Healer Heal Thyself!

It was a great day in the history of my days, walking through my son’s school in mid autumn with my daughter and family friend’s son trailing behind, without warning I was sucked to the ground. BAM! Instinct kicked in and hands hit sidewalk, knees hit sidewalk and so much pain went shooting through my body I couldn’t breathe. Right ankle and foot are roaring, screaming and there is absolutely no breath in me, no way to call for help. Our friend’s son who has autistic spectrum disorder freaks out and bolts screaming with his hands in the air. Still unable to speak, I signal my daughter to go fetch. She obediently responds. Alone, on the ground I try to force my body to breathe as another young man with some sort of special needs who was crossing between classrooms at just the right time, sees my distress and begins pacing the sidewalk around me chanting repeatedly, “I am an eagle scout and need to help you, I am an eagle scout and need to help you, I am an eagle scout and need to help you…”.
By the grace of God, a teacher’s aide notices me through a window and comes outside and sends the ever helpful eagle scout away. The best question was, “are you okay?” Well, let me assess the situation, in the over all scheme of things, okay is a relative term. I am not dead, my children are all fine, I am not living in a war zone and am blessed to have a warm, dry house and food to eat. I am in a shit load of pain and can not seem to stand which then seems to lower the standard of relative “okayedness”. My final answer is: no, not okay at the moment. He stands there waiting for me to rise from the sidewalk which seems to have a strange magnetic pull to my body and finally realizes, I can not get up. Oh great, I’m like the lady in the ‘80’s commercial…say it with me, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up”. Just what I need, life-alert. Isn’t that what that commercial was for?
As he offers his hand, I bravely grab hold and fight the magnetic curse of the sidewalk to standing position. Then comes the real test, can I step down on my screaming foot with any semblance of grace? I reach it forward just a bit and begin to apply body weight. Oh mother of God, NO! That is not going to work. Another teacher has now come out and is so kind to run and get me ice. As ice is applied, there are interesting remarks of the many colors my foot is turning and the strange shape it is swelling into. There are offers to take me to the emergency room but I have three children in my care, I am an hour from my home, my friend is in the hospital getting surgery and I have been entrusted with the care of her son who has been dutifully fetched by my daughter, so…no emergency room until I get home and figure things out with these children. I must drive home with this foot on the gas and break pedal. It was a very very long drive home.
I did finally go to the emergency room thanks to the help of friends and family. My foot was found to be a bad sprain with having ripped the ligaments on the top and having torn a tendon round the heal and to the inner side. I was supposed to stay off of it for two weeks and most definitely not work. All wonderful for those who have health insurance, sick days, etc but I am among the uninsured and self employed needing to keep the bread coming in to feed the family not to mention that if I don’t work, my clients go elsewhere. So, I gave myself about five days of frustrated care then began working again on crutches or propped on a rolly stool and rolling all over the place. It was a very painful recovery and it took months to get out of pain.
I have examined the reason for my fall, other than bad shoes, and have been told by natural healers that it is linked to my fear of failure, fear of success, fear of moving forward and so on. An on-going theme in my life is fear of not being enough so this was not a big leap for me. I have blessed and meditated on this subject and my life waxes and wanes with understanding and flow. The right foot, however, seems to re-emerge as a problem despite my addressing of it spiritually.
During last fall I was forced to move in a short time and during the exhaustion, packing and stress of it all, the foot fired up again. I don’t know if it was climbing step ladders, carrying heavy boxes, plain exhaustion or all the fear of moving a family and business but my foot was pissed. Swelling, use of ankle braces and advil became my mode of function. Once settled, I babied it and rested and iced and massaged gently. It really took it’s time to release the pain. Yes, I kept working, of course. Please note previous statement about needing to bring in the bread, baby! From then on, it seems to get better for a short time and then from deep inside my foot whilst doing a pilates move or during a massage or even going on tip toe to clean a mirror I hear and feel something as if someone were strumming a bass violin string deep in my foot. BAM! The pain is incredible and the swelling ritual begins. I have tried to push through, ignore, wrap, ice and so on but it really just does it’s thing in it’s own damned time.
Well, I have had enough of this. I work with rehabilitation all the time and I KNOW that I have just got to dig in there and find it and rip through it. Yup, it is a horrible truth but this is my new approach. At the end of the day I warmed my hands up, stretched them got some lotion and dug in. I worked my poor foot like it has never been worked before. What a strange sensation to be causing so much intense pain on one’s self. Oh my head, what pain! I got through several crunchy layers of lactic acid and scar tissue. When I find these things on my clients I can get very obsessed with wanting to rip through it because I know that if I do and they can take the intensity, they will feel better. It was sort of a twisted experience to obsess and hurt all at the same time. It sort of made noises like this, “Aaaaaaaggghhh…ooooooooo….aow…oh…AOW…huh…” and so on. My foot turned into mush.
Pain, tingles, more pain and swelling was the result of my obsessive work. The next day, yes I continued to work, I iced and babied. The day after that, I had movement again. No, really, I could move it way better. I could go on tippy toe, I could move from side to side, I could pronate and supinate my foot without hearing and feeling any strumming. What a friggin lesson. Pain and fear need to be dealt with head on. Dig in! I mean DIG in. Rip it, make it hurt, make it stink but don’t let up until there is nothing left to dig through. It will hurt and it will suck but it will break down the pain, the scar tissue, the damage and then it can be truly rebuilt and rehabilitated. Not just poor stupid foot but poor stupid me, too. Ugh, dig in. Stretch the fingers, warm up the hands and work on in to strip, dig, rip and release what is no longer needed and is holding me back from my true forward movement. My goal is to run again, without pain. Of course, I don’t just mean the foot.