Do No Harm

I just finished reading "Do No Harm,  Stories of Life, Death and Neurosurgery " by Henry Marsh. Autobiographical and enthralling. I read it in 2 days which used to be trivial but if you know me now, that's a testament to how good the book is.

As well as having very interesting subject matter, being candid, crotchety and compassionate in equal measure, it's well written, to add to the book's appeal.

If you're at all interested in the brain, neurosurgery or death, I don't think I can recommend this enough. Happily, I got this from my local library, and I expect you can too.

Several times he talks about "catastrophic strokes" and "wrecking" people in surgery, and I couldn't help but face the reality that I am profoundly disabled now, and quite likely to stay that way. It doesn't change my perspective, but it is quite stark.

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.

Anatomy of Movement

Recently arrived from Amazon, Anatomy of Movement, by Blandine Calais-Germain, and its companion volume of exercises. They're great books, lavishly illustrated, and both volumes are serving me well, in conjunction with all the other exercise I'm doing.

That the exercises are helpful is no surprise: they're well explained and well illustrated (with drawings and photos--terrible hair), cover stretching and strengthening, and have accurate correlations between exercise and specific muscles. There are plenty of muscles affected by the stroke that are not obvious in their failure, although the effect is pretty evident (I fall over), and the volume of "Exercises" helps target them where free weights, Pilates or yoga cannot.

Slightly surprising, though, is that gaining a better understanding of my own anatomy from the first volume has been useful by itself. I have mentioned in the past that every action involving my right side has a conscious component: I can't simply raise my leg, I must think about it. It turns out that knowing what the principal muscles involved and not involved are is useful, and seems to be helping my brain recover.

I'm pretty sure that the deep muscles of my spine are affected, for example, but my brain has not had to work on them for 40 years or more. Knowing what they are, and having tools to exercise them will help with getting them more brain time, which, I hope, means less falling over.