they’re not chomping disease. Sorry for the crude explanation. I’m not a doctor or a scientist and I don’t know how to put “ology” or “it is” after all my words to explain it the “proper” way.
Still with me?
OK, Tom did a screening of my blood recently. It’s a simple and painless process. Take a single tiny drop of blood from the end of your finger, put it on a slide and look at it under a superduper high powered microscope with a dark field lens that allows you to see. Attach a camera to the microscope and enjoy the viewing of your blood from a comfy chair on a nice high resolution flat screen TV. Make a DVD of the screen results and stick in your files to refer to later. You will see some amazing things when you screen your blood and look at your blood cells in a way you never knew about. You see the red cells at the size of a grapefruit. Anyone can see, without any question, what is going on with the blood in an easy to understand way. Not a bad investment of $90 bucks.
My blood was pretty clean this time, but not perfect. I had a few cholesterol crystals and a few berry cells meaning some of my white cells were working on that instead of the disease. Talk to Tom…….I can’t explain it.
Anyway, on to the thing that happened. As most who know me know, my legs have been affected by the MS. My pelvic area of the legs is numb while the feet are hypersensitive, especially the tops. They twitch and wiggle funny. Tough to explain, I know, but bear with me. Last night, I was laying on the couch semi-dozing off when suddenly I felt a big surge in the top of my left leg. Almost felt like someone put a positive terminal on the knee, a negative terminal in the nook where the leg hooks on, hooked it up to a power source, and hit the on button. It didn’t hurt; it just felt like something got plugged in. Didn’t think much of it, and eventually went to bed.
This morning I woke up to go swimming at 5 as usual, went up to my office to get something, and popped back downstairs and ran out the door. Driving to the pool I realized I ran up the stairs like a normal person, not someone who has really stiff legs - especially in the morning. Seemed like a small thing at the time, but when I swam, I was able to kick better than I have been able to in awhile. Walking out of the pool to my car felt different. And as I juiced and ate breakfast, the tops of my legs (quads) felt like they had been worked in a way I haven’t felt in a long time. I told Kathy it felt like I had gone running and my legs were tired from the run, not weak from the way my legs have been acting.
I had a meeting this morning right after I read to the kids at the school. In the meeting I sat down for an hour or so. Usually this makes my legs a little tight and I have to get up using my hands or leaning way forward or something. I sat up, put my legs right under me, and pressed straight up. They felt stable, strong, almost normal. For good measure I stood up and sat down 3 more times. I couldn’t believe it. I walked to my truck and came home. My driveway is sloped a little and often when I swim or work my legs on a walk or something, I scuff my feet a little up the driveway. Lifted them up easily. Tying my shoes has been a hassle sometimes so I grab the back of my leg with my hands and fling it up on a tire or a chair. Today the leg went up by itself.
Will it last? We’ll see. Living with something like this is a hassle, but you really do get to know twitches and flickers, and what has become the new “normal,” and this is different. I also have consumed about 80 oz of water so far (at noon), had a juice today as well, and I haven’t gone to the bathroom since I got out of the shower at 8:00.
Some background first……I’m continuing to juice daily and take enzymes to keep the digestion process working properly to keep my blood clean. What does that mean? And what is the difference of enzymes and eating healthy foods? Big difference. To greatly simplify it, my friend and mentor in my quest to rid myself of this disease, Tom, explained this to me. The white blood cells exist to fight virus and infection by attacking foreign stuff in the blood. When food particles make it into the bloodstream as a result of improper digestion, the white blood cells have to finish off the digestion process to clean the blood out. This reduces the cells’ ability to fight infection, and when that work of the white cells is overloaded, it leads to sickness, flu, colds, etc., and for some of us unlucky ones, more serious disease. Pretty much every adult onset disease has this root cause in common. In short, if the white cells are chomping food, they’re not chomping disease. Sorry for the crude explanation. I’m not a doctor or a scientist and I don’t know how to put “ology” or “it is” after all my words to explain it the “proper” way.
Still with me?
OK, Tom did a screening of my blood recently. It’s a simple and painless process. Take a single tiny drop of blood from the end of your finger, put it on a slide and look at it under a superduper high powered microscope with a dark field lens that allows you to see. Attach a camera to the microscope and enjoy the viewing of your blood from a comfy chair on a nice high resolution flat screen TV. Make a DVD of the screen results and stick in your files to refer to later. You will see some amazing things when you screen your blood and look at your blood cells in a way you never knew about. You see the red cells at the size of a grapefruit. Anyone can see, without any question, what is going on with the blood in an easy to understand way. Not a bad investment of $90 bucks.
My blood was pretty clean this time, but not perfect. I had a few cholesterol crystals and a few berry cells meaning some of my white cells were working on that instead of the disease. Talk to Tom…….I can’t explain it.
Anyway, on to the thing that happened. As most who know me know, my legs have been affected by the MS. My pelvic area of the legs is numb while the feet are hypersensitive, especially the tops. They twitch and wiggle funny. Tough to explain, I know, but bear with me. Last night, I was laying on the couch semi-dozing off when suddenly I felt a big surge in the top of my left leg. Almost felt like someone put a positive terminal on the knee, a negative terminal in the nook where the leg hooks on, hooked it up to a power source, and hit the on button. It didn’t hurt; it just felt like something got plugged in. Didn’t think much of it, and eventually went to bed.
This morning I woke up to go swimming at 5 as usual, went up to my office to get something, and popped back downstairs and ran out the door. Driving to the pool I realized I ran up the stairs like a normal person, not someone who has really stiff legs - especially in the morning. Seemed like a small thing at the time, but when I swam, I was able to kick better than I have been able to in awhile. Walking out of the pool to my car felt different. And as I juiced and ate breakfast, the tops of my legs (quads) felt like they had been worked in a way I haven’t felt in a long time. I told Kathy it felt like I had gone running and my legs were tired from the run, not weak from the way my legs have been acting.
I had a meeting this morning right after I read to the kids at the school. In the meeting I sat down for an hour or so. Usually this makes my legs a little tight and I have to get up using my hands or leaning way forward or something. I sat up, put my legs right under me, and pressed straight up. They felt stable, strong, almost normal. For good measure I stood up and sat down 3 more times. I couldn’t believe it. I walked to my truck and came home. My driveway is sloped a little and often when I swim or work my legs on a walk or something, I scuff my feet a little up the driveway. Lifted them up easily. Tying my shoes has been a hassle sometimes so I grab the back of my leg with my hands and fling it up on a tire or a chair. Today the leg went up by itself.
Will it last? We’ll see. Living with something like this is a hassle, but you really do get to know twitches and flickers, and what has become the new “normal,” and this is different. I also have consumed about 80 oz of water so far (at noon), had a juice today as well, and I haven’t gone to the bathroom since I got out of the shower at 8:00.
No comments:
Post a Comment