Double edged swords

I woke feeling sluggish on Saturday morning and decided I needed to work out. Went down to the hotel gym and did two circuits of five minutes each on the bike, the treadmill, and the eliptical trainer then stretched and worked out with five pound free weights. John joined me and rode the bike for awhile then we went to the pool. We soaked up some sun and talked on the pool deck until I became uncomfortable from the heat, then I went back to the room and John swam laps. When John was done he came up and made brunch, scrambled eggs with a little lean hamburger and cayanne pepper. I felt better and wanted to go out, maybe see a movie. 


We decided to head to the Multicentro Mall down on the waterfront. We wandered around looking at shops and investiging prices of varous items to compare to those in the States. We found the movie theaters eventually, but there were no shows playing that we wanted to see. The theaters and food court were on the fourth floor of the mall and the tables of the food court were in a large open area with glass windows from which you could see some of the waterfront hotels and the bay that opens up to the Pacific Ocean. The roof of the mall were panels of opaque glass and we had been seeing flashes of lightening as we walked around. Dark clouds and rain were coming across the bay and we decided to get something to eat and watch the free movie nature was about to provide. A heavy rain followed the thunder and lightening and engulfed the city. Water cascaded over the opaque panels of the roof and pelted the large viewing windows in the food court.

It's this rain that gives life to the Panama Canal. The canal looses about 52 million gallons of fresh water to the ocean for each ship or group of boats that pass through the locks. Without the seven months of rainy season that replenishes the water in Ganton Lake the canal would not be able to sustain operation year round. However, when people say 'rainy season' the image that would come to my mind is torrental rains for days on end, but that is not the case. From what we have observed, the days start out sunny or slightly overcast and then around one in the afternoon the clouds roll in and it rains from two to four hours.  The sky clears late afternoon for the remainder of the evening. I'm sure there are exceptions but I have only seen the exception where it doesn't rain at all during the day. Even in Hawaii I've seen times when it would rain for two or three days on end as I'm sure it does here on occasion. I can also imagine that it rains more in the rain forest areas than it does in the city, but the rain does seem to roll in from the ocean.

We caught a cab back to the Hotel and the outing had pretty much exhausted my energy reserves. I'm still feeling uncomfortable from the lipo surgery and I still have to use most of my energy getting my right leg to keep up with the rest of my body. I've read where the mini-lipo surgery for a lot of people is no big deal and that they recover quite quickly. I've also talked to other people who were very thin to begin with who said they had a hard time after lipo. The pattern seems to be that the more fat tissue you have to work with the easier the surgery is and the faster you're able to recover from the procedure. I began the MS Recovery Diet in July of this year and between then and the time I left for Panama I had lost ten pounds. That was weight that I had put on due to my lack of mobility so it's not like it was weight that I needed to maintain my health. Most of the weight I lost was in my stomach area which was good since I had put on weight there and my clothes were no longer fitting, but as it turned out it wasn't so good from the lipo perspective since they had to probe far and wide to get the tissue they needed to grow my stem cells.

Overall I have faith that the Diet will work with my bodies natural ablility to repair itself and that in time I will be symptom free. The stem cell therapy I see as a kick start to help me recover my manueverablity so that I can function in a somewhat normal manner until my body reacts to the diet. I will continue to search for the treatment that is best for me and I don't see pharmaceuticals as an alternative. It's well known that the drugs developed for treating multiple schlerosis work marginally for a short period of time and the patient will then be left with the side effects of the drug to deal with. The side effects are often devilish. It seems to be the evil nature of pharmaceuticals that once you go down that road, you become a patient for life and for the remainder thereof the drugs not only control your health but your finances as well.