Hypnosis and the Demented Mind

I've been doing a bit of an experiment with my mom.  I want to see how long the hypnosis suggestions last from the session that I had given to my mom on Friday. 

Last night she woke up at 2 and again at 4:30.  She was just awake.  No hallucinations, nothing was bothering her, she had slept enough. 

The effects of the last hypnosis session lasted 3 days.  It will be interesting to see how well my mom does today after having interupted sleep this morning.

Today my mom will start meditating, using the recording that I'd made for her.  My mom appears more suggestible than most folks that I've used hypnosis.  I wonder if it has something to do with the state her brain is in from the Alzheimer's with Lewy Bodies?

I've observed that when my mom sleeps through the night, her days are outstanding and she's very clear in her thinking, she is present in our world.  She finds words much more easily when she has her rest. 

Hypnosis appears to help her sleep so that all the supplements and vitamins that she takes can do their job while her body is resting.  Sleep rejuvenates our bodies and minds. 

I've heard from a former care giver that some of the supplements that my mom is taking have been known to reverse Alzheimer's... could it be happening to my mom? 

Could we be reversing her Alzheimer's with natural remedies and treatments like hypnosis and Reiki?

Is it because we are working to heal my mom's WHOLE being, Mind, Body and Spirit? 

All I can do is report on the experiences that I'm seeing with my mother.  Today she is clear, talking, finding her words and telling me about dreams that she had with my brother Ed and her brother Auggie.  She knows that they were dreams and not real visits by her son and brother who are both dead.  Today, my mom is able to distinguish between her dreams and reality.  To me, this is a huge break through. 

It's hard to take one day at a time, but I know that I must and enjoy every minute with my mom. 

Yesterday, she began to make a quilt with little circles of fabric.  We'll work on the quilt together so that one day when my mom has left her Earthly body, I will have the quilt to wrap around me when I need a hug from my mom.

Success Principle Seven of Being a Good Care Giver: Humor

Laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone.

Laughter is the best medicine for all things that bring you down.  I've been known for my laughter..my unique laugh, when something hits my funny bone, laughter bellows from the deepest parts of my soul.  I feel the laugh coming, it comes on like a shot and there's no way to hold it in.

In school as a kid, my laugh always got me reprimands.  My laugh was contagious and made others laugh.

Laughing never worked in quiet places like church and the library.  But, I still laughed.  I can remember being a little kid about 7 and I had gone to church with my neighbor friend.  She went to public school, I went to Catholic school, where we went to church.  We sat in the front row (they call them Pews.) 

My friend Doreen Sweeney, she saw that they had stamped the words "Leave in Pew" on the cover of the miselet.  Doreen loved to make me laugh and saw that this would be a "funny time" to make me laugh.  She poked me to get my attention and then pointed to the words on the booklet as she held her fingers to her nose.

I let out such a laugh, it echoed in the church.  I couldn't stop laughing.  I peed my pants.  I left church early.

The next day, I went to school... my catholic school with the nuns and their big long black habits, the principle standing at the door, motioning me to come with her.

Uh oh!

Stupidly, the group of my teachers went to the same Mass and were seated behind me.  Boy, did I get in trouble for laughing in church.  One good thing, the nuns didn't scare me enough to stop me from laughing.

In college my laugh career continued, my laugh followed along, after all, it is part of who I am.  People who were funny sought to be around me, I was great for their humor egos.  I laugh.  I laugh and laugh.  I had lots of fun through out my life because I laugh. 

Once I went to a comedy show up in Maine and the comedian gave me his card, he loved my laugh and wanted me to follow him around to get his audience going.  I was honored but never went to another of his comedy shows.  Actually, I think it was the last one that I had seen!

I did marry a man who could be a comedian, but I'm grateful that he didn't take that path, it's a hard life.  Brian is very funny, he makes me laugh a lot.

People are funny.  Animals are funny, especially my cat.  Sometimes even my mother's Lewy moments are funny, like the morning she woke up thinking that she had died and was in heaven because we have so many bathrooms.  There's even humor in terminal illness... we just need to fire up our funny bones and let out some laughter.

Laughter helps my mom rest.  I do what I can to make her laugh as she's going to sleep.  For some reason she often finds my hypnosis suggestions funny.  They make her laugh so hard that sometimes she has to get up and use the toilet.  My new profession could very well be the laughing hypnotherapist for LBD.

Through out my life, I have laughed.  I honestly believe that I was born laughing. My parents told me often when I was a kid that I was "their sunshine."  Susie Sunshine... that would be me. 

People have told me that my laugh fills a room.  It's my calling card.  People who know me and havent' seen me in decades, will know me because of my laugh. 

Laughter makes you feel good.  Laugh on purpose.  Force yourself to laugh.  Exercise your laugh muscles.  If you are a frowner, go find someone who's funny to hang out with.  Read some funny bloggers.  There are lots of them out there.  I link to some of my favorites on my blog.  I'm always looking for people who can find humor in all things, even Lewy Bodies Dementia.

I'm not talking about laughing to make fun, I'm refering to the laughter that is love.  The burst of energy that comes from your heart and is vocalized through a thunderous sound, a clash of energy that explodes into the ethers, spreading good cheer.

Today, find something to laugh about.  Even the lunacy of hallucinations, look at it from the outside and just laugh.  It will make you feel better and once you laugh, the tension will be lifted and your love one will laugh too.

Bring peace and calm to your Lewy visitor and laugh!

Our Body is Our Temple

My mom's been doing really well with the Cordyceps and Fenugreek combination. Her blood tests results are phenomenal, showing that her A1C, the number that tells a doctor how bad your diabetes condition is... is now in a normal range for my mom, 5.6.

I'd say the main reason I've become obsessed with helping my mom (as well as myself and the rest of my family) is that I can't bear the thought of seeing her or any of my siblings in a nursing home.

I knew there had to be a solution for my mom. I believed that the body is amazing and can heal itself when given the right food medicine.

People by the cheapest shit food to ingest. A great pride is revealed by many in getting 3 for a dollar macaroni and fake cheese in a box. Mmmm they often say, this is good. My reply, "Really?"

Why is it that people will spend money on big flat screened TV's but when it comes to what they eat, cheap meat and poison in the card board boxes is good enough.

Good enough? Really?

No wonder people are sick and taking a plethora of pharmaceutical drugs to counter side effects of the variety of drugs.

Have you ever read a popular brand nutritional value chart on their bright pretty boxes? Do you know the ingredients? Are they organic? Does the ingredients show High Fructose Corn Syrup, or any corn ingredient for that matter? If so, you are setting yourself up for diabetes, high cholesterol and heart disease.

For years I was like a lot of people, I'd go and buy the cheapest food that I could so that I could make ends meet. I found myself getting lazy and began to buy frozen prepared meals instead of cooking for myself. I began to get fatter and fatter until one day I didn't recognize myself in the mirror.

When I ate the crap food, I got fatter and fatter. All the artificial and so called natural health food in boxes was poison to my system. I felt lousy. I was obese. Everyone that I knew who was eating the same way, were also fat.

It makes me wonder if the drug companies and the corn farmers are in cahoots. Are the corn farmers selling the crappy food product which makes us sick so that we have to buy the new expensive drugs to treat the illnesses? Each new drug brings on new side effects which cause people to take more drugs until you are so damn sick you either die or end up in a nursing home destitute and broke.

Recently, I began to reflect on this and tried to find a reason why people like the easy way. It's not really our fault. Everything in nature will always take the path of least resistance. Same is true with all of us humans. None of us really like confrontation, not with people and definitely not with our bathroom scale.

Avoidance.

I've observed not only in my own life but also in others, if we avoid something and don't see it, then it doesn't exist. We can all run but we can never hide from our troubles, especially our health issues.

My brother Ed avoided his health issues and he died at 44. I know his health was bothering him but he was afraid to know what was wrong. Instead he avoided the doctor. Our sister Ann hounded him to get checked out. He finally made an appointment with a doctor. He died in a tragic white water rafting accident 2 days before he got to see the doctor.

Ed was heading for an early nursing home residency. He ate horribly, smoked, drank and was obese. His happiness quotient was very low, looking back, I now believe he was extremely depressed.

I learned from my brother Ed. I saw the importance of taking good care of myself and eating only the best food that I can buy. It's been 8 years since Ed left and for 8 years I've been focused on keeping myself in good health.

Our Bodies are our temples.

I believe that we all have a little God inside of us, it's what joins us all together as one species. It's important to take care of our bodies, it's our vehicle that will take us through life so that we can experience all the joys of living.

A strong body and mind will take us down roads that are lined with laughter and good times.

My personal goal in this lifetime is to keep myself healthy. It's sort of like the safety instructions we all get just before a plane takes off. "take care of yourself first and then you can help others."

I have also learned through my mom that it's never too late to begin to take care of yourself and restore your good health. My mom was really sick.

Our bodies can heal if we give it the best fuel. Cutting corners on what we put into our bodies is pretty stupid. It will end up costing you more money in the long run. Why not learn how to eat right?

Read labels. If they have more than 5 ingredients, especially ingredients that you can't read, don't buy it.

Make your own. Buy a bread machine. You can make your own bread and pasta that is healthy and delicious.

It may take a little bit for your taste buds to adjust to organic fresh foods, but once you kick the box habit, you will begin to crave vegetables.

When you shop for produce, avoid any fruit and vegetables that are conventionally grown. You can tell which ones are not good by the little sticker on the food.

If a sticker begins with a 3... not good - it has been genetically modified. The food may look beautiful, but it has no taste.

If a sticker begins with a 4... still not good. It was sprayed with pesticides - you will ingest them. Again, the food taste crappy.

However, look for a sticker that begins with a 9... this is organic. It may not look like a fairy land vegetable or fruit but the taste will make up for the smaller size and minor blemishes.

Our bodies are our temples, we need to take good care of them. Think about it... we will think nothing about putting the best gas in our vehicles, why not put the best food into our bodies?

Just like good gas in our cars keeps them running better and out of the garage, same is true for our bodies, feed it well and you will run for years with out seeing a doctor.