A week ago last Saturday, I awoke to shooting knife like pain in my right arm...starting at the shoulder and going down into my right bicep and down the forearm. What the heck! I tried to think of what I did the day before to set this off? Whatever the reason, there I was with this new pain and absolutely no use of my right arm. I struggled to dress myself...had to eat with my left hand ...and try to do all my usual chores with just one hand. I felt vulnerable and helpless and resigned myself to laying low for the rest of the weekend. It hurt to even lay down and sleep was almost impossible. I hoped that with time it would just go away and that this was just another weird side effect of this dreadful Lyme disease.
On Monday I had an appointment with my naturopath and she was also perplexed about the severity of the pain and the incredible swelling in the right shoulder. She gave me some anti-inflammatory remedies and told me to continue with ice and rest. I managed to drive myself there and back using my left hand to shift gears but I knew that I was going to need help in my life if this continued. At this point I was still trying to "go it alone" but by the next day I had to start asking for some help from my workers and students. I had another appointment for acupuncture with Taylore on Tuesday and on the drive into town I cried and cried from this feeling of being so totally helpless. Taylore had to undress me for the treatment and it was like being tended by a kind mother to a small child. Something so out of my realm of experience. Her assessment of my situation was "trauma" of a physical kind but I knew that somehow this was all related to the bigger trauma that I had been working on all winter. Some pain that was stuck in my body and now in the process of letting go. Taylore suggested a session with a bodyworker...one of my dreamwork colleagues...and miraculously she had an opening that afternoon. I cried once again on the drive into town and I began to realize that this was all part of something much larger then just some pain in my shoulder. When Cathy saw me in the waiting room with my arm gripped tight to my chest she also sensed some kind of holding related to my inner work. Holding tight to my baby in that fiery church perhaps??? Her medical opinion was that a tendon had twisted around the shoulder blade and that once the inflammation was reduced, she could work it back into place. In the meantime I needed to stay with these feelings of helpless vulnerability and savor this time to delve deeper into my heart pain.
It was actually the best medicine for me at this point. Not being able to draw, or write, or create collages, or house clean or work gave me the time to focus on collecting music for my upcoming Rooting Shen treatment. I could lay back and listen....find the songs that moved my heart and take some refuge in the music. Taylore had lent me her Ipod with 934 Rooting Shen songs and at first I was overwhelmed by the sheer number. How would I ever get through them all plus find new songs of my own?? And in only two weeks!
Slowly, patiently...with the Ipod on shuffle...I am making my way through them. Finding ones that resonate and skipping over ones that don't. My arm has healed a little bit to the point where I can now feed myself with my right hand and type on a computer keyboard but I still can't manage much else. I am asking for help...crying alot...and finding my way through this healing by taking tiny steps.
And being filled by music.
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