The Best Meds Ever!

I am not alone in suffering from a malady known as Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS).  It strikes most often at the beginning of my attempt to go to sleep. Medications usually help, although some nights I must walk in circles in the living room or ride five miles on the stationary bike before attempting to get back to sleep.  In my tenth year with RLS there now has developed what the doctors call “augmentation” — which means that RLS can strike at any time of the day, not just nights. 

            As I write these words it is 9:00 in the morning and I am 37,000 feet in the sky, safely (?) inside a big metal tube known as an airplane.  I have learned how to cope when restless legs take over. I stretch, I bounce them up and down, I stand to retrieve things from the overhead storage and then stand again to put them back, I walk the aisle to the farthest restroom even when no urge exists, then 30 minutes later I walk that aisle again, and I count the minutes until this flight lands in San Francisco!  I pray “Lord please send a tailwind so we can arrive sooner!”  

            When RLS augmentation hits I am miserable! And it has hit me on this plane trip bigly -a new unusual word I first heard in the 2016 election debates – and I am very uncomfortable.  So, guess what happened just now? The young woman in the seat next to me, who had not spoken a word for two hours, spoke to me and said, “I feel for you sir, my grandmother has the restless legs condition too. She has to move her legs just like you are doing!” 

            Two things then happened simultaneously: I realized how my erratic movements must appear odd to people around me; and I remembered that I really am getting old!   Nevertheless, she truly was a blessing to me, and we chatted and laughed as I bounced my legs up and down!  I was not prepared for what came next. 

As we talked with me standing in the aisle and she sitting in her seat, for what seemed only 5 minutes, my legs had become totally calm!  I believe God sent this angel whose grandma helped me overcome a serious RLS attack. My “angel” had noticed the calm also.  “Wow! We always try to engage grandma in a serious or fun conversation, and sometimes her RLS just stops!” My angel and her grandma— the best meds ever! Sometimes the promise of The Merton Prayer that God “will never leave me to face my perils alone,” not that RLS equals a “peril,” might be fulfilled by a seat mate on a plane who just could be an angel in disguise bringing healing to a bout of RLS!

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