Christina Update #2: Mexico Experiment
As of Saturday 10/17/20, Christina is back in the warmth. I know she is fearful about being in Mexico alone this year with her new level of incapacity. Still, she needs to know whether her body’s accelerated deterioration over the past year resulted from being cold and cramped and isolated in New Hampshire or whether the increased level of pain and disability constitute her new normal even when she is warm and among her Mexican and expat friends.
It’s an experiment of great significance for her, not just a trip to the beach ...
Read More
Christina Update #1: Pain
Like me, Christina gets cold very easily. Her family home is in New Hampshire. She has been staying there with her parents since her neck surgery in January. Although technically it is still summer, already she bundles up in the daytime and routinely sleeps with heating pads and hot water bottles.
Christina bought a ticket to Mexico today. She leaves in less than a month for San Pancho, a village in the state of Nayarit. You may remember me saying that I met her there. She has spent the past few winters in San Pancho and has some friends there who will help her out by providing occasional meals or doing errands that would be difficult for her.
Read More
Help for Christina
Christina has an incurable, progressive, painful condition that she spends the majority of her days and nights trying to manage … Although the isometric exercises and yoga she does—when her hyper mobile joints and chronic fatigue allow—do help, little by little EDS is claiming her ability to live a normal life. Already it is difficult for her to walk or to drive, hard to digest her food or to sleep, and challenging to play with her young nieces or to keep pace with friends her age. She now has trouble doing even simple things: opening the refrigerator, turning a door handle, reaching for items, holding her head up.
Read More
