Back in the saddle again

The grip of the last round of the Yucks started to break right after posting my last. I hate it when I have to go that far to get past a bad spot, but hey, I'll do whatever it takes to keep heading in the right direction.

Dignity is optional. Progress is not. Words I live by.

My new kitten has changed apparent gender twice, and is back to being a boy kitty -- not that it matters in any practical way. I was looking for a name as elegant, good-natured and playful as he/she/it, while treating an upper respiratory infection that made that left eye look like a mouse:

My cat's mouse

But then, with returning health and strength, his natural energy and violence reasserted itself. He has exactly two gears:
1. Unconscious (or nearly so)
2. Full-tilt, greedy, grasping, and spikily impulsive (as the scratch-marks around my blinked eyelashes attest)

So I've named him Siddhartha, in the hope that something will rub off.

Siddhi playing hide-n-seek.
("Siddi" is an Arabic address used towards a respectable gentleman.
Another fine malapropism from the chronically punny.)

All of his front nails are trimmed now...

In health care, we call this "desensitization"

As for my own care, I'm up to 2/3 of my reiki time and 2/3 of my basic qi gong routine, and hope to get some t'ai chi in today as well. This is tremendous progress.

Vegetables are once again a chief component of my diet, thanks in no small part to an enormous bag of frozen "Normandy style" blend from Costco and our local dollar store, which sells cheap organic produce out of cardboard boxes.

I actually did laundry yesterday.  Today, I hope to take a shower and -- gasp -- wash my hair!

 

I realize only a minority of you will find that truly inspiring, but the rest can have a good laugh... and then think for a minute :-)

For me, life with CRPS is indeed a matter of tiny triumphs and great goals. For the record, I'm still bound and determined to advance the search for a cure, and yes, I've gotten slightly more concrete in my ideas about that... More to come in time.

And now, just for the deliciously hokey yodeling at the end...

Links list:
Here is a recap and explication of the links used in this post:

• Frustration at the wall
• The Buddhist World: Gautama Buddha (external site)
• On desensitization, I linked to my post on Remembering and re-membering.
  Also see:
     The sheer activity of Espom salt
     Pushing back on neuroplasticity
• Where you can buy Lee Holden's excellent beginner routine, which gets more interesting, more useful and more inwardly complex the more I do it: Qi Gong Flow (external  site; his work highly recommended)
• An excellent blog post on the relationship between tiny triumphs and great goals: New year, new thinking from Elle and the Auto Gnome (external site, very highly recommended)