VHF

Have you ever stopped to think that it’s a freakin’ miracle that we’re alive at all? Not only that life exists and the wonder of human birth continues, but that the thousands of things that could go wrong each day in our body mostly don’t? That struck me at the dentist’s office filling out “no” to the 90 plus ailments the registration sheet asked if I had experienced. I felt it again today going to a new department (for me) at Kaiser Hospital, where there are departments, offices and whole floors dedicated to all the things that can malfunction in a human body. Which it turns out is a lot!. 

 

Add to the above all the mental ailments with names, diagnosis, drug prescriptions, therapeutic interventions and the list expands geometrically. Like I said, why would we not get down on our knees each and every day that our minds and bodies are functioning anywhere close to the condition of “normal?” We should! But of course, we don’t and instead just complain and complain. 

 

My hospital visit was to see if I could finally get a name to that mysterious on again/off again issues with slight dizziness (after three big episodes last year). And I finally did! With a prescribed treatment! Hooray for that!! Once we name something, we have the possibility of managing, decreasing, healing its effect on us. Mine is Vestibular Hypo-Function and has something to do with weak signals from the ear to the brain related to balance and such. I know have simple little exercises to do some 15 minutes a day total that have to do with looking at two Post-Its posted on a door, tracking them with my eyes while both holding my head still and/or moving it. Not exactly a cardio-vascular workout, but the hope is to re-train and strengthen those brain signals. I’m ready to give it a go. 

 

Meanwhile, life goes on unmindful of how much I’m enjoying it or how healthy I am and at 1:11 on Dec. 11^th, I’m off to a local school to sing Holiday Songs with 3^rd grade. Looking forward to the fun “Variations on the Dreydl Song” and the choreographed version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” complete with laminated cards, the originals of which I used at The San Francisco School for just about each of my 45 years. A preschool teacher bought them at Vella Variety Store on San Bruno Ave. and they became a precious school icon that 12 luck 8^th graders each year got to hold in their hands as the kids sang the song. 

 

Off I go and believe me when I testify how grateful I am that I can walk to this school on my own two legs, carry a guitar on my back, play it with my fingers, sing songs with my voice, remember words with my brain, feel the happiness of being with kids in my heart. I don’t take any of it for granted.