Back Again
“What?” said my lovely electroshock chiropractor lady sternly “…have you been doing with yourself?”
“er… working” I said sheepishly as I sat down her funny blue chair which is supposed to mimic exactly how a healthy spine should align and which, when I sat down on it had huge gaping gaps between the should and the did.
“Ok” she said “Let me just put on my white coat so I feel more professional. Top off and hop on the table. Now tell me? Where does it hurt?”
“Everywhere. But that might not be my back. I think I might have flu too. Well not proper flu, just feeling like I’m on the verge of flu…I’ve felt like that for the past three weeks. My bones hurt and my head hurts and my skin hurts…Do you want me on my back or on my front”
“On your back” she says, as I sit on the edge of the table, her hands moving from the top of my skull down to the small of my back. She’s got warm hands. Gentle hands. It feels nice this skin on skin. “I’m going to have to do some work on you before I use the machine”
I lie down. Her hands are in my hair, not pushing, not rubbing, not doing anything except very gently cupping the back of my head, the bit where my neck meets my skull. It feels blissful but there’s this nagging thought in my head which goes along the lines of “God I wish I’d washed my hair before I came here”. I’d leapt into the bath before my appointment but I’d finished work late and the appointment was at 5.30 and it had been three days since I’d washed my hair and my hair’s so long that it takes ages for it to dry – upwards of three hours- and because using a hairdryer to dry my hair makes me look like I should be in an eighties metal video and I didn’t have that much time and because normally she just switches the electroshock machine on, I thought I’d be ok if I just twisted it into a knot and left it. I mean it didn’t look dirty. In fact it looked rather good in a Jane Eyre sort of way. Now with her hands rubbing and pushing, I wish I’d rethought that decision.
Shivers of agony run up from my toes to my skull. My hands get pins and needles. My legs jerk involuntarily. My tummy rumbles. I’m impervious to all of it. Floating on a cloud. All I’m conscious of are her hands.
“I’m going to sort out your headache first” she said as she continues with her gentle cupping movement.
“How did you know I had a headache”
“It would be been strange if you hadn’t had one” she says not stopping “All of your ligaments are inflamed and all of your tendons. In fact, short you of having had an accident, yours is the worse case I’ve ever seen.”
“Wow” I think, taking some pride in that. H treats the great and good in Edinburgh including one very famous lady author whose name we can’t mention. Apparently her back is so bad that she types her Magnus opuses while lying flat on her back in bed. Not quite Barbara Cartland and her willing minions but then who is?
Two and a half hours later and she’s done. At least for this evening. I have to go back on Friday night. Same time. Then she’s going to sort out my back. In the meantime I have been banned from even looking at a computer never mind sitting down in front of one.
I feel great. At least I did when I got in the car to go home. My head had stopped hurting, my back had stopped hurting.
Right now though I feel like shit on a stick. My whole body is running with sweat but I’m so cold that I have three jumpers and a comfy blankie wrapped round me. My throat hurts. My teeth hurt. My eyes are sore. It hurts when I breathe. It hurts when I don’t breathe. My neck hurts. My bones hurt. My skin hurts where my clothes touch it. I’m too cold. Too hot. Shivering like a whippet. I want to go to bed. I wonder if she makes house calls….
October 18th, 2006 at 3:32 pm
God, I so want to go to a chiropractor now.
But more importantly, you get lots of rest and drink chicken soup and feel better. Non-doctor’s orders.
October 19th, 2006 at 6:45 am
you’ve been banned from sitting at computers? i hope you dictated this to F from the sofa so he could type it up for you, but i doubt that’s the case.
You poor thing. I hope you feel better soon.
October 19th, 2006 at 8:39 am
that sucks bigtime. i can commiserate because i am coming back slowly from THREE WEEKS of the same. not that yours will last three weeks no no no no, just that i’ve had years of practice getting this ’sick’ thing down perfectly. if you can get your hand on some percoset…that, heating pads and hot hot tea with honey will make you feel much better. kid thee not. take it easy, poor baby! XOOfn
October 20th, 2006 at 2:29 am
Christine - You should live here. Of all the chiropractors I’ve ever been to (and I’ve been to a few) H is the best. There’s nothing like an electric shock machine for smoothing out all those muscles. PS. re the non-doctors orders? Thanks to you I have the perfect recipe for chicken soup!
CB. Of course I didn’t dictate this to F. that would involve him using my computer and if he does that then we have twenty minutes of him telling me that my computers too slow and we really need a new one! Luckily works been really quiet since yesterday so I can do a fair bit of lying on the sofa swathed in quilt and whinging at F.
FN. Sounds like we’ve got/had the same thing. I’ve been feeling on the verge of this for the past couple of weeks and I think that getting my neck fixed triggered those lymph glands to release all the flu they’d been storing up! Will try the tea with honey - sounds gorgeous!
October 20th, 2006 at 3:31 am
tea with honey is good. tea with honey and bourbon is better.
October 20th, 2006 at 3:58 am
That does sound blissful. But I’ve given up alcohol until the 23rd of november. except for the special dispensation weekend of the 11th of Nov when jboy and herebe come up to visit.
October 20th, 2006 at 5:42 am
Ugh. Hope you feel better soon. And I don’t know what the equivalent to NyQuil is over there, but if you have it drink it by the gallon (ok, fine, a few teaspoons). It’s brilliant as it’s just like booze except with a big sign on it that says ‘Medicine’ Voila!! A loophole!!
October 20th, 2006 at 6:26 am
Buttercup syrup! Wonderful old fashioned cough mixture guarenteed to get you high as a kite!
October 20th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
start drinking now, you’ll need the practice.
October 20th, 2006 at 10:17 pm
Bingo!!
October 21st, 2006 at 2:37 am
Babs - I’m sure your “bingo!” was addressed to me knowing the inebriating properties of buttercup syrup rather than agreement with JD’s dictate.
Jboy - I’ll need the practice? Me?
October 21st, 2006 at 6:35 am
allow me to add my own “Bingo!” in support of JD’s comment.
October 21st, 2006 at 4:12 pm
aye, you.
i’m bringing some ether.
October 22nd, 2006 at 3:30 am
You say ether. i say ethoxyethane
October 22nd, 2006 at 9:11 am
hope you feel better by now…
October 27th, 2006 at 4:05 am
I had a scary parallel universe moment there, where you were white and funky on the Mac and blue and kind of hard to read on the PC. I’ve sussed it now though - you can’t pull the wool over my eyes. Hope you feel better soon.
October 29th, 2006 at 5:32 am
if you were a horse you would be taken round the back and shot.
sounds v. much like Man Flu to me - but perhaps not so severe
October 29th, 2006 at 11:29 am
the way I’ve been feeling recently I’d welcome being shot.
And I know…there’s no illness in the world as severe as Man Flu - we women are so lucky we aren’t susceptible to it.
October 29th, 2006 at 12:22 pm
eeek helena are you still under the weather?
comiserations
m