October 11th 2023 – Pulse

Oct 11th

Well I feel better and better when I get in up the morning! Long gone are the restless and sleepless nights. I finally feel like I can keep the uncomfortableness under control and at bay.

I spent this morning really feeling my body. I do it every morning when I wake up but this morning I paid extra attention to the smallest of feelings. So where did I start? My pulse. I noticed it in my hands and places in my upper body, and I realized that it works my feeling of touch, pressure, and proprioception all in one. I figure the more signals like that I can send to my brain from various parts of my body, the better off I’m gonna be!

What was really interesting is how important breathing was for this “exercise” if you wanna call it that. I feel like I spend the better part of an hour or two actually trying to do this… but when I focus also on breathing, I can feel the pulse beat stronger. So I figure this is important for me in my legs, where it might not be getting the same amount of blood flow it used to because of the lack of signals.

What’s interesting is as I’m scanning my body, it really is a hard thing to pick up on in the fingertips, or arm, not so much in the chest. So in the hips, butt, legs, and feet, I figure this would be really useful!

I spent a lot of time this morning trying to feel where my pulse was in my legs, and my knees, and feet. What’s interesting is in the ball of my feet and my hamstrings was probably the most prevalent area for where I was sensing this!

It was really “hard” to try and make out my pulse in most of my legs. In my hands, and chest, I didn’t have really much of an issue when I was still and intentionally trying to feel it. But when I would get down to my legs, I noticed that there was too much static and noise being generated for me to try and pick up that sense…..

I figure, if I can access and feel my pulse, my feeing of touch and proprioception are being worked. This then, would help me be able to know where the different muscles are in my legs

I was feeling rather horrible/ not super great for most of the mid-day. I noticed how intense and distracting the feeling in my legs was, which hadn’t been that intense since I decided to stop taking the nerve pain medication. I’m glad I’m feeling things down there at least! Everyday brings something new!

I also was able to “sit” out of the wheelchair the farthest I had last night when I was taking my pants off! My legs really wanted to help! It was cool to feel and experience!!