Just when things were looking like they were on track. Family had had a nice time, School was going well job hunting felt good, gym was going great and I was happy. Then........
I hurt my back at gym, just a twinge I though, maybe a pulled muscle. So I chose to rest for a week taking things slow and giving myself time to heal. It's only a slight mishap I told myself just a little set back.
So as the week progresses I'm not really feeling improvement but didn't really want to acknowledge it.My punishment for this......
....... on the 11th December at 5am I turn over in bed and find myself in excruciating agony. It felt like I was being stabbed over and over in the back with a red hot poker. I finally manage to get out of bed and grab some pain killers. In the hope that they would magically cure this writhing agony.
I wait 30 minutes and then realize I am really in trouble and need to go to hospital. my only option for this is to call my assistant from school, who jumps out of bed wakes her family and takes her little boy to school, then comes to help.
In the interim I call my friend who has an apartment with an elevator and ask if I can come stay for a few days. Since I live on the 6th floor with no elevator it seems like a good idea at the time.
I realise I need to grab a few things in a bag and that I have a second interview for the job in Russia tonight. I grab my little laptop and my research too. Feeling happy I am organised and totally sure that this pain will be no problem by then. Convincing myself as I am crawling on the floor or bent double trying to organise myself.
Getting dressed wasn't as hard as I thought it would be it would later become more difficult.
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I got myself down the stairs, it's a slow process and I am walking bend at 90 degrees. Each step is so painful and my left leg is burning with fire and ice but felt numb to touch! My only relief is to squat for a few moments before carrying on. I wanted to get down stairs so that when my assistant arrives we can just go straight away.
As I am on my way down stairs she calls to say she is nearly there and we will take a taxi!! I instantly panic ( if you have read older blogs you'll understand the crazy antics of taxi drivers here) No way can I get into a taxi we need someone to help me. So now she goes to get her husband and he can drive us. The as I near th ebottom of the 5 flights of stairs a guy stops to ask whats wrong - I explain and he says @go slowly@ before he continues on his way!! Nice thanks for helping !!!
We get to the hospital, it's crowded and I am so scared someone will bump into me. Once we are registered we need to get to the fourth floor so slowly and cautiously we make our way through the people and reach the elevator.
As I step into the elevator, someone pushes past me to hit the buttons - sending shock waves through me. In a pain fueled outburst I reach behind me, grab their coat and quite literally, throw them across the elevator. I have no idea if this person was young or old, healthy or infirm. It was a pure pain response.
As I did i,t I simultaneously see the feet in the elevator make a clear semicircle of clearance around me.So they were all well out of reach and definitely not going to bump into me in anyway. There is a part of me that feels bad that I did that but the other part of it is that we were all in a hospital, where people are sick and injured so to be a little cautious around others would, you would think, be something to think about. Sadly many Chinese live life in a self satisfying bubble.
We get to the doctors office it is as usual full of people waiting to see the guy, literally waving their books at him whilst others are being treated and consulted. They take great interest in what's wrong with the foreigner. He decides we need to go for a CT scan. So back down stairs we go! Back into the elevator but this time we have a wheelchair, I might be safer in this but my driver is pretty useless and I think the general public are in more danger. We don't wait long and now I need to get on to the machine so they can scam my back. Climbing up onto that table felt like Everest itself!
On out return the doctor informs me from the scan, which is electronically now in the system. Yes I did say that, we went down stairs to the CT room, did the scan and then back up to the doctor to see the results which were waiting for me. All with in 40 minutes. Quite something huh!
Anyways the results showed that I had knocked 3 vertebrae out of place and slipped a disk too. It was really Painful!!
The treatment he prescribes rest first of all prescribes some medication - IV drips of pain relief for 3 mornings, which meant going home and then every morning getting up, get dressed and go to hospital for 25 minutes of IV to then just go home again. The process took forever. Just walking to the bathroom in the apartment took 30 minutes!
The next phase was physio, now that to you and I is exercise, massage and manipulation. NO not here, I am taken into a room strapped to a bed with my back hovering over a steaming vat of Chinese medicine. As I try to straighten my leg I am already in agony. Then without warning the nurse hits a switch and the bed starts pulling me straight. I realize I am on a Rack!! Good old fashioned torture apparatus !!! I can't even scream out it's so bad!! My assistant has to ask for it to stop!!! I can't even breathe!!!
The nurses response is "but the Chinese people can do it" as if we all walked into the place with exactly the same injury!! Again my rage reared it's ugly head and she was faced with an onslaught of Scottish vocabulary!!
OH my I have never felt anything like it!! I felt like I was being electrocuted with a horrendous amount of volts. Back to the Doctor we go and ask for an alternative treatment.
Prescribed acupuncture, ok , well at least that doesn't involve someone trying to straighten me out in one go!
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I have to admit I was a little scared of the entire thought of needles going into my back when things are already in a bad way, what if he hits something he's not supposed to, what if it goes wrong!! How much damage can an acupuncturist do?
So we get there, which is never easy since I have my little Chinese assistants from school trying to push the wheelchair I am now in, but they have no strength, are often sight restricted and don't seem to look in front to where we are going. I am sure the jolts and bumps are not helping! I have been pushed into the back of an elevator so many times I've lost count.
So in to the acupuncture lair I go! It's super busy and the doctors are dashing here and there. Finally my guy has a minute and he speaks pretty good English WOop!! So he sees the problem because all my medical info is on an electronic file (awesome!) I'm wheeled into the cubical to see a table with a used white sheet spread over it and a pillow dawned with someone else hair all over it! NICE!! Basic hygiene is a worry so what about the needles!!
So first things first find a comfortable position that I can lie still in for 20 minutes whilst having needles stuck into my back, hip and leg!
The next 6 weeks would be the same procedure over and over again. The first week I could only lie for 10 minutes before the pain reached intolerable heights. As the weeks progressed the length of time I could tolerate grew and grew.
So what was the procedure, let me tell you!!
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First the needles go into my spine, I feel them pierce and then first touch the outside of nerve, then touch the nerve itself! This pain shoots down my leg all the way to my big toe like a bolt of lightening!! My back receives 4 needles, my hip 4 and my leg 3. They are then given electric current which makes the needles jump. The reason for this is to relax the muscles and help the body regain it's "chi". The needles are then followed with a course of cupping, 8 cups in total are used.
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Before cupping is done the Doctor pierces my skin several times to draw out the stagnant blood, which would naturally be bruising. The cups are then applied and it feels like I've been bitten by a dragon! 8 times over.
The blood gathers in the cup and should allow for better flow through my back and leg.
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Sometimes after therapy I do feel better but on other occasions I feel worse. 10 sessions of acupuncture per treatment. Monday to Friday off I go for 3 hours of needle piercing fun!!
The second round of treatment included having small smoking medicine blocks placed on the ends of the needles to smoke me. I think the medicine is supposed to go down the needles and into my body directly, seems to me the smoke just rises and fills the room!!!
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After 20 sessions I've gone from walking at 90 degree to being in a wheelchair to walking with the aid of a frame and now to standing and walking for short distances. Things are improving, I can't help but wonder how I would be if things had progressed naturally!.
Now I am on a break from treatment to let my body rest and to celebrate Chinese new year too. I go back for a final 10 sessions and 1 weeks rest before hopefully getting back to work. It looks;like a total of 4 months off work which is a sore hit on my reserves, a cancelled holiday and no private lessons at home since I am living with a friend.! Although not quite out of the woods yet I can now see the wood from the trees and feel myself getting stronger all the time. I will have to wear back support quite often but it's a small price to pay!
I hope to get home in the next few weeks and start getting ready for my new destination, since I managed to nail my interview from my sick bed and land myself an awesome job in Moscow starting in August. Every cloud has a silver lining!! :)
I hurt my back at gym, just a twinge I though, maybe a pulled muscle. So I chose to rest for a week taking things slow and giving myself time to heal. It's only a slight mishap I told myself just a little set back.
So as the week progresses I'm not really feeling improvement but didn't really want to acknowledge it.My punishment for this......
....... on the 11th December at 5am I turn over in bed and find myself in excruciating agony. It felt like I was being stabbed over and over in the back with a red hot poker. I finally manage to get out of bed and grab some pain killers. In the hope that they would magically cure this writhing agony.
I wait 30 minutes and then realize I am really in trouble and need to go to hospital. my only option for this is to call my assistant from school, who jumps out of bed wakes her family and takes her little boy to school, then comes to help.
In the interim I call my friend who has an apartment with an elevator and ask if I can come stay for a few days. Since I live on the 6th floor with no elevator it seems like a good idea at the time.
I realise I need to grab a few things in a bag and that I have a second interview for the job in Russia tonight. I grab my little laptop and my research too. Feeling happy I am organised and totally sure that this pain will be no problem by then. Convincing myself as I am crawling on the floor or bent double trying to organise myself.
Getting dressed wasn't as hard as I thought it would be it would later become more difficult.
I got myself down the stairs, it's a slow process and I am walking bend at 90 degrees. Each step is so painful and my left leg is burning with fire and ice but felt numb to touch! My only relief is to squat for a few moments before carrying on. I wanted to get down stairs so that when my assistant arrives we can just go straight away.
As I am on my way down stairs she calls to say she is nearly there and we will take a taxi!! I instantly panic ( if you have read older blogs you'll understand the crazy antics of taxi drivers here) No way can I get into a taxi we need someone to help me. So now she goes to get her husband and he can drive us. The as I near th ebottom of the 5 flights of stairs a guy stops to ask whats wrong - I explain and he says @go slowly@ before he continues on his way!! Nice thanks for helping !!!
We get to the hospital, it's crowded and I am so scared someone will bump into me. Once we are registered we need to get to the fourth floor so slowly and cautiously we make our way through the people and reach the elevator.
As I step into the elevator, someone pushes past me to hit the buttons - sending shock waves through me. In a pain fueled outburst I reach behind me, grab their coat and quite literally, throw them across the elevator. I have no idea if this person was young or old, healthy or infirm. It was a pure pain response.
As I did i,t I simultaneously see the feet in the elevator make a clear semicircle of clearance around me.So they were all well out of reach and definitely not going to bump into me in anyway. There is a part of me that feels bad that I did that but the other part of it is that we were all in a hospital, where people are sick and injured so to be a little cautious around others would, you would think, be something to think about. Sadly many Chinese live life in a self satisfying bubble.
We get to the doctors office it is as usual full of people waiting to see the guy, literally waving their books at him whilst others are being treated and consulted. They take great interest in what's wrong with the foreigner. He decides we need to go for a CT scan. So back down stairs we go! Back into the elevator but this time we have a wheelchair, I might be safer in this but my driver is pretty useless and I think the general public are in more danger. We don't wait long and now I need to get on to the machine so they can scam my back. Climbing up onto that table felt like Everest itself!
 |
| my scan - this copy took 3 weeks ! |
Anyways the results showed that I had knocked 3 vertebrae out of place and slipped a disk too. It was really Painful!!
The treatment he prescribes rest first of all prescribes some medication - IV drips of pain relief for 3 mornings, which meant going home and then every morning getting up, get dressed and go to hospital for 25 minutes of IV to then just go home again. The process took forever. Just walking to the bathroom in the apartment took 30 minutes!
 |
| the Rack |
The nurses response is "but the Chinese people can do it" as if we all walked into the place with exactly the same injury!! Again my rage reared it's ugly head and she was faced with an onslaught of Scottish vocabulary!!
OH my I have never felt anything like it!! I felt like I was being electrocuted with a horrendous amount of volts. Back to the Doctor we go and ask for an alternative treatment.
Prescribed acupuncture, ok , well at least that doesn't involve someone trying to straighten me out in one go!
So we get there, which is never easy since I have my little Chinese assistants from school trying to push the wheelchair I am now in, but they have no strength, are often sight restricted and don't seem to look in front to where we are going. I am sure the jolts and bumps are not helping! I have been pushed into the back of an elevator so many times I've lost count.
So in to the acupuncture lair I go! It's super busy and the doctors are dashing here and there. Finally my guy has a minute and he speaks pretty good English WOop!! So he sees the problem because all my medical info is on an electronic file (awesome!) I'm wheeled into the cubical to see a table with a used white sheet spread over it and a pillow dawned with someone else hair all over it! NICE!! Basic hygiene is a worry so what about the needles!!
So first things first find a comfortable position that I can lie still in for 20 minutes whilst having needles stuck into my back, hip and leg!
The next 6 weeks would be the same procedure over and over again. The first week I could only lie for 10 minutes before the pain reached intolerable heights. As the weeks progressed the length of time I could tolerate grew and grew.
So what was the procedure, let me tell you!!
First the needles go into my spine, I feel them pierce and then first touch the outside of nerve, then touch the nerve itself! This pain shoots down my leg all the way to my big toe like a bolt of lightening!! My back receives 4 needles, my hip 4 and my leg 3. They are then given electric current which makes the needles jump. The reason for this is to relax the muscles and help the body regain it's "chi". The needles are then followed with a course of cupping, 8 cups in total are used.
The blood gathers in the cup and should allow for better flow through my back and leg.
The second round of treatment included having small smoking medicine blocks placed on the ends of the needles to smoke me. I think the medicine is supposed to go down the needles and into my body directly, seems to me the smoke just rises and fills the room!!!
Now I am on a break from treatment to let my body rest and to celebrate Chinese new year too. I go back for a final 10 sessions and 1 weeks rest before hopefully getting back to work. It looks;like a total of 4 months off work which is a sore hit on my reserves, a cancelled holiday and no private lessons at home since I am living with a friend.! Although not quite out of the woods yet I can now see the wood from the trees and feel myself getting stronger all the time. I will have to wear back support quite often but it's a small price to pay!
I hope to get home in the next few weeks and start getting ready for my new destination, since I managed to nail my interview from my sick bed and land myself an awesome job in Moscow starting in August. Every cloud has a silver lining!! :)
