last week i hurt my knee while i was in ny. i’ve had issues with my knees in the past – thickness impacts if you know what i mean. i’m working on it.
anyway, while helping our hostess, the elegant super fabulous dj rimarkable, with some groceries for a gig she was catering (she’s the pam the funkstress of the east), i slipped on a patch of ice. i thought i was fine, but within a few hours my leg was swollen, hurting, my back felt lopsided and like it might have a knife in it, and i could hardly walk.
a breakdancer friend hooked me up with her doctor, but he was busy that day, so sent me to an orthopedic immediate care unit. and the immediate care unit did everything but touch my knee and actually figure out what was wrong with it. i told them all i knew, that it felt twisted or sprained – not broken. i told them i just needed some pain relief, some guidelines on how to not make it worse. they gave me an ultrasound, an x-ray, and some percoset (with a brief reference to constipation and drowsiness, bad combo…).
it amazed me to sit with health professionals who clearly cared and wanted to help, but didn’t even examine my injury over the 5 hours i was with them.
the next night i went to see dj rimarkable spin and chairdanced all night. at the end of the night a woman who had actually held it down on the dance floor asked what was up, and i explained about my knee. she said – i am an acupuncturist, and i can do something about that.
the next day i met her at the brooklyn acupuncture project and she physically examined my knee, tracing all the rivers of pain flowing up and down my leg and back. and then she pinned me from head to toe.
after about 15 minutes, i felt a release in my back that led me to giggle. after another half hour, as i was drifting in that magical sleep that comes with acupuncture, i felt a massive boom through my whole body which rachel the acupuncturist told me was a chi boom, and a good thing. after she pulled out the needles, she rubbed an analgesic oil on my knee and said it was better than ice, which can put a chill into the joint that keeps it from healing. an hour after i walked in feeling broken, i walked out feeling aligned and healed, barely limping.
when i got home i went to the detroit community acupuncture clinic and got another treatment with nora, who also hooked me up with some kind of magical tiger balm patches to keep on my joints.
i just facilitated the whole weekend and could actively feel my body attending to itself, healing faster than i ever have from a knee (or ankle, or back) injury.
it felt like the exclamation mark on a train of thought i’ve been having – i want to always choose the traditional healing methods, the methods that rely on touch and turning the body’s healing properties on itself.
and i have to remember that, even in emergencies, when it feels like the ER is the best move. i don’t need health systems that start off asking about my insurance and give me the most expensive tests they have without leaving me in better condition.
i need healing.