Sicko

i'm sick of going to the doctors.( I wonder if there is a medicine for that). Everytime I think I have my last appointment and begin to think i can resume a "normal" life for awhile a Doctor suggests another test to "rule out" some remote disease or another which entails a lab test (with fasting of course) and 3 or 4 more appointments.

i've learned that i have a moderately servere case of peripheral neuropathy from an undetermined cause. my neurologist predicted i would be disabled within 10 years. there appears to be no cure though there are drugs with ugly side effects can mask the pain.
the doctor suggests getting as healthy as possible to delay the inevitable which i guess is what we all try anyway. i intend to try harder.

What is peripheral neuropathy?

"Peripheral neuropathy describes damage to the peripheral nervous
system, the vast communications network that transmits information
from the brain and spinal cord (the central nervous system) to every
other part of the body. Peripheral nerves also send sensory
information back to the brain and spinal cord, such as a message that
the feet are cold or a finger is burned. Damage to the peripheral
nervous system interferes with these vital connections. Like static on
a telephone line, peripheral neuropathy distorts and sometimes
interrupts messages between the brain and the rest of the body."

or put it another way, basically the nerves die and then the muscles atrophy.
it usually starts with the feet and ascends up the legs.
the hands are also often affected. in my case my feet have lost feeling
and the muscles in my ankles are atrophied. i often stumble already.

in short my feet hurt.

I think i will turn to poetry for healing vibrations- medicine has failed . it isn't
universal enough.

one of my favorite poets is Mary Oliver :
"An intense and joyful observer of the natural world, Oliver is often compared to Whitman and Thoreau.
Her poems are filled with imagery from her daily walks near her home in Provincetown, Massachusetts: shore birds, water snakes, the phases of the moon and humpback whales. Maxine Kumin calls Oliver "a patroller of wetlands in the same way that Thoreau was an inspector of snowstorms" and "an indefatigable guide to the natural world." "
and one of my favorite poems is Wild Geese :
Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

from Dream Work by Mary Oliver