Unconditonal Love

My Beloved Keeshond - Sigrid.

Unconditional Love

To live alone,
is to live behind the hollow prison wall,
cold and solitary,
shadowed as the land,
from loves warmth,
from the heat of the sun,

from your eyes,
the light may shine,
from your heart,
may our love grow strong,

my life rejoices,
from under,
....... every tree,
......every stream
...... and stone.

In my heart may I have given your love a worthy home

Why in a world full of people do so few want to fly ??? Rhuari.

The Vortex of Vertigo

The Storms Vortex - Flinders Island

I woke today after going to bed with a slight deadness and “full feeling” in my right ear with occasional and variable tinnitus. Nothing to unusual in the world of MS where symptoms come and go as quickly as the winter weather here in the mountains of Western Tasmania. When I raised my head above the pillow in the morning after a night of vivid dreams the whole world started to swirl, with my head crashing back onto the pillow. A nausea swept over me like a cold winter wave, so I just lay there for another 45 minutes dreading the though of moving out of bed. Sigrid was patiently lying on the end of the bed waiting to go and “water the flowers” outside.

Vertigo is a nasty dizzy sensation where the world spins uncontrollably and is often accompanied by nausea and sometimes vomiting. The sensation is similar to acute sea-sickness. Vertigo in multiple sclerosis is usually accompanied by partial or complete loss of balance which is aggravated by sudden movements or turning. Vertigo is often most acute when your senses are deprived of light specially when lying in bed at night. Vertigo is a relatively common symptom of multiple sclerosis and can be caused by damage to the area where the brain meets spine called the brainstem

The Balconord Chamonix de Mont Blanc French Alps

After being able to finally ensconce myself on the comfortable leather lounge, with my view of the lake, there ensued a day of drifting in and out of sleep. The day was spent with the occasional trip to have a cup of tea or go to the loo, or let Sigrid, patiently waiting again to go outside. The nausea was intense after just a minute of leaving the horizontal. My day was like a surreal dream of sleep, and semi consciousness watching the National Geographic channel. Looking back now it’s hard to envisage what was real and what was not. I was one moment skiing across the Greenland Icecap, then on the slopes of a boiling Hawaiian volcano, but then I was drifting onto a boiling ocean maelstrom with sweeping whirlpools of bottomless vortexes and then floating on the clouds paragliding from sheer Alpine peaks over glaciers of France. An amazing sensation. Who needs recreational drugs when you can have a day life this! In these periods of semi consciousness and near awekness I felt the sensation of ants crawling over my head, and tingle in my spine and an oscillating numbness over my scalp. Alas I think my MS is alive and well and making its prescense known to all. I have had some “seasick” pills that have eased the vertigo for now. I wait to see what the morning brings…. R

After the storm has past - Flinders Island

The Vortex

Each wave hits me like the ocean swell
Slowly dragging me out of my depth,
Swirling me with the stone and shells,
That pivoting powerful vortex
Pulling me under,
Out into the murky deep,
Threatening to crush the last living breath,
From my bruised lips,
To rise to the surface gasping,
To again be dragged down,
Into the bottomless deep again

The Mountains of the Mind

Mt Wellington Hobart

Hobart was now two weeks ago. As yet I have no real results of my MRI scan. However it is almost certain they have found now “white areas” on my scan. That is areas of demyelination in the nerves of the brain and spine. This is the stuff of MS. In the corresponding time since my last scan much has changed within my own body. I have endeavoured to live a life that is healthy as is possible for my condition. This means a lifestyle that pays attention to the things that aggravate or hastens its spread.

Mt Olypmpus Central Highlands Tasmania

Two of the greatest triggers I have found to my condition are stress and heat and to a lesser degree getting over-tired. Even a small increase in ambient body temperature assists in triggering a relapse in symptoms. Most classically in my case is pain and diminished vision in the eyes, greatly exacerbated fatigue and muscular spasticity. Simplistically put a rise in body temperature hinders the effective transmission of neurological signals through the many (multiple) scar tissues (sclerosis) produced as a “repair” to lesions. A simple experiment (something I don’t do!) is to have long hot showers/baths or saunas or even heavy exercise in warm temperatures. After a warm shower I can almost instantly feel the nerves misfire. As I obviously have an active lesion in my spine at present, I can feel an electric current tingle in my neck, especially if I move forward. Thermal stress as I have just explained can similarly trigger a relapse caused by emotional stress though this connection is not so unanimously understood or agreed upon

Frenchmans Cap Western Tasmania

Since my return from Hobart I have had a pretty horrendous ten days really with periods of savage fatigue (the fatigue is hard to describe, Its state of great sickness far more revolting than just merely being very tired). Most disturbingly there has been the development of a new series of muscle spasms around my mid trunk on the left side of my body, giving sensations ranging from severe backache to stomach cramps. Just to touch the muscles in this area gives a burning sensation as the muscles spasm and tense. Massage helps greatly but sadly sometimes its results are short lived. I also have had agonizing pain behind my right eye giving me tunnel vision and a painful sensation of a knife twisting in your brain and pressing on the sinuses. It’s possible that this is caused by the swelling of a brain lesion I have near my inner right ear.

Mt Rufus Western Tasmania

The combination of pain spasms and fatigue lead to a contraction in my world. I can feel myself emotionally turn in and close down. My world shrinks to the confines of the small walls of the room let alone the outer walls of the house. My mental landscape creates mountains in the mind of much great height and inaccessibility than the craggy peaks I see the winter rains from my window. Everything in life suddenly takes on an epic proportions and seemingly small tasks become a Mt Everest-of-the-mind. It’s not till the symptoms ease and the leaden tight grip of pain and fatigue begins to ease that one really realises how ill you have felt

Mt Pelion West Western Tasmania

I have learnt now with my MS when this “cloud descends” that I just have to ride with it. It’s pointless to play martyr to it, but just ride it out and be as kind to my body as I can. It’s a time to let go of notions of what one “should be doing”, and just try and live within ones own energy means. I have learnt in these times that the “sun will come out again to shine” that like all things it will pass. This is a difficult process of just being able to “let go” it very much runs against the whole psyche of our very interventionist world today. It is however not a process however of hopelessness, but of just realising that there is a certain process taking place that is difficult to stop, and to remain calm focused and not fight it is indeed the quickest way to recover. I use meditative powers of staying calm, centred and relaxed to ease my way through this storm.

The Sun is Rising at last! Mt Farrell Tullah from my window...

I now feel that again I have come out on the other side. Again the boundaries of my world and imagination spread again beyond these mere four walls and venture out into the world again. Time again now to re enter my creative world that I live in … and the sun has come out to shine!

Mans Webs across the Wilderness

The marching sentinels across the wilderness

Driving from my little haven Tullah, in the heart of the rainforest wilderness of Western Tasmania, one passes through a very diverse change in landscapes on the way to Launceston. Much of the first half of the journey is in land almost untouched by the modern world. Till only recently this journey was not possible, with a detour via the North West Coast adding almost an our and a half to the journey.

Cradle Mountain and Little Horn over Middlesex Plains

In the 80’s Cradle Mountain was connected to the West Coast by the “Link” road in the name of progress. But for who? Now a thick dark grey tarmac ribbon pushes through the ancient forests of Godwanan Antarctic Myrtle and Celery Topy pine and peat bogs with its ancient Jurrasic roots. With the road comes the high voltage powerlines that gave Tullah a new lease of life from the 70’s from its hydro schemes. This link festoons the land with a criss-cross of human spider webs. This tarmac road and human “cobweb” pierce right through the land forever alienating one half from the other. Through this corridor now pass many man made objects and machines, but even more deadly are the diseases and invaders that piggyback with them.

Introduced feral animals, plants, viruses, bacteria and fungi can now readily enter the heart of this wilderness often completely unnoticed till its to late. Tasmania has been separated from Australia since the last Ice Age 9000 years ago and by many millions of years from the rest of the world. From this arterial entry these invaders can radiate into a pristine and almost untouched environment.

Man Cobwebs across the wilderness

Seeds of foreign plants and aggressive fungi can come in and invade in seemingly harmless loads of gravel and soil. The summer bloom of thistles in purple in places flags the invader. In places close to the edge of the road “Myrtle wilt” can be noticed. This is caused by disturbance to the roots of the Antarctic beech causing a deadly dieback. Even more worrying are fungal spores that can be carried in on car tyres on road tracks penetrating further into the wilderness for exploitation of its untapped timber and mineral resources bringing deadly cinnamon fungus.

Feral cats and now foxes have been confirmed to have been found in Tasmania will this be yet another invader to further push the Tasmanian Devil already under siege into extinction? This delicate spider web of roads and wires is sadly the very fine thin edge of a very thick wedge.

"Die Back" - Dead Eucalyptus paucifloras in the Tasmanian Highlands

MRI - and Multiple Sclerosis

An MRI Scan showing lesions on the brain

Monday will see me in Hobart to lay in a huge machine that takes in laymans terms, a series of very detailed xrays of my spine and brain. This MRI - Multi Resonance Imaging is a very new and wonderful tool that actually photographys slices of the central nervous system. The MS lesions are then reasonably easily identified by the WHITE areas as can be seen above. Often a contrasting die is injected in the patient and a contrast definition will be observed of those lesions that are presently active. These lesions are what causes the problems in multiple sclerosis. MS actually means multiple lesions. These lesions are the scar tissue when the nerve is attacked the fatty mylen sheath is removed. Its still very much a mystery to science and even Eastern Medicine why this disease occurs.

MS lesions result in either the loss, erroneous or poor transmission of electrical impulses along the nerves resulting in the myriad symptoms that makes up this disease. The impact of the lesions depends entirely on there position in the central nervous system.

An MRI Showing Lesion on Spinal Cord

A very critical area is the spine as the area is very small and even very tiny lesions can cause great problems in this area to function of the lower body. This spinal lesion here is almost identical to the one I have on my last scan. Since I had my last scan there have been a range of new symptoms in my lower body, and I am dearly hoping this doesnt mean a new lesion has developed or an older one grown more. In MS the worst result of spinal lesions is either paraplegia or quadraplegia but this if very rare. As with much of MS the disability can come and then go again back into a lengthy remission with little in the way of symptoms. Monday will indeed reveal what will may happen next.Much more can be seen at my site about MS at:

http://www.geocities.com/wanderingalbatross/ms/ms.html

ILLUSIONS .....

Lake Mackintosh Tullah - what is real and what is illusion?

Here we have the reflective waters of Lake Mackintosh. They are stained a rich tea-brown by the acid peat bogs and tea tree swamps of the wilderness of the Cradle Mountain National Park. The tannin in the waters gives it brilliant reflective qualities, giving the light a hint of glistening mercury and the sky a beautiful hue of indigo.

a shadow of an ancient gnarled tree?

They give the lie to illusions, distorting objects to contorted new “realities” that can appear to the naked eye a honest “reflection” of what seems obvious to our minds. Perceptions are always viewed again a background that gives them a context in which to compare. The background here is the oily calm of the lake surface, but minute ripples radiating out from several directions in layers over each other belie this. The eye is sure that its point of reference is indeed flat giving back a true reflected image of trees above. These tiny radiating wavelets in fact distort the image of the tree almost beyond recognition. One can notice the bleached tea tree branch that also pierces this background, this point of reference. It adds a further complexity and “layer” to this reality that is truly three-dimensional.

What is the lake and what is the forest, where is the sky?

How life is like this photo! My perceptions are all based on my own experiences, often limited often deeply distorted or even completely wrong. Today we live in a world that is so literal. We live in an increasingly complex society so its natural to crave simplistic answers to very complex questions, as there are too many questions. What we have to question though is our “background”, our yardstick of comparison indeed correct and not also deeply distorted. Is our vision of the problem to narrowly focused and indeed missing the bigger picture? Its then hard to realise what is an illusion, as we have to judge everything in context of our own experiences or accept concepts we don’t always understand blindly. Its important to question always and not accept things in this way as many things we are fed as fact are merely others erroneous or distorted opinions. There is no easy solution to this, but what it does teach us, like this picture, is that we must surely question everything we hear and see. So much of our world is an illusion.