Well, I am not. After the second night with few/bad sleep, I was cruising through the beautiful 3rd world-jungle of the island of Sumba on the backseat of a local Ojek-driver (please note, its NOT a Go-jek-driver, it seems to be the precursor) and while I slowly started to realize that I am really knee-deep in an amazingly beautiful environment, I had a hard time not falling off that bike.
Category: MS
Learning to walk again with MS
Its hard and definitely not easy, but I keep on learning. This morning I tried to “run” again and realized very quick (to be more specific “at the first step”) my body seems to have forgotten how running works. So I decided to give me and my body more time.
Its all baby-steps, you know?
Quite often I feel like a new born baby and before a baby can run, it needs to walk. So I keep on trying. Walking without the support of my walking-stick was a good and important decision.
MS and the power of walking
I am constantly analyzing and trying to improve. 4 days ago I started a rather convenient but new point to my longer and longer daily schedule. I started walking in the mornings. Just 15 to 20 minutes, but without my longtime companion “the walking stick“.
Several reasons for picking up walking again
I learned much about the importance of walking and realized I didn’t walk anymore since… well, since I am here. Its too easy to just jump on my scooter, taking the security of walls, pressing against trees and so on…
Recently I noticed my left leg seemed thinner than the right and thought about it
When I watched a youtube-video about the benefits of walking, I started to understand. Why my left side is loosing its balance so often, why my left side is generally weak, why the muscles on my left leg were decreasing more and more. I guess it was all because I didn’t use my left leg. To me the answer on most of this all lies in my not-walking.
15 Months
Since 15 months I am here in Bali now. I left my safe European home, left any medical support I could get in Germany, hung out strictly with local people to learn from them why Multiple Sclerosis basically doesn’t exist in Indonesia and how to fight my disease.
I am about to move to the rather remote island of Sumba in July and this are the facts helping me so far the most:
- Daily meditation helps me better than anything else against spacicity
- Daily yoga helps me with the pain in my back and the general physical coordination
- physical exercises from this youtube-channel are good for basically everything
NEVER GIVE UP THE FIGHT!
Small adjustments of the truth
If you ask a local person “Possible?” and the expected answer is as simple as “yes” or “no”, you might not get a true answer. The answer you might get is the answer that the person you asked thinks(!) you want to hear.
Why?
Probably its an act of politeness or even respect, but the answer is not necessarily true in a western meaning and I am a westerner.
Let me give you an example
If u ask how a third person is doing and the asked person thinks you are really interested in the wellbeing of the third person, you will probably get the answer “she/he is doing good” – even if the third person is quite sick.
Whats your problem with something minor like this?
My personal problem with such a minor adjustment like this is that I am really having a problem in building up trust and adjustment after adjustment is making it extra-hard for me to trust.
What does this have to do with Multiple Sclerosis?
The MS shook me in my foundations. The diagnosis literally took away the base that I was standing on and left me in a free fall. Loosing something quite essential like my ability to walk, slowing down my previously rather eloquent tongue and so much more.
So I long for trust – maybe more than ever before in my life.