During driveway yoga, I announced my interest in a stem-cell transplant for my hip. I called one of the offices in Honolulu. I had called at the beginning of the pandemic and never got an answer. I could see from the Internet that all the transplant facilities would be open today. A doctor called me back to ask me about my age, weight, and general health. He only uses fat cell stem cells. The fat would be sucked out of my body, treated somehow, and injected into my hip and intravenously. Deb announced she had a stem cell transplant a year ago for her knees. She said it wasn't as good as she hoped it would be. Her knees are beginning to creak already. She also said fetal stem cells are better than your own. With your own, "you get what you get." The doctor warned me there are problems with fetal cells, possibly infections. I have to ask how long I can expect to benefit from my eighty-year-old stem cells transplant.
The doctor at the facility told me that he wanted a bilateral X-ray. I emailed my primary at Kaiser and asked if they could provide it. She said she would order it. I also asked her if she could recommend a facility or recommend against one. She said she knew nothing about the ones here in Hawaii. When I first started working with the Kaiser doctor, she told me the stem cell procedure isn't considered acceptable yet (I can't remember why), but her brother had the treatment for his knees and saw an improvement.
I had a tutoring session with H at 9:30, making up for the one we missed yesterday. He was set with a book. He read it to me. Sometimes his speech wasn't clear. It was hard for me to make out what he was saying. I had to ask him to repeat it, and sometimes again and again. It is part of our interaction. Today, I started repeating what he said to confirm that I heard him correctly, but it wound up, leading to other actions. I wrote what he said on the Zoom whiteboard. Then I did some phonemic analysis on the words I had written. He was mesmerized. Minutes before the end of the session, he announced he had to go to the bathroom; he would be right back. It gave me a minute to speak to his mom. Then I had to go; our time was up. I told him I said goodbye and I would see him next week. Again, he had stuck with the interaction for the full half an hour. Furthermore, it was me who had to end the session. I think this is a surprise to his mom, a delightful surprise.
When speaking to H's mom, I told her to have him listen to the audio file -again. I told him of H's response. I told her it might help him improve his speech, and it might help him calm down when he gets overexcited.
I have some thoughts about what I do right with H that keeps him engaged, moreover, keeps him from running away from his contact with me. It's not that I don't try to get him to do things my way, but I don't try to 'control him." What's the difference? I think his parents respond in alarm when he behaves in socially inappropriate ways and reprimand him. He must feel like a dog at the end of a jerked leash. I don't do that. I don't push for cooperation as his superior; I push for it as an equal. I'm not telling him the right thing to do; I'm telling him what I want him to do. On the level of our interaction, we are equals, two human beings with needs that have to be negotiated.
A nap was called for after that session. I had work to do on the presentation for The Step-Up Tutoring program and was procrastinating. Procrastination is exhausting.
When I worked with J, he said he didn't want to continue working with that complicated story about and by John Muir. He selected a story about Jason and the Golden Fleece. The story had been covered in class, but his comprehension was limited. He didn't have the background information he needed to understand it.
I often ask him to make a logical guess when he doesn't know what a word is. He usually doesn't. I asked J outright if he was afraid to guess because it would be wrong. I asked him if I ever put him down for making a bad guess or coming out with a wrong answer. He said yes. He said no. I told him he must learn to make good guesses. He doesn't have the background information or the vocabulary to 'know' the correct interpretation.
I told him that my knowing more than he did was built into our relationship. That's what it means to be the teacher. I told him if we were discussing Mexican or Guatemalan food, he would be the teacher, and I would be the student because he would know more than me. It's the way the relationship between teacher and student works.
He immediately made a change. The word 'oracle' came up in the context of someone warning Jason's uncle Pelias to beware of a man who approaches him wearing a single sandal. J guessed it was a magical object that could tell the future. Fantastic! I told him that it was a person, but his interpretation was close to perfect. It moved the story along as it was meant to be.
Immediately after the session ended, I headed out because I had a 2 pm appointment with my hairdresser. I arrived just in time and called her to tell her I was her to signal me when it was time to come in. She said oh," Betty, your appointment was a 1 pm." Oh, no. This is the second appointment I've missed. Despite the length of my hair, it looked decent. Randee is an amazing hairdresser. She gives me the best cuts. Instead of being angry, she felt sorry for me. She said she would try to get me in as soon as possible.
It was my plan to stop off at Costco on my way home. Again, the parking lot was jammed. I turned around and drove home. I needed nothing so desperately that I had to brave the Christmas mob.
I did my 4th treatment with the goosenecked infrared lamp Yvette lent me. I see a huge difference in how my legs work. They're still weak, but the range of motion is much changed.
I made up my mind that I couldn't watch any tv night until I had done some work on the PowerPoint presentation. It was enough; I allowed myself to watch some videos. I found a movie with Rachel Weisz. I love everything she does. It was a weird movie about a woman who periodically just disappears from her current life and goes off to be someone completely different. She shows up in an old boyfriend's life because she wants contact with someone who knew her when she was her first self—a strange but fascinating movie. No sex and no violence. Just thoughtful. Ah, it's called Complete Unknown.
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Musings:
I have a friend who's in pain. She has injured her knees. Rest is called for, but she can't stay off her feet. It's not that she has to rush out and make a living to support her family. In her case, her anxiety won't allow her to sit still. Her anxiety-driven rushing around caused her to fall and injure her knees in the first place.
While thinking of talking to this woman about her compulsion to keep moving, despite her injuries, pain, and body's need for rest, I started thinking about what marks behaviors as 'addictive.'
I'm sure there is a worthwhile contradictory argument out there, but I think that addiction is always marked by behaviors we pursue to escape some uncomfortable physiological feeling. Addiction leads us to self-damage. People addicted to hard drugs pursue their highs at the cost of everything else in their lives. Likewise, any behavior used to escape internal discomfort with our own thoughts and feelings that lead to self-damage can be viewed as an addiction, like my playing Free Cell rather than doing work on my PowerPoint.
Now there are clearly circumstances where we pursue behaviors that cause damage to self and others that are driven by external circumstances. No parent goes, "Yay! my babies up in the middle of the night, again. Yay, I haven't a good stretch of sleep in days." This behavior, however, self-damaging is motivated by external circumstances. However, I can think of people addicted to 'helping others' who are prepared to sacrifice themselves and family members in their need to pursue that activity when the goal is to maintain a satisfying self-image. In this case, others still frequently benefit from these 'addictive' activities.
I guess we all have to examine our motives for doing what we do. How much of it is for the sole purpose of avoiding negative feelings about ourselves, and how much of it is really about others' needs? There's that narrow path again.
I must say there is a difference between the 'addict' who shoots up drugs, robs others to maintain the habit, and dies in a dirty heap in some back alley, and the 'addict' who produces,, whether the product is just cleanliness, or kindness, compulsive kindness, but kindness nonetheless.
I believe that actions taken in response to addictive needs are always somewhat tarnished. They are too preoccupied with satisfying an internal need to be fully aware of the people, causes, they serve and what would be best for them.
I would imagine, to some extent, we are all guilty of this 'addictive' behavior.
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