Neck bone connected to the...
So I had my first ever Encounter With A Chiropractor last week. My neck had been acting wierd for months, and finally my whole upper back seized up. I'm talking nasty stabs, annoying tweaks and dull aches, all of the pain variety. Eventually my skull felt like it was falling off. No kidding. It wasn't on quite right any more. I kept wanting to just ROTATE it a la exorcist, in the hope of some relief.
So my Chinese Medicine Doctor Friend (the medicine is Chinese, not her) suggested La Chiropractrice (that would be spanglish). I'm a multicultural kind of girl. So off I lurched, skull teetering gingerly atop neck. Now I've heard a fair bushel of unsolicited horror stories about Chiros, not the least of which was the guy who got completely paralyzed from a neck adjustment. So even going was a huge leap of faith, let alone allowing her to poke and prod around every one of a myriad of painful muscles that had somehow knotted into little bumps just under my skin. I probably looked like the sci fi scenes where there are greeblies crawling under someone's skin just before they erupt into a mass of larva or something. Delightful imagination, mine is.
In ANY event (a favorite derogatory term meaning: would you please shut up, I'm trying to say something WAY more important) there I was belly-down on the table, and there she was poking and prodding and making comforting "mmhmm" noises whenever I yelped at a particularly nasty prod. What is it with health practitioners that cheerfully torture you and then pretend it's all in your head (pun intended, in this case)?? Could it be I have no pain tolerance?
After several hours (actually minutes, but time is relative) she said "well, I think we need to do some adjustments" which, btw, I thought she had ALREADY BEEN doing. Apparently not. So I get flipped like the proverbial pancake (are pancakes proverbial?) and THEN the fun begins. One lies "relaxed" (read: try not to spasm too obviously every time she touches my head) while she grabs the offending member (that would be my SKULL you perverts - since when has "member" been synonymous with male body parts?) twists it to its full range and then when I'm least expecting it, practically YANKS it off my spine. Well okay I'm being a drama queen. But it was a sudden jerky-type movement. Accompanied by: on one side, a VERY satisfying series of snaps and pops and on the other side, me yelping in pain.
I routinely receive horrified looks when I mention I've been to a Chiro, as if they can hex you just by association. Not sure what it's about - they're all over the place, tons of people go to them, but it's still got some kind of stick man attached. (that would be zouzou speak for "stigma". I love using really bad English, like saying "bolivia" instead of "oblivion". I was converted the day I heard a woman say "its a doggy-dog world out there" - after a moment of perplexed silence I nearly went into hysterics laughing. Of course, sometimes people don't GET that I do know the real words, at least most of the time, and think I have no vocabulary. I used Bolivia in front of my ex-father-in-law and he said slowly and clearly "it's OBLIVION". How does one ever explain? The woes of being an eccentric. )
The end of the story is, I had to Go Back for Another Treatment before I achieved a Full Release. Hopefully that WILL be the end of the story, because although I'm duly grateful for the relief, it's REALLY unnerving to have someone yank my head around like that, particularly when I have a little mantra running in my head "a guy got paralyzed by this, a guy got paralyzed by this, a guy.."
So my Chinese Medicine Doctor Friend (the medicine is Chinese, not her) suggested La Chiropractrice (that would be spanglish). I'm a multicultural kind of girl. So off I lurched, skull teetering gingerly atop neck. Now I've heard a fair bushel of unsolicited horror stories about Chiros, not the least of which was the guy who got completely paralyzed from a neck adjustment. So even going was a huge leap of faith, let alone allowing her to poke and prod around every one of a myriad of painful muscles that had somehow knotted into little bumps just under my skin. I probably looked like the sci fi scenes where there are greeblies crawling under someone's skin just before they erupt into a mass of larva or something. Delightful imagination, mine is.
In ANY event (a favorite derogatory term meaning: would you please shut up, I'm trying to say something WAY more important) there I was belly-down on the table, and there she was poking and prodding and making comforting "mmhmm" noises whenever I yelped at a particularly nasty prod. What is it with health practitioners that cheerfully torture you and then pretend it's all in your head (pun intended, in this case)?? Could it be I have no pain tolerance?
After several hours (actually minutes, but time is relative) she said "well, I think we need to do some adjustments" which, btw, I thought she had ALREADY BEEN doing. Apparently not. So I get flipped like the proverbial pancake (are pancakes proverbial?) and THEN the fun begins. One lies "relaxed" (read: try not to spasm too obviously every time she touches my head) while she grabs the offending member (that would be my SKULL you perverts - since when has "member" been synonymous with male body parts?) twists it to its full range and then when I'm least expecting it, practically YANKS it off my spine. Well okay I'm being a drama queen. But it was a sudden jerky-type movement. Accompanied by: on one side, a VERY satisfying series of snaps and pops and on the other side, me yelping in pain.
I routinely receive horrified looks when I mention I've been to a Chiro, as if they can hex you just by association. Not sure what it's about - they're all over the place, tons of people go to them, but it's still got some kind of stick man attached. (that would be zouzou speak for "stigma". I love using really bad English, like saying "bolivia" instead of "oblivion". I was converted the day I heard a woman say "its a doggy-dog world out there" - after a moment of perplexed silence I nearly went into hysterics laughing. Of course, sometimes people don't GET that I do know the real words, at least most of the time, and think I have no vocabulary. I used Bolivia in front of my ex-father-in-law and he said slowly and clearly "it's OBLIVION". How does one ever explain? The woes of being an eccentric. )
The end of the story is, I had to Go Back for Another Treatment before I achieved a Full Release. Hopefully that WILL be the end of the story, because although I'm duly grateful for the relief, it's REALLY unnerving to have someone yank my head around like that, particularly when I have a little mantra running in my head "a guy got paralyzed by this, a guy got paralyzed by this, a guy.."
posted by zouzou at 12:37 p.m.
2 Comments:
As I write this comment, I am in tears with laughter. Not at your pain, mind you, but at the way you write about it. Your eccentricity gets more adorable by the day/post.
And I love the word thing, too. I recently heard someone tell an international student who was here studying English that it's OK to feel "ambiv-U-lant". As our friend Scottie said, "What's that... like... you're not sure if you want to go to the hospital or not??"
The difference is... she said it with a severe nod of the head... not knowing the difference.
Here's hoping your head doesn't spin ALL the way around any time soon...
You are way braver than I! Although our mutual friend SM has got me booked in for some kind of cranial massage-y type thing this week. I'll keep you posted ...
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