Awakenings

"Awakenings" is a movie from 1990 starring Robert De Niro and Robin Williams.

It is about victims of an encephalitis epidemic who have been catatonic ever since. A doctor comes up with a new drug that brings them out of their catatonic state and allows them to experience life like every day people.

The joy these people experience when normalcy is restored is transformative. Eventually the drug begins to fail and slowly but surely they slip back into a catatonic state.

Watching this happen is gut wrenching.

De Niro is amazing as a patient; Williams is emotionally overwhelming as the doctor.

This movie has been at the back of my mind since visits to the chiropractor have been curtailed.

Curtailed because the pain is gone and most of the head/neck movement is back.

But something is there. There is something wrong in my neck and I can feel it. Feel it as discomfort. Occasionally a sharp twinge of pain at a movement, a nearly constant sense of unease about the neck.

I have been able to sleep on my sides again but I always wake up with pain in the neck. Sometimes the pain wakes me up early.

Then I lie on my back.

However the neck stretch lying on the floor with a towel under my neck thing alleviates the pain.

Last night I could not sleep. When I went to bed, lying on my side brought immediate pain to the neck. Left side, right side, didn't matter.

I lay on my back and drifted through the night.

Fortunately for me I am eternally exhausted so I don't lie wide awake. I fall into this sleep/wake state that allows me to coast through the night in some in between mode of existence.

I am a bit nervous. Truthfully though, I didn't stretch the neck before bed last night. The routine is stretch the neck in the morning and at night, and do stretching exercises four or five times during the day.

And I was scheduled for a Chiro Man visit tomorrow which I had to re-schedule because I am also scheduled to see the shrink. I decided it was better to work on my mind than to work on my body.

So maybe it is just timing. Maybe it takes a month for everything to relapse and "the adjustment" gets me through another month. Maybe it is stupidity on my part for not stretching the spine last night.

Don't know.

But I am nervous. All I can see is Robert De Niro's face when he realizes he is slipping back in to catatonia to stay.

Situation is not that drastic, obviously, but I have tasted lack of pain and I want to stay there.

Tapping into the optimism thought process, this situation has been dealt with once and can be dealt with again.

Time to think about acupuncture. Don't trust the medical community because they have agendas that do not include my health.

Don't want to be addicted to weekly visits to Chiro Man as well as the shrink because then I will have no time to clean the kitty litter box and Maka and Lakota will get hopping mad.

Feeling a little anxious today.

Hopeful, as well.