Okay, now take a look at this:
This is my brain, or the back half anyway, courtesy of my most recent MRI at Samaritan Hospital in Troy, NY (props for the hometown!). In the previous blog I wrote about using reiki to help some of my bipolar symptoms, and to dig around at the sadness tearing me apart. I said that I'd stopped using reiki as a treatment once the MS made itself known, as the person helping me at that time touched the back of my head in a normal reiki matter, that generated nights of terror in my brain. The reason I have got the picture here is to show you the physical reasons. Look about one inch to the right of center of the picture. See that little white dot? That's an MS lesion. Also looking down toward the right hand corner of the picture, you see a small .indentation in the outline of the head. See that? (You know I wish Blogger had more little tools to use, like a pointer, or an arrow.) That's where a reiki user places his or her fingers to send healing through that area. Reiki + lesion = Bad thing. At least for me.
My neuro as noted told me I had 50-100 lesions in my brain. One of them just showed up right there in the picture (at the very tip of the occipital lobe), and perhaps there's another near where my eyes take in light and sight (also in the occipital lobe) and that ones playing around, too, whiuch may be why light is so bright and color so brilliant.
Here's a brain diagram so you can see the whole thing:
Brains are normally not this colorful. Ask any zombie, though that's hard as they don't say much except "naaaaaghhhhhhh", and if you're close enough to ask, you're close enough to be eaten.
I'm not a doctor, I just got the disease(s), and I'm just trying to deal with them. But it did get me thinking. If a person is trying to help heal your body by laying her/his hands on you, using prayer or not, or just being open to the universe to bring that energy to you, and you think this will help you as you take that energy in, no matter what you think of it, doesn't get one to ponder that there is Something Else?
My body is breaking down. My brain is full of lesions and chemical imbalances that only handfuls of pills can keep straight. My mind, however, the real me, is having a great time taking this all in, watching this, writing it down and sharing it with you. As long as the hands keep working, of course.
So there's me (Tom the guy), and there's Me. Want to try it yourself? Think of a favorite movie, or TV show. Now close your eyes and watch it in your private movie theater. Your order goes out to the hippocampus in the brain where "memories" are stored and the movie starts, and it seems like you can see it on the inside of the middle of your forehead. That's where you go to see the film. Your private movie theater. Popcorn?
What we're dealing with is a three way battle. Your body, the brain, and You (what a Buddhist might call your mind, or others faiths call your soul). The three of you have to get along for about 70-75 years or more if you're lucky. Then the body dies, the brain stops functioning, and You, well, that's up to whatever belief system you may ascribe to. But you are seperate from your brain and body. You can receive, from Some Source, healing. Perhaps you become that healing energy. I don't know.
You would think that once the body is attacked by disease, that the three parts (body,brain and Me) would rally, and this happens sometimes. There's a lady in my physical therapy class whose come back from stage 4 cancer...twice. But with diseases like MS and bipolar disorder, the brain kind of flies off by itself and plots with the diseases against the body, and all You can do is remain vigilant as you watch yourself do dumb things, or do nothing at all.
It always will come down to the Me in You. Pills help, therapy helps, support networks help. But it's still up to the Me in You. That's who takes command. Stand up. Move. Therapy. Laugh. Hug. Live.
You can spread that energy (whatever you got left) from (whatever) Some Source to others. You don't need reiki, a smile will do for a start.
More to come. Thanks for reading.
