I love the Adirondack Mountains in New York and I love the way I feel when I'm among the trees and near the lake. There's something called "The Adirondack Cure" that relates to the TB epidemic in the late 1800s up until the mid 1940's. People came to cure cottages in Saranac Lake, a small town in the six million acre Adirondack Park, for the "rest cure" in cold, clear mountain air. Each day the men and women who came there ill, and with little hope of recovery, would come to sit on the porches of the sanitarium, the cottages or camps, and breathe in the fresh air. Each residence had a "cure porch" with sliding glass windows, in which patients spent at least eight hours a day resting on special day beds or reclining chairs. Their days were structured around the cure and the area became a beacon of hope for those who could make the arduous trip to those mountains. They had up to an 80% cure rate, when back in the large cities, a diagnosis of TB was surely a death sentence. The cure didn't happen overnight - some people were able yo leave after a year and others stayed as long as seven years before they were fully recovered.
I'm heading up to the mountains again later this month and I am thinking about how I can make the most of my trip. I've seen pictures of the cure cottages with chairs lined up on the porch and patients bundled up to their noses, sitting in the frigid winter air, or resting comfortably when early spring arrived. Rain or snow, hot or cold, every day those men and women "took the cure" and got better. The cure wasn't for the meek of heart. These people left their loved ones and were fortunate to have a single visit from family in a year. They created a community among themselves, built friendships and found romance. They lived their lives doing creative activities and the kinds of things that would engage their minds in a way that didn't tax their fragile bodies. They wrote letters home and got letters back. But they stayed in an environment that supported their wellness. I have to learn from those lessons if I am going to beat this fibro thing.
Here is what's so hard for me. When I feel good I WANT to do what I want to do. It feels so unnatural to sit on the couch and rest when I think I feel fine. But here's the scoop - I may feel okay, but my body suffers with fibro just as much on a good day as it does on a bad one - I just don't notice it so much, especially when my pain is managed. If I read or do my beads when I'm having a good day, my eyes start to give out and that's my signal to stop. But if I'm out and about, unless I have a crash, I don't have a signaling mechanism that tells me when enough is too much. It's such a balancing act and even after all these years trying to manage it, I still don't seem to get it right. There isn't anyone to monitor my activity level or send me to bed when it's time to rest. I am distracted and pulled in a million different directions and I never seem to unplug unless I'm in those mountains. There I have no cell phone, no computer or TV and things are very simple. I don't get there often enough and maybe that needs to change.
I'm heading up to the mountains again later this month and I am thinking about how I can make the most of my trip. I've seen pictures of the cure cottages with chairs lined up on the porch and patients bundled up to their noses, sitting in the frigid winter air, or resting comfortably when early spring arrived. Rain or snow, hot or cold, every day those men and women "took the cure" and got better. The cure wasn't for the meek of heart. These people left their loved ones and were fortunate to have a single visit from family in a year. They created a community among themselves, built friendships and found romance. They lived their lives doing creative activities and the kinds of things that would engage their minds in a way that didn't tax their fragile bodies. They wrote letters home and got letters back. But they stayed in an environment that supported their wellness. I have to learn from those lessons if I am going to beat this fibro thing.
Here is what's so hard for me. When I feel good I WANT to do what I want to do. It feels so unnatural to sit on the couch and rest when I think I feel fine. But here's the scoop - I may feel okay, but my body suffers with fibro just as much on a good day as it does on a bad one - I just don't notice it so much, especially when my pain is managed. If I read or do my beads when I'm having a good day, my eyes start to give out and that's my signal to stop. But if I'm out and about, unless I have a crash, I don't have a signaling mechanism that tells me when enough is too much. It's such a balancing act and even after all these years trying to manage it, I still don't seem to get it right. There isn't anyone to monitor my activity level or send me to bed when it's time to rest. I am distracted and pulled in a million different directions and I never seem to unplug unless I'm in those mountains. There I have no cell phone, no computer or TV and things are very simple. I don't get there often enough and maybe that needs to change.
I have been fascinated by the concept of the fresh air cure and have always wondered if a year in the mountains would turn this around. But I am not brave enough to leave everything behind to go do a "cure". And even if I could, is the fresh air cure a possibility for fibro and fatigue? The thought intrigues me. I'm not going there yet, but it's something that I am going to keep in the back of my mind, because maybe at some point, the time will be right. But we are in a different age - one where we are connected all the time in lots of different ways. Is it possible to take an 1800's cure and plop it into the 21st Century? I don't know. But I am going to hold that question.
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