Diary 1/20/20 Light Therapy

Over the weekend we finally experienced wintry weather. We didn’t have a lot of snow and the few inches we had were immediately drenched with rain. But overnight the temperature dropped hard and fast, and what snow is left remains frozen. It felt like this matched my inner weather for the last few weeks which has been still, with a quiet blank, white slate. After the busyness of the holidays and the excitement of my grandbaby arriving safely into the world, I felt very quiet. I am still very much in a physical healing mode with days when I feel more active and mobile and days when I am reading a lot lying down with my very weak and tired back. I am certainly in much less pain and in that sense I feel the surgery was quite successful. How my nervous system will ultimately respond in furthering communication with neuronal firing to my muscles is very much a work in progress. I still have a few weeks to go before the surgeon’s declaration of my post-operative muscular healing is official. The nervous system is on its own schedule altogether.

I am currently trying LED red light therapy, which is known to penetrate deep into the cells, affecting the mitochondria which I think of as little engines for cellular activity. There is chemical interaction involved but I am not that informed to be more specific. In less than a week of ten-minute sessions two-three times a day, I believe I see a glimpse of something new- a steadier accrual of both sensation and strength in my low back and into my legs. It is early days yet, so I remain open and observant. I shine the light directly on the affected areas of my first operation in my neck and in my lumbar region. Yes, I am “shining light into dark places”.

I have also taken to shining it on my face and I have to say, given the lack of sunshine in general in northwest Ohio, it feels like I am immediately relaxing on a beach somewhere. I do not think I am someone affected by SAD (a lack of full spectrum light that causes depression in some folks) but that jolt of green after images behind my closed eyelids as the red light bathes me, has been a lovely experience that makes me happy every time. Today I was inspired to walk outside on cleared asphalt paths to stand in the last 20 minutes of light from the actual setting sun in a nearly clear sky. That in itself is something I have not been inspired to do in a long time. It was a balmy 27 degrees and the fresh crisp air was delicious.

I have also been aware of holding the unfettered joy of loving 7-week-old (today!) Max, and the grief of an ever-unraveling political scene in our country and around the world. I sense the need to open my heart wider and wider to embrace it all. My small life, my sense of loss for the planet’s woes, and the fear-generated violence and greed as we further disconnect from cause and effect on the worldwide stage, makes me feel very vulnerable. Staying open-hearted is the only way I know to keep shining the light of all spectrums into dark places.