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Change. That word conjures up so many emotions in
me. I thought about this the other day
when I was standing in my kitchen waiting for my teapot to boil. Waiting and change go hand in hand, and I
think it's safe to say that no one likes to wait. If you're waiting for something good to
happen, you want to hurry up to get to it, and then you want the good thing to
last. For things that you're not looking
forward to, you might feel the opposite.
Thinking about change and waiting made me think about rehab; the VT and
FT I do.
My life changed when I
got sick in 2011. Since then I've been
working, first to find out what was wrong with me, then to get the right
treatment, and then - and still - to improve as much as possible. Change of any kind can be hard, but I think
working for emotional or neurological change probably tops the difficulty scale.
Doing rehab is a way of trying to exert some control, trying to make change
happen that you actually want. It's safe
to say that anyone - not just me - who does neurological rehab learns a lot
about change in (I think) a rather unique experiential way. The rehab itself may not be scary, but the
unknown of where you/I will end up can feel that way. Doing rehab feels very challenging, and puts
me in unchartered territory, which feels uncomfortable. Working on neurological change - brain
retraining - and waiting for the positive changes, the results, to make
themselves known is very hard.
I'd like my life to be easier;
who really chooses a difficult path? I
want to improve, but the unknowns of the road I'm traveling make me
uncomfortable. Then I thought about what
it would be like if rehab changes DID happen quickly. I realized that - certainly for me, and I
suspect for others as well - my system would get overwhelmed. My brain has to have time to absorb new info,
and reorganize. If there was too much,
too fast, instead of reorganization, I'd end up with a mess. So I need to treat myself gently, extend the
same kindness and compassion towards this one body I have, that I would to
someone else.
My mother e-mailed me
recently that she thought I was brave. I
was touched, but I don't think of myself as brave. But it occurred to me that people who are
brave aren't behaving bravely because they say to themselves "I'm going to
be brave." Most real bravery isn't
something people think about; it's simple action. It means doing things - often involving
change - because you feel no other choice is acceptable. It may be something as simple as getting up,
and facing your day. It may mean moving
through and dealing with difficult challenges, even if part of you really doesn't
want to.
Years ago, when I was
first learning how to play the flute, I remember when I finally was able to
play Edelweiss, a song I love. I don't remember
all these years later, all the practicing. I just remember being able to play the song -
and since then I've played it probably hundreds of times. To put it in really basic terms, babies don't
suddenly stand up one day and walk into toddler-hood. I want the changes that *I* choose to make
happen, to happen in the way, and with the speed that I want. Not in such incremental bits that the changes
are hard to even notice. But just like
with learning to play Edelweiss, I have to believe that just because the
changes are incremental, sometimes barely detectable, doesn't mean good change
isn't happening.
Vestibular info -
Vestibular Disorders Association - www.vestibular.org
Functional Vision
Problems - College of Vision Development - www.covd.org
