Twists and Turns

I just finished Matthew Mitcham's autobiography, Twists and Turns. He's the Australian diver who won the gold medal at the Beijing Olympics with the highest scoring dive in Olympic history, which remains one of the most astounding pieces of physical activity I have ever seen. He was also the only out gay man at that Olympics, which is a delight: he's so bubbly and personable, yet still an amazing athlete (you hit the water at about 60kph from the 10m platform). A great role model.

The book is well enough written, it carries his voice strongly and articulately, which more than makes up for the naif style. Where it shines, though, is in its bruising honesty. This is a young man who was best in the world at what he did, a physically difficult discipline requiring hours of training every day, and who was nevertheless dogged by low self-esteem, depression and addiction.

As someone who is coming to terms with my own depression and self-esteem problems, now exacerbated by having had a stroke, Twists and Turns was as clear a message as you can get that the causes of depression are independent of the feelings of depression, and that unless you treat depression, you are screwed.

It's a great read for a number of reasons (including the big line spacing which made it easier for me), and I would recommend it to anyone interested in elite athleticism, Olympians, depression, addiction or the benefits of living an honest life.

Ye Shiwen, Acupuncture and Racism

I've been seeing an acupuncturist for a couple of months now, and I am in no doubt at all that it has been beneficial. I would not otherwise spring for weekly visits. Most of the benefits have been nebulous in terms of scientific data--they could all come from the haphazard results of neurological activity.

The same cannot be said about the improvement I have felt in my paralyzed face. It will inevitably take time for the feeble muscular motion that I can feel to be easily visible, since the relevant muscles have had nearly ten months off to atrophy, but unless I'm delusional, I can tie that progress directly to acupuncture.

When you realize how little is honestly understood about neurology, and that we are only just getting scanning machinery capable of tying new theories of pain to anaesthetic acupuncture, then you have to ask why acupuncture has so long been pooh-poohed by western medicine.

The question can be rephrased: given that western medicine knows very little about how the nervous system really works, why is the evidence of a technique that has been successful for several thousand years dismissed?

The only answer that I can come up with is that most of the successes were on Chinese people, and most of the practitioners were Chinese. In other words, fundamental racism.

While I was pondering the question and the inevitability of the answer, Ye Shiwen swam her amazing and inspiring races, and had her achievement sullied by the coach of Team USA, who did all but actually accuse Ye of doping.

It's worth pointing out that Ye is at the age when great leaps in performance can happen, that she has never tested positive for doping, that China's swimmers are not all doing extraordinarily well this Olympics, that Ye was less than four years old when China was doping its swim team. and that the American swim team, excellent as many of them are, is not nearly as representative of US demographics as, say, their women's gymnastics team.

Which leaves the dirtiness of racism sullying the US team. Shame.

Member of the Month!

I've been trying to smile for about 8 months; by which I mean smile with both sides of my mouth. So far I've had no success, but it will come. Sadly, I'll work out the palsy too late for the photo they took of me at the gym yesterday to immortalize me in laminate as "Member of the Month" for August.

Being made Member of the Month was great; it felt like an acknowledgement that I have put in a lot of effort to my recovery, and that although the recovery itself and the improvement in my health and physique are reward enough, the effort did not go unnoticed by the staff at the gym. I tend to be at the gym five days a week, now, and I find that if I slack off, then I deteriorate. I'm still functional, just not as good. I hope at some point to have consolidated some of those gains, but I have no idea how long that might take.

Until then walking evenly is deliberate; it takes conscious effort. I could relax and limp and stagger, but that isn't good enough for me. I guess that's why (and I mean no disrespect to them) I feel some modest kinship with some of the Olympians and Paraolympians. They put in an almost superhuman effort to become the best in the world at what they do, while I'm doggedly plugging away with my above-average work to get back to normal function. They concentrate to nail a landing, I concentrate to land each step.

Gaining an understanding of the level of effort, consistent daily work, required to compete at the level of demigods has spurred me on; I can work harder. I may not be the generation they're talking about, but I'm certainly inspired.

Tremors

Ironically since I just decried most post-stroke tiredness as a learned behaviour, I had to take a rest this afternoon; I was just physically beat. 

I've been taking it fairly easy, given that I've had this chest bug: early nights, slow starts, no swimming, but I've still been exercising and stretching in the morning, and going to the gym. I guess I found out where my limits are at the moment; they keep getting better, which is good. 

I read recently, in a volume about stretching scientifically, that "flexibility improves from day to day, strength from week to week, speed from month to month, endurance from year to year." Now the person quoted (Ozolin) was talking about training Olympic athletes, but the biology is basically the same: it's going to take me a while to get my endurance back.

It has been something of a surprise, nevertheless, just how much having a relatively minor bug can take out of you. Normally, we'd mostly just shrug it off with some paracetamol and brazen it out. I count myself lucky that at present that's not an option for me: I get to experience full well how much effort we have to put in to fighting off an infection. I'm reminded that it really wasn't that long ago that a good bout of influenza could devastate a population.

All of which goes to say that my former employer, Google, had it right: when you have a bug, stay at home and get better. Don't bring it to the office to share, and don't go nuts working from home.

Which has nothing to do with what I wanted to talk about: myself, obviously. I have a tremor, and it seems to be getting worse (or not changing). It's in my right arm and hand, and I think it can be traced to muscle fibres in the bicep, forearm and hand that just won't relax. It's a pain in the neck because it means I can't hold a cup of fluid steady in my right hand (and guess where my stick is), and my writing is a lot worse than it would be without the tremor. 

It's clearly neurological; my guess is that those muscles were either contracted at a crucial moment of brain damage, which bites, or that they were not affected by the stroke, took on a lot of responsibility for making my hand and arm functional, and are now stuck, while the other muscles around fill in, and are acting against them (causing the intermittent tremor).

The biggest pain about the whole thing is that I have yet to come up with a strategy to fix this neural malfunction. I don't even know if my handwriting practice is actually reinforcing the tremor, which would be bad. Ditto with touch-typing, which has greatly improved, but the tremor renders slow.

I have an appointment with an acupuncturist, I'm continuing to learn and practice Tai Chi, I have another massage on Friday a foam roller (for self-myofascial release) arriving soon, and I continue to strengthen the muscles around the ones that are stuck, but I wonder if I just need time?