The week of healing began Saturday night, when I took that crazy boot cast off my leg and threw it away.
I had been wearing it for two days, and by the end of that time my leg was killing me. With every step the boot managed to bang up against my shin, no matter how much I adjusted the straps and Velcro and padding. I had also spent a good part of the two days crying and in a deep depression.
This was due the fact that even with a thick-soled running shoe on the left foot, the boot had my right foot so far from the ground that my hips were uneven. My sacrum hurt when I went up and down stairs. Having all my bones slightly misaligned skewewd the mysterious and delicate balance of my body, and this was evidently effecting my entire nervous system. There is a reason we wear identical shoes on each foot.
When The Poet said, “You should take that thing off, it’s not helping you,” I knew he was right. I wanted it to work, but it was a disaster. I can congratulate allopathic medicine for one more humongous failure.
Once I was free of the boot, I collapsed onto the couch, relieved and exhausted. The Poet kissed me goodbye and left for Egypt for a week. As I lay on the couch, taking in how much I’d just put my body through, I realized I needed to do things differently.
The experience with the boot and the MD who gave it to me was, in fact, typical of so many experiences I’ve had with traditional western medicine. The doctor himself conveyed to me that he didn’t have the time or inclination to really care about me or my injury, and the treatment he offered me was woefully inadequate and showed how clueless he and his field are about how the human body really works.
I’ve had this experience time and time again. (A few MDs have been exceptions, most notably Dr. Marty Ross, who is currently treating me for Lyme.) And time and again I have found ways to get better with help from practitioners who don’t have the glorious title of MD, but who are often more knowledgeable about the complexity of the body and how it functions as a whole.
The two days with the boot had also brought home a simple lesson to me: if I am stressed out, frustrated and in despair, how in the world is my tendon or any other part of me going to get better? I needed to do what it took to get myself out of that mindset.
I was already anxious about The Poet being away, as these are times when I often feel lonely and don’t sleep all that well. I’d made one massage appointment to alleviate some of that stress, and I decided I needed more of that. I would make use of my time alone to heal, both with appointments and by slowing down, focusing on my body and what it needed, and trying to put myself in a relaxed state that would promote recovery.
And The Week of Healing began.
Here's the schedule:
1) two hours of meditation and visualizations every the morning
2) three 90 minute sessions of myofascial release therapy for my calves and ankles
3) learning reiki level one from my dear friend Shifa
4) appointment with naturopath Amy Derksen to address insomnia
5) setting up physical therapy appointments for next week
6) baking breads with natural sweeteners, no more sugar!
7) sauna & lots of stretching my achilles tendons
I have had some difficult moments. Nevertheless I feel much, much better now at the halfway mark than I did at the start.
The myofascial release has been a godsend. With each treatment I feel my calves and heels are more relaxed, when I stretch my feet and ankles I am more flexible, and the pain in my tendons, while not gone, is breaking up and lessening. Also the work on my body has made me feel just plain happy, the way you can feel happy for no particular reason other than physical well being. I’m still not sure this will be the entire cure for my tendonitis, but I must be heading in the right direction.
For a long time I’ve been too busy to slow down and focus on what my body needed, and I have found myself feeling tired and overwhelmed, and complaining more and more. I was casting around for answers, but the most important answer was to pay attention to my body. Healing takes lots of time and patience, but I’m reminded that, as with so many things that are difficult at first, putting in the effort can get you into a groove, and the change you’ve been seeking comes around-- quickly or slowly-- but it comes around.
For the past two months' I have been suffering from tendonitis in my right heel. I had to stop dancing, which was the main source of joy in my life, and then give up long walks, a second source of joy. I tried to minimize aggravation, but as time wore on and I walked less and less and iced more and more, the pain did not go away.
