badmilk

I was hired for a different, more relative position at another company shortly after posting this, one which involves no “personal care”.

So… yay!

There’s no way to write this without it reading like a self-pitying “wah!”, so here goes: It seems every time I show gratefulness for something, it falls apart.

My partner says I’m the unluckiest person he’s ever met, and the extent to which my luck screws me is hilarious to him (and to be honest, to me as well). In my effort to remain actively grateful for things, I spent a week praising my car to the tune of “I’m so happy about my car. I’ve had it for a decade, knew nothing about it when I purchased it, and it’s been nothing but good to me for the entire time I’ve had it.”

Boom. Stops running: $500 in repairs.

In the six horrible months we spent in Florida, we had three unrealistically crazy roommates (one so bad it resulted in a bout of homelessness where we had to live in my partner’s lab), two break-ins within the first two weeks at each of the two places we lived,

More seriously, I graduated from school in December of 2007, took a semester off, and then fell bedridden from an undiagnosable, crippling disease. Sounds less appropriate to call that kind of thing “luck”, but, you see the range in pattern.

Anyway, the reason for all of that explanation is that a little over a month ago, I finally marked my “fight my arthritis” goal as “done”. Then the symptoms started popping up. I’ve been waking up with that signature soreness and limited range of motion.

Emotionally, I’m dealing with this flare up way better than in I did with previous incidents. Having been through it before is probably helping to dissolve the panic associated with mystery. Also, having a wonderful and supportive partner who was with me through it the first time is invaluable.

So, yesterday, I woke up with both hands feeling awful, which was alarming since I just had acupuncture the night before.

The first thing I did was run outside and practice qi qong for about an hour since it was remarkably warm outside. It felt good. I liked what my eyes were seeing while closed and enjoyed the feeling of the grass under my bare feet. I took comfort in the perception of qi filtering through my body and loosening up blockages. I didn’t get nauseous as I did a couple of weeks ago while doing it.

That reminds me, a couple of weeks ago, I was able to have my partner join me again so as to help with his food poisoning. As soon as we got to the first posture dealing with the core/stomach, he ran to the bathroom and tossed every last one of his cookies.

This stuff is weird (I don’t mean that negatively). It’s been years since we were introduced to the reality of TCM and qi-related healing, and we’re *still baffled by it. I reckon it’s not just the fact that we both come from Western scientific backgrounds, but also the mere simplicity of TCM’s basis in relation to how powerful the results are.

But I digress. Things only got better from there. When I came in, I took a shot of organic apple cider vinegar because that, too, helps dramatically with arthritis (among dozens of other problems). By the evening, my fingers felt tender, but not painful. Even this morning, though I felt worse than I did going to bed, I feel much better than I did yesterday morning.

Qi gong has consistently helped me with the relief of my pain. I’m actually a fool for not doing it everyday. Maybe this will kick me into a better routine than just using it as First Aid.

Dolph Lundgren has a Masters in Chemical Engineering, and was awarded the Fullbright Scholarship to MIT.

Huh. Who knew…