msb-0259 Things are about to change.

msb-259 Things are about to change.

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

Miracle of miracles.

The employment front has just got a lot more hopeful round the old homestead.

My wife has landed herself a job teaching "French" at a "Catholic" high school. (Who knew being "French" and "Catholic" would be useful one of these days? Specially these days. :-)

Its not full time and not a lot of money, but it helps and its something entirely novel for her... I haven't seen her so busy or having this much fun in years. (We'll get back to the importance of "novelty" in living a full and fun life.)

Now, she's back at school registering to get a degree in education.

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My own employment situation has also improved.

While I'm pretty sure that nobody will hire me until the United States stops being foolish and adopts some form universal health care policy. (One that pits each supplier company against all of the others, ["dog-eat-dog" style, because that's the "Flag Waving American Capitalist" way, {and the most effective way, as long as the Flag Waving American Capitalists have some competition, (because if they don't, you have an abusively exploitative cluster-fuck,)}] but with a single payer, the US gumint, sitting on the cash machine that's doling out the 15% of the economy that our collective health already costs us all anyway.)

Meanwhile, I can take on contract work (which leaves me with "clients" instead of "bosses" [which is actually pretty sweet because, at those rates, I'm "not" tired.] Of course, there's absolutely "no" security; but, "What else is new?" [I gave up on security back in the late seventies. I was just ahead of the curve. {Show me someone who's secure and I'll show you a guy who's bought a "pre-need" cemetery plot.}])

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In the meantime, right now, I am listening to the angelic voice of "Sheila Chandra".

I don't know if she's podsafe.

I've tried to find her email address, (I know she's somewhere in Britain,) to get her permission because the album "Roots and Wings" is a wonderfully soothing listen.

"The Struggle" reminds me of the "tablas" exercises that an Indian friend of mine used to do.

---- "Trees" by: "T. Nile" http://tamaranile.com/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: "charles at MSBPodcast.com"

---- "Something Better" by: "T. Nile" http://tamaranile.com/

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: "charles (at) MSBPodcast.com"

---- "Willie" by: "T. Nile" http://tamaranile.com/

"Thesis:"

Is there a phrase as charged with emotion as much as: "Things are about to change."

We MSers usually interpret that as meaning "for the worse". (Face it when you've got the diagnosis of having a chronic disease, whether its relapsing-remitting or degenerative, you've already got the bad news.)

But that's "not" the only way things can change.

We need "novelty" to live a full and fun life. We need to face up to change and not be afraid of it because its not all bad. In fact sometimes, its friggin' "great!"

Novelty and repetition are forever engaged in a battle for our focus (not "attention" but "focus" was the mysterious "force" I disparaged in msb-0253 in my review of "The Mind & The Brain" by "Jeffrey M. Schwartz and Sharon Begley" ISBN: 978-0-06-098847-0 . [As it turned out the authors were using the "English Latinate" word "attention" when what they really meant was the "Greek" word "εστία" {pronounced "esteea"} or "focus". Then I was able to recognize it for what it really was.])

---- "Buddy" by: "T. Nile" http://tamaranile.com/

"Synthesis:"

One of my main beefs with the Insurance companies, (and I am "not" going into a rant right now,) is that they barely allot enough recovery time to staunch the bleeding, never mind the hours and hours needed to wipe (and a few treatments with oxytocin would greatly help with accelerating that) and refashion a mental map of your body and its capabilities.

Refashioning a mental map requires a great deal of repetition; a "great" deal.

The point is not the same as is usually done in physiotherapy. Its one thing to rebuild meat, uh, muscles. Its quite another to rebuild nerves and have them work properly. Neurotherapy might be accelerated after a fashion by some drugs but it must be done properly and that means "patiently".

Think of how many years it took you to learn how to walk properly.

You spent a year flat on your back, then rolling over, then crawling before you even made it up to your knees.

Then you spent another year toddling; teerering about, driving your chubby little legs like pistons at the ground in an effort to stop yourself from falling (much to the annoyance of any downstairs neighbors.)

"Then" you learned how to stride. (Some of my upstairs neighbors have never mastered striding. Man, that's "annoying"! [When they're home, I can't record anything because of the "boom, boom"noise of their feet pounding the floor.{But its all part of living in a close knit community; where people are in and out if each other houses all day, (sometimes with each other's property [and sometimes with each other's spouses (but that's another kind of noise).])}])

Well, "that" roll over, crawl, totter, stride rebuilding is exactly what you're trying to replicate, potentially all over your body and potentially with absolutely every part.

Its "not" like strength training or physio rehab. It takes "time".

The reps are not done to increase strength.

They're done the increase control.

And there's no rushing it.

That goes for the impatient patient as well.

You've got to ingest whatever substances cause you to increase your "brain-derived neurotrophic factors" [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain-derived_neurotrophic_factor ] so that you can remyelinate as quickly as possible.

(The old saw of "Eat your fish. Its brain food..." that left us all severely unimpressed as children turned out [http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20060304/bob8.asp] to have been right.

Pink salmon is a tasty canvass on which we can apply a palette full of spices, herbs, marinades and other condiments, to boil, broil, roast, pan-fry or "sushi," [eat it raw, ] to chew our way to good neurological health. You know: Omega-3 oils and the like.)

---- "Get Together" by: "T. Nile" http://tamaranile.com/

"Conclusion:"

We all need to have some fun and some enjoyment in life.

We also need to take the time to recover.

That means being able to start extremely small and see just how far we can push the rehab envelope.

We need a novel approach, one that takes repetition as a virtue. (When I was learning to play guitar, I played some passages for hours and hours. [There was a pianist who went into an old age home. He used to play scales all day long. A nurse commented that it must sad for the old man to be reduced to playing scales. His room mate got very angry with her and said: "Are you deaf woman? He is playing scales ... perfectly." {Sometimes, music would just be a distraction from the skill building.}])

We need "novelty" to live a full and fun life.

We need to face up to change and not be afraid of it because its not all bad.

In fact sometimes, its friggin' "great!

----

Part of the novelty is the introduction of a new host of this little audio train wreck.

Shauna MacKinnon is a fellow MSer from Halifax, Nova Scotia Canada. She brings her "bona fides" to the podcast.

She also brings year of experience in "radio", (yes the medium that I am trying to supplant for roughly half-an-hour, three times a week, in your listening schedules.)

She's a blogger as well and she blogs at: "bugs, bikes, and brains" [ http://bugsbikesbrains.blogspot.com/ ].

I'm hoping that you will be introduced to her in the next episode of the MSBPodcast.

---- "Silently" by: "T. Nile" http://tamaranile.com/

Outro