Numbskull 3
The brain takes eight visual snapshots a second of the surrounding world.
About a month before the neuropathy hit, I met my daughter and her son at the park to each lunch (I had Burger King coupons) and hang out and play on the swings. As my then two-year-old grandson swung on the baby swing next to us, my daughter and I idly swung on our own swings.
Always on the look for ways to impress my grandson, I decided to jump out of my swing instead of simply hop off of it like a normal person. I remembered doing it as a kid, and even as a young adult. How hard could it be?
I eyed the angles, then pushed off the seat of the swing and the chains it hung on, expecting to fly high into the air, breaking the surly bonds of gravity as my grandson excitedly clapped his hands.
My head slammed straight into the unyielding pebble-lined surface. I didn’t black out or anything, but I do recall the impact as a moment of blackness. I lifted my head off the ground immediately, blinking and trying to make sense of the moment. After a few minutes I excused myself and sat on a park bench, in the shade, watching them play.
I didn’t feel right. Something had happened to me. I can’t say it was a concussion. It didn’t seem serious enough to warrant going to a doctor, or urgent care.
Sitting on that park bench, watching my grandson play, I felt old.
When I came home, my wife saw the bruises on my face and knew something had happened. When I told her, she shook her head, shocked I’d take such a risk. She told me, not unkindly, that I looked like that guy, Mahem, from the insurance commercial. I kind of did.
I felt like a reckless little kid. A few scratches and bruises were visible on my face. My eyes were slightly blackened the next day. It didn’t seem like a big deal.
When I told my doctors, they didn’t think it was a big deal either.
Maybe it’s not. If damage was done, symptoms should have shown up immediately, say the docs, and no symptoms appeared until a couple months later. So the doctors don’t think the head injury was the reason for my neurological problems.
Most of the time, I accept their answer.
But late at night, on days the symptoms are bad, and I’m wrestling with belief, my faith falters.
I remember what the second neurologist said. “That sounds like a brain thing.”
#
I know the exact date all this started, because I saw my doctor that day, and it’s marked on my calendar. My doctor’s appointment was about 12 hours before the symptoms hit.
She gave me a flu shot that day. Anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorist may raise their eyebrows, and so may those familiar with certain auto-immune diseases, but I don’t think the flu shot is connected to my neurological problems.
I went to the ER right away. I told the front desk triage people my symptoms. Numbness had started at my feet and spread quickly my legs. As the eclipse weekend progressed, it moved up my body like a glass slowly being filled with water.
Unsurprisingly, the ER took me back right away. They were taking no chances. They started with a spinal tap. When I asked why, the doctor told me she wanted to rule out MS, as well as other things. That statement freaked me out quite a bit (though previous web searches had told me this was a possibility), and I think they added some Ativan to the IV line to chill me out. The tap wasn’t too scary; frankly it was the possibility of MS that was freaking me out. In addition to the aforementioned MS, they were testing for Guillain-Barre Syndrome (the syndrome sometimes associated with flu shots), meningitis, encephalitis, brain and spine cancers, yadayadayada.
The tap came out clean. No MS, no GBS, no anything. I went into the MRI tube next. Full spinal imaging, full brain scan. It was a two-hour scan, and I actually fell asleep inside the tube a couple times. Nothing of note was found, other than some deterioration in my lower back and neck.
I stayed in the ER for about 20 hours. They ran every test under the sun (I was still getting test results back weeks after discharge, as results came in). No results accrued that explained the symptoms.
“We don’t know what’s happening,” the main doctor said. “Here at the ER, we just try to rule out the big possibilities. We’re not here to discover the causes. That’s for your follow-up care.”
They discharged me with the seemingly inadequate diagnosis of peripheral neuropathy, and an equally inadequate prescription for vitamin B-12.
They made an appointment for me with the neurologist for forty days later. That’s a long wait for someone worrying they may be dying.
I waited long days and longer nights.
At the end of those nights I’d fold into my wife’s arms as she whispered, “Everything will be alright.”
My mind calmed, my body calmed.
I believed her. Why believe otherwise?
#
A few nights during that long waiting period, I worried I’d wake up the next morning unable to move my legs.
That level of anxiety isn’t good for a person, obviously.
The ER’s conclusion that I had none of the big degenerative diseases helped tamp down my bigger fears. I didn’t have MS. I didn’t have a spinal injury. I didn’t have a brain tumor.
Every morning I woke up, still not dead, still able to walk. That helped calm my anxiety as well. My muscles in my arms and legs felt weird, and numbness clung to my skin like tight-fitting clothes, but I could walk.
#
Nature.com published a study recently about your brain’s perception of the world during walking. The internet seems relatively sure of that publication’s credibility, so I think the science here is sound. My wildly-oversimplified reading of their findings reveals a couple things.
Normally, the brain takes about eight visual snapshots a second of the surrounding world, and then stitches them together to create a seamless experience. During walking, however, that processing slows to about two snapshots a second. The act of running slows the mind. The reason is because the brain is syncing its snapshots to the rhythm of your steps. From the study: “…The brain’s sampling of the world slow down when walking to match the step cycle.”
There’s more. The walker’s perception of the world is dependent on where the walker is in the rhythm of their steps. The article states that, “when swinging from one step to the next, human perception is good and reactions fast. During footfall, however, our vision is not as sharp and reactions are slowed.”
The study goes on to speculate that the reason for this is that the brain is preoccupied with motor control when landing a step, but can focus on the outside world when between steps.
This study has a grip on my imagination, and I think of it often during my walks. My layman’s interpretation of the findings is that we look out to the world around us between the steps, and are able for full milliseconds to ignore the bounds of gravity. During out footfalls, however, the importance of the outside world lessens, and we are trapped within ourselves, concerned with landing the last step and swinging into the next one.
Remember my difficulties in walking, and that extra millisecond needed to get the foot landed and the next step started.
I want to live my life in the space between the steps. That space where gravity is meaningless, and I am not rooted to the surface of the Earth.
I imagine a taut cord attached to the pinnacle of my thoracic spine, pulling me up, keeping me upright and aware of the whole wide world around me for one moment longer, free from the prison of the self and the decaying limits of my six-decade-old body.
#
I have occasionally had anxiety in my life that approached panic, but I’ve never (yet) had a full-blown panic attack. For this I am extremely grateful. They sound terrifying.
My emotional response to neuropathy has been the closest to a panic attack I’ve ever come. I’ve learned enough from my therapist to keep my panic tamped down. Breathing techniques work. Lying in a dark room with my eyes closed helps too. Drugs help, both the official anxiety drugs and the unofficial self-medicating herbal variety.
Watching baseball helps too, but that’s just me.
The extremity of my reaction to neuropathy symptoms is different than my other panicky reactions. It’s stronger, and harder to shake. I’m pretty sure the reason for my extreme reaction lies in the primal fear it is triggering: my brain is trying to tell me my body is dying.
I’m not saying that’s true. I’m saying it’s what my brain is trying to tell me.
#
My trip to a chiropractor is one I made at the last second, when I saw the office was in the same building as an appointment I had with a podiatrist about neuropathic foot issues. I made the chiropractor appointment for just before the podiatrist.
The chiropractor took my history. When I was done, she said, “I’m sure we can make things better for you.” She asked me to lay out on the table. She manipulated some nerves in my shoulder and neck, said, “I think this is going to help. Are you ready?”
I said, “Yes.”
She did a dramatic twist of my neck that resulted in a pop at the base of my neck. With a magician’s flourish she pulled away her hands and said, “How do you feel now?”
A surge of wild optimism flowed through me. I expected a Jacob’s Ladder moment, like when Tim Robbins is with Danny Aiello, who’s playing his chiropractor.
“Go ahead, get up and walk around.”
I slowly lifted my body from the table and stood. I tested my body: arms, legs, back, neck. I so expected to feel better.
I didn’t.
Maybe I felt a little better. Maybe. I would have been lying to say I felt any kind of definitive change.
“Well?” she prompted.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
She was disappointed, noticeably enough so that I felt bad for her. She was not as disappointed as I was. The air of optimistic healing slowly leaked out of the room. She did a number of other adjustments, and some of them might have helped, but it was hard to tell.
When the session was over, I did not make another appointment.
Peace.
To be continued…