Feeling Good

I feel good today. I got plenty of sleep last night. Kathy, my HCA, has cleaned my apartment top to bottom. She made me sandwiches, the kinds she makes that I really like. I've had a shower and used the bathroom with no issues. I just feel good.

This doesn't mean any sort of sudden strength. Nor does it mean the pain stops or the body exhaustion goes away. It's a mental thing, where my spirits are up, where I emotionally feel good. Even as I write this, my eyelids are heavy with body exhaustion. In spite of 12 hours of good, solid sleep, I am still tired. My shoulders are hurting along with my upper arms. My body aches, everywhere, even in the dead muscles.

But here I am, saying I feel good today.

It's the strangest thing to live in this body, to feel my mind separate from it on such a regular basis, to know that there is never a good day for my body when it comes to ALS. The secret to life, mine, yours to any life really, is to recognize that you are not your body, that the person you are is held within your emotions, your attitudes, your spirits. Your body will fail you, I guarantee it. Your mind is yours to keep, regardless.

I suppose that's why I think Alzheimer's is so much worse than ALS. We are intellectual creatures, simply inhabiting a physical body. To lose the mind and keep the body seems far more unfair than to lose the body and keep the mind. I enjoy so much in my life with the help of others, so many things where devices replace legs and arms. I have an active mind, in spite of a failing body. And every once in a while I get to feel good, really good. Like today.