7 30  Here is something interesting.  I have been largely free of the demon this day and evening.  My first reaction is, What is it? The reacted magnesium the chiro recommended, the iron Kolb prescribed, the chanting, the diet, the exercise, inviting my demons to tea, trying to abandon all hope of fruition, the prayers of someone in Russia.  I don't know.  Yet more interesting.  I have been at ease long enough to pretend that I am "cured".  But of course, the conditions of life remain the same.  I am sliding down the edge of a sharp sword edge, and I have no real control over anything.  This is not a bad place to be.  It's just the way things are.  In fact, I begin to miss my demons, to feel a little unsure without them.  I was (still am?) someone with RLS. Who am I without it?  Finally, if (when) the demon returns, does this interlude change the way I relate to him?

7 30  It's been a smooth previous night and day today.  I've been pretty occupied with getting the Librivox site up and working.  Maybe that's all it takes.

July 30.  I'm just amazed at the inevitability of it.  It's a pleasant night out, I prepare the blanket on my chaise lounge, set up the heating pad, get ready for a really pleasant lie down.  Within minutes a hollow anxiety appears in my legs, and soon one of them is twitching.  no point in lying down, so get up


So, I have pretty much exhausted the pharmaceutical solutions, spiritual solutions are out of my reach, psychological.....well, I've made some important discoveries, but their connection to this demon are tenuous or nonexistent.  Most likely, this is a condition that I just "have".  As I said earlier, "Abandon all hope of fruition"
 is my only course.  My salvation lies in acknowledging the hopelessness of the situation

7 27.  so after a relaively good night, starting at 7:00 am things have gotten progressively worse.  (now 12:45)  in spite of taking first two of each, then four, of each medd.   I'll take six of each around three, but without high hopes.

I think I've come to the truest insight yet. the demon is a self-fulfilling prophesy.  the prophesy is: things don't work out.  this is the demon that has really burrowed into the core of my being. It's what ate at my father and killed him. Abandon all hope of fruition, says Arjuna.  that's my only salvation.  Live without expectations, for now.  Advice heard a thousand times, but so difficult to enact.  I think it's the only work I have.

7 26  Took the meds and spent an easy evening, sleeping in short intervals.  Used the percussive massager on my legs and noticed that many of the tender points were now pain free.  The work of the chiro?

Also. I wonder whether I see going to sleep as a kind of abandonment of self.  That I don't want to relinquish myself.  So I tried a kind of imagery, saw myself being led to a serene. safe and inviting place by a loving person.  It may have helped.  My whole anxiety about the nighttime seems to have diminished.  Also had a great session with the chiro, where we discussed the nature of the insights I had had so far and where she told me much of her own personal history.  How fortunate I am to have a "doctor" who provides this kind of support and is willing to search for this kind of a solution.

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rage at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

For poetry lovers everwhere: Shelley's masterpiece - Ye Are Many. They Are Few. -- from "The Mask of Anarchy" If you value a healthy life, discover MANNA360.

7 26  I don't know how I could have missed it for so long: sleep is death.  This accounts for the schedule of the demon's appearance.  Consider also commonplace expressions like he was dragged "kicking and screaming" to the gallows.  The Dylan Thomas poem says it with amazing clarity, and I have long loved this poem.

7 25  I'm going for a swim in the ocean.  

7 25 The demon would not let me sleep at all last night.  I was not in any discomfort while sitting or standing.  But once lying down, there would be the beginning of possession.  Discomfort did build very slowly over the course of the evening, so that by 7:00 I was experiencing very severe leg spasms.  The dosage of meds, accumulated over the evening, must have finally taken effect.  I was able to sleep on my futon from about 7:30to 10:30.  My long term experience with these meds is that they have no predictable effect.  They seem to alleviate the symptoms, but when they will do so, after they are ingested, is a total crap shoot.

7 24 I have reflected more on my attendant, man servant, sidekick, the Buffoon.  Dan was an arch-Buffoon, whose millions gave him near unbridled liberty with his buffoonery.  He certainly wrecked     buffoonistic havoc in the little village of Kardamyli at the foot of the mountain.  Although the women of the village, most of them long suffering wives, saw through him and were more skeptical.  It was doubtless why I liked him so much.  And my words don't detract from my attachment to him.
My  eight years of tenure track at Cornell were in a sense my ticket to Buffoonery.

Some of the Batman figures come close to what I am attempting to delineate: the Joker and his cruelty, the Riddler with his arrogance, and the Penguin with his deceptive affability.  I'll have to see whether I can buy some action figures on line and put them on my computer.

7 24 Used the meds last night.  Slept well for the first time in ages.

7 23  Two things I think I know better now than I did a few weeks ago.
1) Abandonment may play a larger role in my makeup than I had heretofore thought.   It may play a role in the fear I experience in the throws of a RLS bout and in many other facets too private to discuss here.

2) The Bufoon is a kind of archetype for me.  Like Milarepa, I won't do direct battle with him, but I'll invite him into my cave, offer him tea, and not always allow him to have the first word.

7 22 2:00 am.  So this has been my experience for the past two or three years, and it is what has made me completely loose faith in the possibility of me being horizontal and going to sleep.
I lay down a few minutes ago, thoroughly enjoying the feel of my futon bed, the comfort of the blanket, the general coziness of the setting ----- all this lasts about ten or fifteen minutes.  then a leg gets that crescendo, build up feeling.  and then a spasm.  The simple fact is that my body simply will not allow me to lie down and sleep.  Any unnatural sleep posture is fine.  I often fall asleep sitting, not in some stuffed chair, but in a hard wooden one, or sitting on a barstool.  I fall asleep there and usually fall out.  waking at the moment of impact, cracking my jaw. bloodying my nose, striking hard my skull.
I can fall asleep while pedaling my recumbent trike.  I swerve off the  road (there are sharp drop offs on the hwy to Cayucos) or into the road, or I simply come to a stop and sleep in the middle of the road.  Waking up is always full of surprises.
I fall asleep while friends are talking to me.  I can sleep outside on my chaise lounge if the back is raised up (and get a sunburn)

If you accept the body/soul duality, then I would say that the body has no need for sleep, that it is the soul that craves it. really craves the liberation that dream imagination brings.  Tom Waits keeps coming up lately.  He has a great song, "You're innocent when you dream"

7 22 9:00 pm.  took a large dose of meds at 6:00.  nothing serious so far.
Listened to the beginning of Brothers Karamazov last night.  The translator (forget her name) uses the word "bufoon" to translate a word the father uses to describe himself.  Now this is not a commonly used word.  In the meeting between the father and brothers on the one hand, and the monastic elder Zosima,

the many facets of bufoonery are revealed.  It's an attempt to elicit love, it acts in accord with what others expect, helpless to resist those expectations, it is self-loathing, it is a sense of superiority cloaked in self-degredation, it is anger at others in disguise, it thrives on lying, to oneself, to others.  This,to me, is a very powerful demon.  In a way, it may be the demon who is trying to tear me apart.

10:00 the demon is in me in full force

7 21 well, it's 9:00 pm and i still don't seem to have any sign of the demon, so i'm going to postpone taking that second 1200 mg, playing it by ear.

at Tanya's bidding, i've done a lot of thinking about abandonment, and perhaps come to a new understanding about much of my childhood.  a connection with my current body manifestations, i don't know yet

7 21 6:00 pm.  the first symptoms have begun to appear in my upper body as I am reclining in my chair.  Feelings seating deep within, but not very precisely localized.  Feelings which I have so far only been able to describe as a prelude to vomiting, a long, slow building to a sudden upraising on the shoulder.  I will still try to wait the two hours until the next 1200 mg of medication.  In a few minutes I am going to try drumming and chanting for a while

7 21  Instead of going cold turkey, I think I'll try 600 mg each of G and R at 4:00 and 8:00 pm

Flowers in the vegetable garden in the back of the chiro's office

7 21  This is a journal recounting my efforts to deal with Restless Leg Syndrome,  RLS.  I am 67 years old, have been a type 1 diabetic since the age of 23, and am in remarkably good health.  Chief sign of the diabetes in my body is that I have some peripheral neuropathy.  For two months now I have followed a diet of grains, fruits and vegetables.  I "juice" often, and drink daily a liter or more of fresh produce, heavy in greens.  I have been able to dispense with medication for hypertension and high cholesterol.  However, for the RLS, if I follow the  Rx, I take two medications, Gabapentin and Ropinerol, at six hour intervals, a total of 3000 mg each.  In other words, I am taking 6000 mg daily of medication.  It is self evident to me why this is unacceptable.  If it isn't to you, you probably don't want to follow this blog.


Important information about what I am now doing can be found in the last few days of my diet blot, treefrogdon.blogspot.com.  I don't want to repeat that info here.

Today I am going to continue the practice of not taking the RLS medication for as long as possible and to try to "be with" the "demon" when it does appear.  From now on I am going to own the term and I will not put demon in quotation marks.