Hands

The subject of this entry is seemingly bland. In fact, if you retrieve the singular definition of the subject word from the dictionary, we'll really start to fall asleep.  So, let's start by doing just that! Here are a couple of definitions straight from dictionary.com:

hand  noun

1. the terminal, prehensile part of the upper limb in humans and other primates, consisting of the wrist, metacarpal area, fingers, and thumb
2. the corresponding part of the forelimb in any of the higher vertebrates

Exciting stuff, right?  Way to state the obvious, Nicole! But... let's think a little deeper.

There is so much to feel down about these days.  War.  The economy.  Debt.  Stories about infidelity, greed, cruelty, illness, family falling-outs, jealousy.  Honestly, the list of all of the bad things in the world today is virtually infinite.

So, what does this have to do with hands?  Well, let's start here... what can we do with our hands?  How can we positively impact the lives of others through the use of our palms and a few digits?  Why is this so important?   How can we make the world a better place through our hands?

First and foremost, we need to reference & utilize item to the left in order to put our own hands to positive use.  I'm not a holy roller, really.  I don't press my religious views upon anyone.  However, I do believe when we put God first in our lives, leaving all of our worries, problems, hopes and dreams in His hands, we'll find peace. Really.  I know that's very hard to believe most of the time, but I really think it's true. Regardless of your religious denomination, trust God.  Everything is in His hands.

"Let go and let God? What's that got to do with our hands?"

Text from husband...

Our hands. The smallest and simplest actions and expressions of love can be demonstrated through the use of our hands.  Waving hello to someone.  Holding the hand of a loved one.  Giving the peace sign.  Picking up the phone and giving an old friend or family member you haven't spoken to in a while a call.  Texting someone to tell them you love them. These simplest of gestures can be expressed through the utilization of our hands, and they can all make a huge difference in someone's life, even if we don't realize it.

Fr. Francis presiding at our wedding

Laying of hands. In July 2010, my then fiance and I were in church.  Our wedding was about two months away.  I'd had probably the most successful Deep Brain Stimulation for dystonia that my doctors had ever seen about a year and a half prior.  My dystonia was basically gone.  I didn't consider myself a medical miracle, but rather extremely fortunate to have incredible doctors and a form of dystonia that responded so well to deep brain stimulation.  That day in church, my left foot cranked in at the ankle.  I was in a near panic.  As I hobbled to communion, tears started to stream down my face.  Why was this suddenly happening?  Would I be able to walk down the aisle in October?  I'd needed a few "tweaks" now and again for back pain, but I had not experienced anything like this since pre-DBS.  The priest, Fr. Francis, a really awesome member of the clergy at our church was presiding that day.  He's very contemporary for someone of his generation.  He was also the priest Nate and I had scheduled to preside at our wedding.  He kind of sounds like Ed Wynn -- you know -- the "I love to laugh" guy from Mary Poppins.  He noticed my tears.  This 70-something-year-old man cared so much about my pain, that he asked me and Nate to please stay after Mass so he could pray with us and anoint me with oil.  After church ended, he brought us back behind the altar and asked what was going on with my dystonia.  Fr. Francis called over to another priest, Fr. Paul, and asked if he would pray with us.  Fr. Paul was/is awesome; former Air Force. He actually recently left the priesthood, but he's still just such a cool guy.  They laid hands on me and prayed, anointing me with oil.  Fr. Paul motioned for Nate to come over and join them.  The sense of peace and comfort I felt was awesome beyond words.  The love and compassion demonstrated by these men was something I did not feel worthy of, yet they offered it anyway.  It really helped me, if not physically, at the very least emotionally.      

Letter from neurologist to me & hockey ticket

My neurologist's hands. Writing a letter and sending an expensive gift is not something that many doctors would do for their patients.  My neurologist, Dr. Guttuso, knew I loved hockey.  Sometimes at my appointments, we'd chat hockey more than actually have an appointment.  In 2008, there wasn't much he could do for me anymore except for refill my medications.  I needed DBS and I was terrified. All other options had been exhausted.  I was no longer even responding well to Botox.  Dr. Guttuso was so proud of me for pulling though that surgery -- he wrote me the nicest letter and along with it, sent a pair of his season tickets to a Sabres game.  Ryan Miller shutout the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-0 on February 4, 2009.  Thomas Vanek scored a hat trick.  I threw my hat in excitement, despite my shaved head from the DBS.  The hands of my neurologist wrote me a letter and mailed me tickets, yet another act of kindness demonstrated through the use of hands.


My hands. Having dystonia is no picnic.  Today has been an extremely bad day for me.  I'm

"In the end, only kindness matters..." ~ Jewel

chalking it up to the cooler, rainy weather.  My back and neck have a mind of their own and it is extremely painful and debilitating for me at the moment.  Still, I'm trying to remain optimistic.  There are people out there who have it so much worse than I do.  These are the people I need to help.  Others can benefit from my helping hands despite my disability.  I need to keep that in mind whenever I start to feel sorry for myself.  I can donate to the poor, volunteer, advocate for dystonia, and of course use my hands to type away in my blog.  With my head, my heart and my hands combined, I know I have so much to offer in my lifetime.  I just need to be open to everything it is that I am being called to do.

The Evolution of Human Interaction via Electronic Communication

During my junior year of high school, I had to write an essay about how technology was adversely impacting our society based on a reading assignment provided.  It was an in-class assignment for English 11 that I completely bombed.  I'd never minded spur of the moment writing assignments in high school.  I've always loved flooding paper with my thoughts and opinions, but in 1999, this was a difficult assignment for me to comprehend.  Now, in 2013, this would have been a simple essay. The way people interact with each other today has drastically changed since even I was in high school.  That really wasn't all that long ago.

Cell phones. iPads. Kindels. Blackberrys. iPhones. Facebook. Twitter. Texting. When I was in high school, when someone said "cell phone" you'd typically think of a cool portable phone. Generally speaking, only wealthy people owned them.  Cell phones were large with big antennas. So large, people carried them in bags.  They were cool... but you looked like kind of a dork while using them...

 Texting? That wasn't even a word.

I have a Verizon flip phone.  It's five years old, and doesn't even have a camera.  I only pay about 50 dollars a month for use.  I can slip it in my pocket, and people can pretty much reach me any time.  I hate texting.  In the time it takes people to text me something of a complex nature, it could have been communicated verbally in less than half that time. 

That notwithstanding, I still do think smartphones are kind of cool.  You can play games, access the internet, go on Facebook, Tweet your thoughts and communicate with the world in so many awesome ways.  Hell, you can even meet new people on your phone while sitting alone in your office at work!  Yeah, definitely cool.  But at what expense?

This form of communication is replacing the most important kind of human interaction- People talking to each other vis-a-vis and being fully aware of the importance of life as it exists around them.  Human beings have become walking zombies, not paying attention to both the beauty and the suffering of the world as they pay more attention to the smartphones out in front of them.  How many people do you see walking with their heads up on a busy street, smiling and making eye contact with others?  Shouldn't that be the norm?  

In my experience, I've found if you so much as dare say "good morning" to an individual with their phone out in front of them, it's considered rude.  How dare you intrude upon the personal affairs that are literally going on in the palm of another's hand?  Portable electronic communication is now seemingly far more important than human contact.  It's sad, really.  It's like, "Hi, I'm here. Can you maybe put your phone away so we can sit and have a conversation together? Or is the phone on the table more important than the fact that I'm here with you now?"  Really, this kind of thing happens to me.  I don't think I'm being rude or unreasonable in asking this of anyone.  I'm being realistic.

Smartphones also take away from being aware of your surroundings.  Paying attention to what's going on around you is important to being human.  I feel like people need to walk with their heads upright a little more and just see the world as around them.  Imagine the difference you could make in a person's life who might be hurting inside and expressing that through tears rolling down their cheeks?  I know from experience that a simple, "Are you okay?" from a complete stranger can mean so much.  A hug from a friend who sees pain in your eyes without your even having to say a word is just so special.  Now, you could bypass a friend in pain, or maybe someone who just needs a hug because you're too busy checking out what's going on with the rest of the world on Twitter.  Twitter doesn't make us human, acting human does.  Interpret that as you will. 

With all of that being said, I still love how small the wold has become with social networking.  I've been privileged to connect with so many awesome people through my blog, my old (and new) Facebook accounts, and Twitter.  If I'm important enough to connect with someone online, especially in a dystonia community, we'll meet.  If I'm not, then so be it.  But when I'm with you, please put your Smartphone away.

Last Friday I had the privilege of accompanying a new friend I met via my blog to Frontier Field in Rochester in order to promote a fundraising event - Toss for Dystonia.  If it weren't for Facebook, Blogger, and Dystonia BloggerMania, we probably would have crossed paths at social functions through work for years and never have had said a word to each other.  It ended up being that the world was just really small and dystonia was a commonality in our lives.  What I noticed at Frontier Field as I tried to help advertise, was something a bit awkward to me... people paying absolutely no attention to anything around them... heads down... with their smartphones in front of them.  How do you approach someone like that with information about a fundraising event?  It's like... you can't.  I couldn't.  I didn't.  We met all kinds of people, but for me, personally... these smartphone folks were the most unapproachable.

I'm not anti-technology. I can't forget how important Facebook was just a few years ago, when my now husband found me. I had not seen him since high school.  Despite the fact that we lived less than a mile from each other at the time, we had not seen each other in over ten years.  Thanks to Facebook, we were able to reconnect and become close friends, and eventually husband and wife.  After that, I'm not sure how useful I found Facebook. Other than for dystonia support, I didn't really use it. That's why I have only 28 friends on my new Facebook account.  I want to live a life apart from it.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that there should be a balance between technological communication and actually acting like a real human.  What that balance is, I'm not really sure... but I do know what it's not.