Monday, March 3, 2008

MP Phase 1, still chugging

The MP is a paradox in many ways.

Getting the immune system to work as designed, instead of the usual approach of modern medicine to suppress it (to make you "feel better") means that you feel much worse while you are actually getting better.

The MP is about regaining control of your life-- and yet while on it, you have no real control over how your body will respond and how you will feel.

You can control dosage amounts and timing, but that doesn't always control how you feel. Before the MP, I knew that if I took certain palliative medications, I would feel better within a given amount of time. With the MP, I can change my dosage and timing in an effort to ensure that I will feel well enough to attend an event on a certain day-- but there's no certainty that I will.

I have control in the broadest sense--I am following a curative therapy, I am in charge of what doses and times I take my meds--but in all the small, day-to-day things I have no control over how my body feels or will feel, and everything beyond making it through the next hour seems completely overwhelming.

I know that a lot of this is immunopathology. One of the guarantees of the MP is that all of the bad things you have ever felt--physically, mentally, and emotionally--come back. Not all at once, not one at a time, and sometimes over and over again. Part of the MP is understanding that, and owning it, acknowledging that the emotional and mental feelings as well as the physical ones are part of the disease. And then letting it all go.

Letting go, of course, is releasing control.

I've had a tough time these last couple of weeks, but I am making progress.

5 comments:

Laurie said...

I'm still following your progress. You're a very strong person to stick with it. Keep up the good work. It sounds overwhelming.

Susan in St. Paul said...

Hang in there! I know how hard letting go is.


Eventually will work out.

All you can do until then is look to the future and act as if.

Jezebella said...

Heya, Guen./Adela. Just popping in to say hello.

cheers,
***Jezebel***

Anonymous said...

Hey there!

I like this post. i wish I had read it a while ago. The MP IS definitely a paradox, as you describe. There are many instances in life, i've found, where you must let go if control in order to maintain control.

Gina

Adela said...

Thanks, y'all. Sorry I've been incommunicado lately. Trying to do better.