Dedicated to Rita for ME/CFS Awareness Day

I am, in nursing fits and starts, rereading The Moral Animal: Why We Are The Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology (copyright 1994). I first read it in 2003. It was a pivotal book for me. It nudged me. 

   The author uses a biographical conceit: he looks at the ol' New Science via the life and times of Charles Darwin.

Darwin suffered from terrible illness as an adult. Darwin often lamented 'how much was lost to [his] illness'. He was "slowed by frequent illness ‒ violent shivering and vomiting attacks, gastric pain and epic flatulence, faintness, heart palpitations" [229]. I wondered (based on more evidence than this quote ;) if he had ... well, to modernize it crudely, if he had ME/CFS. 

Many have wondered, and many have speculated about, why he took so long to publish his IDEA (i.e., natural selection). (It's well established that he worked out natural selection years and years before giving others an inkling.) It's a mystery that calls not for solution.

   But investigation ‒ !

   There's the barnacles theory ... the hostile social climate theory ... the illness theory. Some speculators imply that Darwin was sick in order to hide, or as a result of hiding, his theory. (Probably most Mysteriously Chronically Ill people are familiar with this train of thought.)

"Given all this ‒ a secure workplace, the faint sound of the grim reaper's footsteps, and completion, at last, of all scholarly obligations from the Beagle expedition ‒ given all this, what cause could there possible be to further postpone the writing of Darwin's book on natural selection?

   "In a word: barnacles." [231] Barnacles: red herring; barnacles: white elephant; barnacles: decoy duck.

   [. . .]

   "Some people accept that Darwin had a bona fide disease, probably contracted in South America (perhaps Chagas' disease or chronic fatigue syndrome), but say he used barnacles to subconsciously forestall the day or reckoning." [233] Well! There you have it. Interesting. In 1994, Wright refers to CFS as a bona fide disease. 

Billions and billions of blistering blue!

he's 10 months old

Baby Sy takes steps, gives gentle kisses, definitely recognizes some words, has 2 teeth.

   He loves his dog. Nothing lately makes him laugh more than his dog. They are learning to play together in a way both enjoy.

Glancing Back, Going Forward

I threw out my back in December. It was excruciating. I considered, seriously, taking pain pills ‒ an extreme measure for me ‒ even though I am nursing: square the extremism. I am not a stranger to pain and I will take a lot of it without complaint and without drugs. (When a knife went all the way through my hand, I took 4 ibuprofen. When I went all the way through 44.5 hours of unrelenting labor, much of it posterior labor, I took no pain pills (or liquids, or gases, or crystals, or ... any such material).)

   This back situation had me helpless and immobile. I nursed while on the floor, through clenching, wracking spasms. I thought through how to pee while immobile, too (thank goodness we had all those diapers in the house!?).

Perhaps you remember my post in January about my appointment to see a Physical Therapist for some Movement Reeducation? Well ... I went.

It was demoralizing. 

I chose not to see that therapist again. In my habit of autodidactism, I took matters into my own hands. I discovered Katy Bowman. She is the best new person to have "happened" to me this year. I am now "a Katy Bowman freak", in the words of Bjorn. Katy Bowman, demi-goddess of biomechanics. Katy Bowman, life changer. Katy Bowman, Katy Bowman.

   I have only begun my movement reeducation. I am happy. The shape of my life is changing.

Broken, or Not Broken?

We had linden-leaf salad last night. Yum. We shared supper with a guest, and I was cooking all afternoon. I thought it was pretty warm, but I didn't change out of my thick leggings or long-sleeved shirt. I later learned it was 90°F. Um??? Who am I? How did I not Faint In The Sultry Glebe? I barely even noticed it was sultry.