For the past ten years we’ve lived in earshot of a small mosque or masjid in Arabic.  I’m not Muslim, but I’ve always loved the call to prayer, the “adhan”, it provides a wonderful authentic sense of place.  Five days a week my day started before dawn.  Fajr adhan, the first prayer of the day welcomed me to the start of my exercise routine.  The next hour was my time for contemplation.

 By the first call to prayer I was on my mat starting my stretches before my run.  The call to prayer and the waking bird life in our garden forming the background sound track to my time. It may sound selfish, but with twelve-hour workdays ahead, it was the only hour of me time! We listen to the call to prayer as a melodic chant, not understanding the words or context behind them.   Some have even been known to complain, “I was sleeping so wonderfully when the mosque woke me this morning!”  I’m just as guilty, I paid no attention to what was being said, only the rhythmic adhan that would start my stretching session.  The second call to prayer signified the end of the stretching and the start of the run! My early morning runs, the heart rate pounding, the increase in oxygen, the first rays of the dawn and the comforting rhythm of my feet pounding the road.  The brain clears from the veil of sleep, the mantra, the rhythmic breathing, holding the pace of the run, freeing the mind to contemplate the day’s activities and filling the lungs with oxygen.   That was the past, or so I thought.

This morning, I wake to Antoinette’s alarm, it’s five am.   Coming back into the bedroom, lights off, we’re still in the morning’s darkness.  She opens the window, the Muezzin’s Fajr adhan fills my ears.   The valium still holds my body captive.  My body doesn’t want to move, my eye lids heavy under the weight of sleep. My eyes wide open behind the darkness of my eyelids.  The brain frees itself from the narcotic effect of the valium, the adhan carried in on the wind immediately snaps the brain free.   To a place I used to be, to a place I now long for.  The Muezzin continues the adhan.  I hear the fajr adhan in its melodic cantation, “hasten to the prayer, hasten to real success, prayer is better than sleep.“  I feel Antoinette’s hand pinch what’s left of the muscle and fat on my leg, inserts the needle, releasing the saliva suppressing medication into my leg.  Pushes, stretches, removes the needle covers my leg again.  The Muezzin continues his adhan, my brain tracing step by step the route I used to run, my breathing starts to pick up the rhythm of run, it’s pacing the run, the melodic cantation starts to fade away the further I get into my run.  The narcotic effect of the valium kicks in again it’s not finished with me yet.  My breathing, continues the rhythm of run, the valium dragging me back into the darkness, the cadence of the run reducing, the breathing becoming more regular, slower, the route stops. The valium wins!  Valium locks in mind and body. By time I wake again the Fajr prayer is done.

For more than two years now the morning routine has been changing rapidly.   The Pavlovian conditioning of the past eight years inherent, the adhan, the signal to quiet contemplation over several thousand kilometers over the years.  Strong enough to snap the brain out of the narcotic hold of valium, if only it was strong enough to snap me out of ALS!  To be able to take the brain to a point of control when everything was firing in order!  The brains proteins and hormones balance before the run, before the ALS took hold, the continual reversal of ALS.  Wouldn’t that be amazing!  Unfortunately, it’s not to be.  I’ll be content with the Fajr adhan snapping my brain from the narcotic effect of the valium, allowing me to briefly crave the sensation of the run, crave the sensation of lungs filling with oxygen, the feet pounding the road, remembering the run.  All that’s left is the quiet contemplation, how do we reverse ALS!

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