A disinterested medical profession?

By Louise Wallace

ONLY a handful of doctors have signed up for free national seminars on chronic fatigue syndrome, prompting patient advocates to call for a change of attitude among health professionals toward the illness.

ME/CFS Australia invited Dr Byron Hyde, founder of Canada’s Nightingale Research Foundation for myalgic encephalomyelitis and CFS, to speak to health professionals around Australia this month on the latest research and treatment options.

The organisation expected an overwhelming response to the visit by Dr Hyde, who has more than 26 years’ experience treating the conditions and is the author of several reviews and two books on CFS.

However, despite efforts to promote the event to hundreds of general practices and medical students, ME/CFS Australia said the response rates were “disappointing” so far.

ME/CFS Australia CEO Penny Abrahams said the poor turnout across the country suggested doctors were not taking CFS seriously and did not see it as a “real illness”. As Australian Doctor went to press, a total of 22 doctors had expressed interest in Dr Hyde’s final presentations in Perth and Melbourne.

Blake Graham, president of the ME/CFS Society of WA, said the “pitiful” response indicated a lack of interest from health practitioners. It was also likely doctors opted not to attend because they underestimated the impact of CFS or felt they were unable to treat the condition, he added.

“A change of attitude is needed so practitioners can expand their knowledge and level of care,” he said.

Finding and eradicating the worm..

Impurities of Intelligence

Yoga teaches us to cure what need not be endured and endure what cannot be cured

By B.K.S. Iyengar from Light on Life

The whole educative thrust of yoga is to make things go right in our lives. But we all know that an apple that appears perfect on the outside can have been eaten away by an invisible worm on the inside.



Yoga is not about appearances. It is about finding and eradicating the worm, so that the whole apple, from skin inward, can be perfect and a healthy one. That is why yoga, and indeed all spiritual philosophies, seems to harp on the negative -- grasping desires, weaknesses, faults, and imbalances. They are trying to catch the worm before it devours and corrupts the whole apple from inside. This is not a struggle between good and evil. It is natural for worms to eat apples.



In yoga we simply do not want to be the apple that is rotted from inside. So yoga insists on examining, scientifically and without value judgment, what can go wrong, and why, and how to stop it. It is organic farming of the self -- for the Self.

To reach and penetrate as far as the fourth sheath is a considerable achievement, but I would be doing the reader a disservice if I did not point out that considerable achievements also bring in their wake considerable dangers. An obvious one is pride -- not satisfaction in a job well done -- but a sense of superiority and difference, of distinction and eminence.
It is an obsession in our modern society to focus on appearance, presentation, and packaging. We do not ask ourselves, "How am I really?" but "How do I look, how do others see me?" It is not a question of, "What am I saying?" but, "How do I sound?"

There are those, for example, who perform polished, well-presented, highly attractive yogasana. They are pleased with this, and with themselves, and are perhaps financially well rewarded for this outward excellence. When I was young, struggling to earn a living, to raise yoga in public esteem, to exemplify in my visible body the art and aesthetic beauty of yoga, I was always seeking to present asana in the best possible way, symmetrically, precisely, and in stimulating, coherent sequences. I was, when occasion demanded, a performer and an artist. This was my service to the art of yoga. But in my own personal practice I did not have this type of idea. I was concerned only to explore, to learn, to challenge, and to transform inwardly. Above all to penetrate. Yoga is an interior penetration leading to integration of being, senses, breath, mind, intelligence, consciousness, and Self. It is definitely an inward journey, evolution through involution, toward the Soul, which in its turn desires to emerge and embrace you in its glory.

You need a good teacher as guide so you will not hurt your body, overstretch, wrench, or nip the inner fibres, tendons, ligaments, mind, and emotions. This is yoga inadequately or wrongly practiced. I know; I have done it. But when yoga is only outward facing, exhibitative, and self-gratifying, it is not yoga at all. Such an attitude will deface and deform even the character you started out with. In class when pride rises or its complement, insecurity, as you look around at others, recognise it for what it is and send it on its way.

It is certain that there is much pleasure and satisfaction to be gleaned from life. Patanjali said the correct fulfilment of pleasure is an essential component not only of life but of liberation. But Patanjali also warned that wrong interaction with nature (where the afflictions or klesa still rule us) can bring about our confusion and self-destruction. The pursuit of pleasure through appearances, which I connect here to superficiality of intent, is quite simply the wrong way to go about things. To pursue pleasure is to pursue pain in equal measure. When appearance is more important to us than content, we can be sure we have taken the wrong turning.

The achievements of intelligence therefore also have their pitfalls, even more difficult to identify than the lure of the senses. We are only too ready to admit, "Oh, I can never resist chocolate." But how many of us would admit that we would willingly stab any colleague in the back in order to gain a promotion? We shy away from such self-knowledge as we instinctively feel that its ugliness lies closer to the Soul.

Most of us, at least in maturity, with or without yoga, fall into a dutiful routine, a comprehensive conduct of trying to "be good" and fearing the consequences if we are not. This is neither solution nor resolution, but it is a livable cease fire, or decency by dint of moderation. Controlling our desires is a continual pruning process, rather than a Damascene conversion.

When Half is Enough - Amazing Story of an incredible determination..

In life we keep complaining about what is or why we don't have.

Half the time we seem dissatisfied, though full-bodied and free to choose. Fat people say,"I want to be slim." Skinny people say,"I want to be fatter."

Poor people want to be rich and rich are never satisfied with what they have.

 

PENG Shuilin is 78cms high. He was born in Hunan Province , China .
In 1995, in Shenzhen, a freight truck sliced his body in half.
His lower body and legs were beyond repair. Surgeons sewed up his torso.

Peng Shuilin spent nearly two years in hospital in Shenzhen, southern China, undergoing a series of operations to re-route nearly every major organ or system inside his body.
Peng kept exercising his arms, building up strength, washing his face and brushing his teeth.




He survived against all  odds.

Now Peng Shulin has astounded doctors by learning to walk again after a decade. Considering Peng's plight, doctors at the China Rehabilitation Research Centre in Beijing devised an ingenious way to allow him to walk on his own,
creating a sophisticated egg cup-like casing to hold his body, with two bionic legs attached.

It took careful consideration, skilled measurement and technical expertise. Peng has been walking the corridors of Beijing Rehabilitation Centre with the aid of his specially adapted legs and a resized walking frame.

RGO is a reciprocating gait orthosis, attached to a prosthetic socket bucket.
There is a cable attached to both legs so when one goes forward, the other goes backwards.

  Rock to the side, add a bit of a twist and the leg without the weight on it advances,
while the other one stays still, giving a highly  inefficient way of ambulation.
Oh so satisfying to 'walk' again after ten years with half a body!

The Realities of ME / CFS / CFIDS

Warrior Women

It has been a long while since I wrote here and it will probably take the next few postings to elaborate on that. Part of me has been wanting to hide the fact that I have CFIDS; partly, I have been been so close to the edges of my envelope, that I dropped this by the wayside.

The good news is that this year has been the longest consistent period of better health in nearly 3 years. I have a new part-time job and some of my symptoms have abated dramatically. Extreme dizziness, word jumbling and muscle pains have remained loyal but I still am amazed at my overall improvement, despite bereavement, travel and work this year. I will attribute it in large part to Sarah Cabots 8 week Liver Cleanse plan and a REDUCTION in exercise. More on this soon (I still firmly believe in graded and gentle exercise).

I also recently went to a CFS support group in St Kilda and remembered how important it is to write our blogs in a community with so little recognition. Our voice must be louder. I recently watched a film ' I remember me' that emphasised the statistic that more women are suffering from CFIDS than Breast Cancer, but let's compare the funding...men have a vested interest in protecting our breasts. It also revealed how one research department managed to divert $13 million USD of funding - allocated to CFIDS - to other areas.

Hopefully, interesting debates will ensue from future posts as of course many, many men suffer from whatever this illness is. In my experience however,  there are significantly more women with CFIDS (some statistics say 75%). Why is this? Are more men suffering in silence because of the stigma attached? Does a grumpy man with chronic pains blend in more comfortably and subtly than a woman, especially if he is older? Or are there really just a lot more women with CFIDS?

In the meantime, here is a poem I stumbled across by Maria Jastrzebska for women AND men, battling in bed today:

Lying propped up
on a large cushion
in my woolly pink
dressing gown
is probably not
how you imagined her.

To be honest
I didn't either.
I rather fancied myself
dancing over hilltops
swirling swords in the air
all yells and flying kicks
or even leading
a mass protest rally
at least strutting my stuff
in trendy denim or leather
anything but like this.

Nevertheless
here I am
a warrior woman
in my pink dressing gown
dozing
or staring int space
watching the trees
through my window.
Imperceptibly
at first
ever so slowly
I am fighting back.

With every act of kindness
towards myself
every refusal
to blame
or despise myself
I strike back
against the men
in grey suits
who don't think
I'm cost effective
the ones in white coats
who don't even believe
I exist
all those too busy
or in too much of a hurry
to notice who I am.

From behind
my drooping eyelids
I am watching
with the stillness
of a lizard or snake.

I have learnt
the langour
and stealth
of a tiger
lying in wait
ready to pounce.

So next time
you come across
a woman like me
tired looking
in a pink dressing gown
just because
I'm lying low
don't imagine
I take anything
lying down.
Watch out
I have never been
as slow
or as deadly before.

NEW YEAR STORY - TAKE A STEP UP

One day a farmer's donkey fell into an abandoned well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally, he decided the animal was old and the well needed to be covered up anyway; so it just wasn't worth it to him to try to retrieve the donkey.

He invited all his neighbours to come over and help him. They each grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. Realising what was happening, the donkey at first cried and wailed horribly. Then, a few shovelfuls later, he quieted down completely.

The farmer peered down into the well, and was astounded by what he saw. With every shovelful of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing some thing amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up on the new layer of dirt. As the farmer's neighbours continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up.

Pretty soon, the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and trotted off, to the shock and astonishment of all the neighbours. Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well is to not let it bury you, but to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our troubles is a stepping stone.

We can get out of the deepest wells just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up! And finally, the donkey gave the farmer who tried to bury him a good kicking. And what is another moral for this story? - When you try to cover your buttocks, it always comes back and gets you.