relaxing in the sun

Daily ritual for the last 6 days: wake up and take some pain and nausea meds. That has typically been enough to set me right for the day. There does appear to be some increased strength in my right hand, which is a little encouraging. Today, the headache was there early in the morning, but subsided. Wrist is especially sore today, but I'm not going to bother with medication (yet).

The last few days on holiday in the Sunshine Coast have been quite relaxing. Am especially looking forward to today: the younger kids are all going away on an excursion or being taken care of, so it's spa day for myself and my wife.

Probably the malaise most affecting me at this stage is "over analysis". I'm an analytical person at the best of times, always thinking, and needing to understand what is happening and why. So trying to work out what is a symptom, or a side effect, or a result of getting away from the daily grind, is almost impossible.

Before I started the initial IVIG treatment, I decided to visit a Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) practitioner for an alternative diagnosis. Even at that stage, the thought of having regular infusions was very unattractive, so having someone else look at the problem before any treatment and give an opinion seemed like a good idea.

The practitioner told me I had an enlarged liver, that I didn't get enough sleep (correct), and that this was partly because I went to bed each night with too many unfinished things on my plate (he was right about a lot of unfinished things). To TCM people, it's about energy flows within the body. He had found a blockage, and before I could even thank him for the diagnosis, he launched into some initial treatment. I didn't go beyond that, because I am determined to try one thing at a time so as to understand what does and doesn't work.

Here is the paradox: I will accept a formal diagnosis from a western doctor based on blood work and diagnosting imaging, despite the fact that they don't know the cause of the condition, don't have a cure, and don't know why or how the treatment works. Yet with the TCM practitioner, I demand to know the link between his diagnosis and the symptoms - needing him to justify himself. It does seem that our western society trusts medical practitioners despite so many unknowns surrounding much of their work.

Today's challenge: forget all about it while I attempt to detox my body in the sauna, melt away in the spa and at the massage table, and immerse myself in a good crime novel. For me, that's an formula that is empirically proven to work.