Over the 25 years
that I've been in practice, I've become an "injury specialist." While I don't
like to deliver testimonials from my present and former clients, I can share some of my
favorite family stories.
"You can take
the pain out of anything…" . My "once upon a time" partner's 11 year old son had fallen, after doing a
dare-devil move on skis, landed on one hand just wrong. We took him for xrays.
Both the radius and ulna bones were fractured just above the wrist complex. He was instructed as follows: "Keep the splint on at all
times except when showering, and wait a week for the swelling to go down, and
then see your orthopedic surgeon to get it casted."
Then we went home,
and ET (not his real initials) began complaining about the extreme pain he
experienced.
I said, "You Know, I can help you with
that if you'd like me to. But you'd need to take the splint off."
"Oh, no, she told me I mustn't
do that!!"
"Let me know when you've
changed your mind," I responded, and he went off to console
himself. About half an hour later, he came back, and said, "Louisa, PLEASE help me!"
OK. We sat down
together on the sofa, and I held his wrist gently in my two hands, focusing my
concentration on the image I'd seen in the xray. The swelling went down, and
when the pain had dissipated enough for him to tolerate, he called it quits for
the time being.
We went to the
movies as a distraction (The first Harry Potter movie had just come out).
Afterwards, I said, "Let
me know when you want more." and he went to bed.
"Wanting
More" came at 5 am the next morning. Once more we sat together on the
sofa, I held his wrist, and went to work. In about an hour, we both felt the
bones shift into place, where they belonged, the swelling disappeared, the pain
disappeared, and ET put his splint back on, happy and his usual playful self
again. Neither pain nor swelling ever
returned.
A week later, the
doctor xrayed ET's wrist, pleased that the fracture had healed so well all by
itself, casted the lower arm, and made a new appointment for six weeks later.
A month or so after
the cast was removed, ET was given an assignment in school; he needed to give
an oral presentation to his class on some health related topic. He came to me
and said "Louisa, I want
to show the class how you healed my broken wrist."
"ET, you know nobody will
believe us, don't you?"
"I don't care, I want to give
my presentation on my broken bones and how they healed."
So we went to work
in the kitchen, creating a bread and cookie dough model of the human arm, with
some spaghetti and raw egg whites to show the nerves, blood vessels, and
connective tissues. I also gave him some anatomy illustrations to include in
his written work, and we went to class on the appointed day as a team.
ET explained our
project to his class, we showed them the model. By now, no student was sitting
at a desk in the "boredom" position. As everyone gathered around, we
picked up the model and broke it.
"When bones are bruised or
broken, it isn't just the bones that need to repair. It's all the ligaments,
tendons, muscles, nerves, blood vessels, and connective tissues attaching to
the bones, that also must be repaired, " ET said proudly. Making
the model had really worked to give him the understanding he wanted. I was so
proud of him.
"There's more to it than that,
" I said to the class,
"but that's the most important information that can help you if you ever
get hurt like this."
"Makes sense…" his
teacher said.
