The Journey (11): Healing
Sep2520069:56 a.m.
Sidoine Lazare appears from a doorway at the far end of a long low room. She moves quickly, an understated figure in a dark skirt. 'Bonjour. Suivrez-moi si'l vous plait'.
She's probably in her forties, about my age, with a thin earnest face which sits incongruously in the midst of natural and abundant red ringlets and curls.
I tell Sidoine about my Achilles tendon and that I want to run to raise money for diabetics in two weeks time. I tell her that I have come to her because a friend told me she works magic. (I think it will help to let her know I have faith in her, only belatedly realising I've put her under pressure).
Sidoine only says 'Hmph' in any case. She tells me to take my trousers off and lie down, then she leaves the room.The treatment bench takes up almost the whole of the cell-like room, which feels monastic in its simplicity. Lying on my back I can see blue sky out of the one tall, high, window. There is a picture in the centre of the wall above my head, but it's so small I can't see the subject. There is a plant on the windowsill, a small mahoghany table with blue and white bottles on it and in the corner, a white screen, back-lit but switched off, presumably for displaying x-rays.
Sidoine comes back in and she starts by looking. Just looking: at my foot, my ankle, my leg. Then she starts to prod my stomach. I am a little alarmed and immediately wonder if I somehow managed to mispronounce the French word cheville for ankle and say something else instead. But in a moment I realise she's working her fingers around my pelvic bone.
I lie on my back at first, then my front, as she quietly and gently manipulates my right leg, ankle and pelvis. I feel strangely comforted by her pale green jersey which is so soft and wispy it makes me think of dandelion clocks. (It's twenty four degrees outside but these old stone houses are cold at this time of year).
In a while she tells me she has found something 'incorrect', maybe the cause. Soon after that she begins to work with my lower back. She comes to the scars from my back accident and asks me about them, so I tell her I fractured two vertebrae, but it's alright now. She says 'Ah, interessant' and continues to work, sometimes manipulating the skin, sometimes pressing gently, as though she were making something, very carefully, out of plasticine. Now I feel a twinge at the point at which she is working on my lower back, and a corresponding twinge in my right heel. The twinge in my heel is exactly where the pain first started. I am astonished but when I tell her she appears unsurprised. She replies that the problem has to do with my sciatic nerve and it begins in my back, 'Your back is not straight, so your pelvis is twisted, so your leg is twisted, so your ankle is twisted.'
She continues to manipulate my lower back and in a few more minutes I find myself shifting position. 'Good', she exclaims quietly under her breath, (but I know it's for my benefit because she says it in English). I can feel that the new position is better, my foot running in a straight line from my ankle. I wonder, will this movement in my body facilitate the mental flexibility I believe I need in order to recover?
Sidoine finishes by asking me to lie on my back again. She sits behind me now, probing my neck with her fingers. She says, 'Is someone in your family diabetic?'
There is a rush, a lump in my throat. I think she has intuited this and I'm terrified of what she's going to say next. I've forgotten that I mentioned diabetes when I came in.
Half a minute passes while I struggle and fail to get some words out. Sidoine must realise what I think then, because she says, 'Oh no! It's just what you said when you came in - that you would run for the diabetics'.
I stumble over the words, 'Oui - mon…mon..fils.'
Sidoine presses something inwards at the back of my neck. It seems to be the button which produces tears.
She asks me how we're going on with managing the diabetes, if Marmaduke is well. Then she says, 'Your body is telling you something through this ankle'.
'I know. But what is it?'
'The right hand-side of your body concerns the masculine, you know?'
'Yes' I nod.
Your relations with the men in your life: father, brother, son… The foot is about going forward, and the ankle is about where you plant the foot. You must go forwards with more confidence'.
'In my son?'
'In yourself, and in your son'.
Later I realise that in that half-minute before she reminded me that I mentioned diabetes earlier, I thought she saw it in me. I thought she could see by looking at me, that I had a diabetic child. In which case it would follow that something wrong with me made the something wrong with him. Is this what my sub-conscious thinks?
One thing's for sure, I'm not done with this journey yet.
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Comments (4)
klebe 'Max, you are a treasure, thanks so very much for your support it really is appreciated. (My ankle talks to me too - it keeps telling me that I'm a bloomin fool and at my age I should be thinking about painting watercolours, not running huge distances!!!!) Thanks again, hope all goes well on Sunday....and beyond' added 25th Sep 2006
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Alaistair 'Max, your blog has been a source of inspiration, so open, honest and heart felt. I really hope your injury fades in time for 'the day'. Good Luck...... Alaistair.' added 25th Sep 2006
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blueboy 'thanks. experience is only experience when its put to a use.' added 3rd Oct 2006
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Alaistair 'Least favourite leg! Well that was one of my many ramblings (used to forget people read bloggs). I pulled hamstrings on my left leg after trying to push the pace beyond my abilities. It struck me that if I could just recover the leg to the same state as the right (which generally seemed to be having a ball!) I would really fly. I have never given up hope that one day I will get there. As I said – one of my many ramblings…….. Will there be a Journey (12) - I hope so? Kindest Regards Alaistair....' added 11th Oct 2006
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