Wow. Has it ever been a long time! How the heck are you? Are you well? I hope so. I’m not going to pretend that things have been great here in Tokyo. The last couple of years have been challenging, and 2023 has turned out to be the hardest I’ve ever experienced. It’s not all been terrible, though; adapting and overcoming has been instructive. I’ve learned a lot about myself.

New Year 2023 saw our entire family sidelined with COVID. It didn’t seem very significant at the time. Sure, I had a 40℃/104℉ fever for 3-4 days, but it was otherwise not that big a deal. Or so I thought. What initially appeared to be a simple infection wound up turning into Long COVID. The days turned into weeks. And weeks turned into months. Through it all, my confidence as a practitioner of healing modalities sincerely took a beating. I wasn’t making much, if any, progress.

The final blow was when my right foot simultaneously developed foot drop and Hallux rigidus (AKA stiff big toe). The transition from fully mobile to falling over while walking was quite a shock and a serious blow to my self-confidence. That said, it also turned out to be the proverbial fire under my backside that really alarmed me enough to take focused action to heal myself. It hasn’t been easy, but I’m happy to say that I’m making good progress.

Having been unable to work for much of the year, it’s a huge relief to see myself getting back to my old form. Being able to awaken, exercise, concentrate on work-related tasks, etc., has felt like a revelation. The lessening of symptoms of foot drop over the last couple of months has given me such joy. The bone at the base of the big toe, however, remains a pretty major challenge. I’d never even heard of Hallux rigidus before this year. The outlook for this particular malady isn’t particularly great. This, however, gives me more impetus to break out the “big guns” in my arsenal. This isn’t going to beat me.

Hallux rigidus is dealt with to deal with symptoms. It is a form of degenerative arthritis, which means that this is an autoimmune disorder. My research suggests that it is most often associated with an injury to the afflicted foot. And, sure enough, that exact part of my right foot was injured in a bike accident many years ago. With correlation and possible causation understood, this grasp of the problem domain enables me to plot a course from where I am now — experiencing pain and stiffness with each step — to where I want to be: Free of any incorrect immune response that causes my body to attack itself.

That’s what autoimmune disease is. It’s an improper immune response to a perceived pathogen in the face of chronic inflammation. I certainly experienced chronic inflammation with Long COVID: I struggled with a medium-grade fever for 4-to-5 months straight. Given that, it’s fair to say that my immune system was hunting for the cause of the problem and mistakenly identified that toe, a site of previous injury, as the culprit. The body doesn’t like chronic stress.

Join me on this journey and I’ll share what I do to address the new challenge. It may inspire you on your own journey and give you hope that you just might be able to do more than just manage symptoms.

Much love,

trane