Hello beloved community of practice, We drove back through 3 states from the brain clinic last night. Because the scans showed more complex issues, I ended up staying at the clinic twice as long. I am grateful to family of friends and biological family for their support.
It was an amazing clinical think tank of kind interdisciplinary community of clinicians. It felt validating because the conversation and practice was what is the issue and how may we work on this together. It was almost 7 – 9 hours each day at the clinic with different therapies. It sort of felt like high school moving from one period of occupational therapy, then next period move to sensory motor therapy, then cognitive therapy. Some of the health providers were former patients. They were funny and met each patient were they were while also encouraging us to stretch. Literally, the eye exercises for my eyeballs while moving my legs.
Meeting the other patients was empowering and affirming. I learned from kind-hearted and hilarious folks from Australia, Norway, Denmark, Idaho, Montana, Canada, South Carolina, Texas and as close as the same city as the clinic. In addition to varied ages, people’s injuries ranged from car accident and someone tossing a trash can over a bathroom stall to a workplace injury and being knocked around by the wind. With much humor and open-heartedness, we supported each other when we each hit walls of overwhelm and symptoms flaring because of the therapy. Some had been grappling with symptoms of dysautonomia and post-concussive syndrome for over 10 years and some as recent as a few years.
The fMRI brain scan results at the beginning and at the end were profound, beautiful, and hard. I received and began to understand some challenging news. So, still absorbing. The good news is we began to figure out the complex reasons why headaches happen or why my sense of my body moving and in space can be challenging after the car accident. Still much more I am digesting in terms of the information I received.
I am resting and exhausted and I am digesting. My qi bank account needs some time to replenish and refill. I look forward to seeing folks on Tue May 13 when we kickstart the Tue, Thu, Sat, Sun schedule. I have missed you and look forward to practicing together again. – Kathy
P.S. – the fun facts I learned: 75% of the parasympathetic system (rest and digest, relaxation response) is made of the vagus nerve that runs from the brain to the gut. The 3 dan tians!!!
And when the parasympathetic system is in charge, healing happens and the neurons speak to each other and grow. So, when we are in the calm and alert qi gong start the neurons fire together and wire together and don’t shut down and retract. They get nourished by oxygen and essential nutrients like fatty acids and amino acids!
Dr. Kathy Yep 