5

The Fifth One: Why I Vehemently Believe In What I Do For A Living
or
The Fifth One: My Back Went Out And I Opted Against An Oxy Addiction And Crippling Debt

So my back went out recently.  It was so fun.
I realize that a lot of you totally understand this experience and felt some sort of instantaneous tightening or tingling in some area of your lower spine the minute you read that.  I also understand that for a lot of us hearing people talk about massage, acupuncture, or chiropractic adjustments as treatment for this and similar ailments also elicits a similarly specific response.  Eyes roll a little, a smirk, and "Oh, that's cute.  But not with the kind of pain I experience".

Yeah.  I get it.  I get that response tossed in my face quite often.  Usually followed by a long story about a doctor, his or her diagnosis and how no one in the history of modern medicine has ever seen a case as unique and completely untreatable as this one.  And that the ONLY option was surgery, pills, and a lifetime of pain and discomfort.  Maybe this was true about ONE of you.  Maybe parts of it were true about SOME of you.  But for a lot of you - and I'm probably going to really offend you here - it wasn't.

Unfortunately, like most of what I write, this isn't ground-breaking material.  One of these days I'll make it a mission to sit down and write something that actually sounds innovative.  Or at the least not ripped from the headlines of "Women's Wear Daily".  It's stuff that has been floating around the common consciousness for the last few years but it's something that still isn't being acted on.  We're still cutting big chunks of ourselves out that inconvenience us and replacing them with Steve Austin's rejects.  (Bionic Man, people.  C'mon)  We're still filling prescriptions for the kind of insanely addictive drugs that bring entire urban populations into crisis mode.  (I'm so sorry for you Baltimore, Maryland)  It's just too bizarre.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not preparing to launch into a brilliantly crafted, well-documented argument intended to bring the pharmaceutical industry to its knees.  I've got a lot of "Vampire Diaries" to catch up on and I'm obviously too busy.  I would like to offer up one person's experience with an alternative to the above-mentioned horror show and maybe shame one or two of you into rethinking a few things.

See - it went out at work.  Midway through the second massage of my shift and - whammo - immobile. I had started out that day fine.  Did my morning yoga.  Did my walk.  Ate breakfast.  All good.  Then I laid on the floor to read a book and apparently that was just too much craziness for one spine.  (It's always something weird and seemingly innocuous from what I understand.)  It got tight and uncomfortable but I just thought "I'll power through!  I'm limber and healthy!  It's fine".  Ha.  Later at work, as I felt the fist close around my lower back and grind every nerve ending into oblivion I thought, "Hmm.  I guess I'm not fine.  PLEASEGODMAKEITSTOPSWEETBABYJESUSINASWING"  I barely "drove" home - stick shift in stop-and-go traffic nope - and immediately iced it (NOT a heating pad!!)  I called one of my favorite massage therapists to schedule an appointment the very next day.  I emailed my acupuncturist for the following day and a chiropractor for later in the week.  I kept icing.  I rested as best I could.  There may have been a little wine those first couple nights but other than that I handled it with the best tools I knew.  And you know what? A week later I was back at work.  Minus extremely expensive surgeries that create entirely new problems and prescription "pain management" pills that give me another shot at stardom on a new season of "Intervention".

I don't intend this to be some smug "Look how much healthier I am!  Squee!!" Facebookish post that makes you wanna tie me down and break my toes one at a time.  But, honestly, if that is your reaction, maybe a little more exercise wouldn't be such a bad thing for you.  Once again, I'm just putting it out there, that there is another option.  And once again, some of you are already furiously typing your own personal tale of medically impossible phenomena that renders you immobile and immune to my "new age bullshit".  And once again, once again - this is true for maybe ONE of you.
So.  STOP TYPING.  Sit for a second and consider that "Alternative Medicine" shouldn't be "Alternative".  What if it was "Integrative"?  What if it was "Medicine"?

I put a quote on my website that I made up and that I actually like: "Massage isn't a luxury.  It's maintenance." (Pretty good, huh?  Seriously.  Kinda nailed it there.)  Spas are great and fun but that's not what massage was originally intended for.  It was the way Chinese, Indian, Japanese, and even Roman cultures healed themselves over two thousand years ago.  Obviously, something in it works for it to be around that long.  Acupuncture isn't a wacky trend made up in Ojai in the seventies.  It is an ancient, well-researched, amazingly potent form of healing used by millions of people all over the world.  Let's recognize that Western medicine isn't the only game in town, folks.  All due respect to Madame Curie, Jonas Salk, and the efficacy of Ibuprofen on hangovers.

But the thing about these tools is that they aren't always as "instant" as we like our treatments.  We wanna take a pill and have it solved.  Go to the doctor and get a diagnosis.  Have our surgery and forget about it.  The irony of these solutions is that they aren't always solutions.  Just opportunities to create more problems.  That require more surgeries.  And more pills.  Bodywork and other related fields of healing require responsibility and awareness.  They require you to breathe deeper, listen softly, and take notes.  They require you.  Present, accountable you.  Not exactly stuff we're very good at.
Are we?

Try this.  Stop thinking of your health as something that other people have all the control over.  Maintain.  Stop letting yourself believe that every solution to every problem lies in someone else's decision.  Maintain.  Look at the habits you have now that could lead to the kind of catastrophic failure that truly can only be fixed by the one-two punch of surgery and pills.  Make changes.  Embrace new possibilities.  Get uncomfortable in your head and more comfortable in your body.  Stretch.  Drink a glass of water.  Tell someone you love that you love them impossibly and watch the medicine flow.

You have so much more in you than you know.  Your body is capable of so many beautiful and amazing things.  You have super healing powers.  You don't even need a red cape and tights - but I strongly encourage it.

Go be faster than a speeding bullet, you gorgeous thing, you.

Coming up...
Vampires In High Schools - Alive For Centuries But Still Can't Leave Seventeen-year-old Girls Alone.  Good Lord.