The Caring Professions

I have being getting cracking, bloody tension headaches all week. I worked out somewhere back during my undergrad finals that this is due to fact that when particularly angst ridden I clench my jaw, constantly. This probably means my bloody back is going to go soon too. Joy.

It’s my neck actually, rather than my back (but if you say this, people compulsively refuse to understand the depth of the affliction) and while it’s quite common for people to suffer from a degree of tension related pain here, I am so far the only person I’ve heard of who has managed to temporarily paralyse themselves. Unless you take Freud’s hysterics into account of course, comforting thought that. Actually, I only managed this once, most of the time I’ld just prefer not to move rather than being unable to.

It has to be really quite bad before I’m forced to go back to my physio about it. This is firstly, because she’s a sadistic bitch, who for my money enjoys her work far too much, (the German accent doesn’t help either), and secondly, I’ll get the speech. The first part of the speech will go along the lines of asking whether I’m still going to yoga. When I stare at my feet (or, depending on what she’s doing at the time, the ceiling) and mumble guiltily, she will sternly and with grudging patience explain to me again why all the horrible, agonising pain is the fault of no one but my own stubborn, contrary self.

“All you must do is relax” she says, like this is the easiest thing in the world. The mere uttering of this statement has just ratcheted the pain up another notch, that, and her wrenching my arm behind my back. Then she says that I must work less, and worry less and MUST go to yoga. Yeah, no bother, sort that tomorrow, cow. Now I avoid yoga for all sorts of reasons but principle among these is my lacking the ability to manufacture hours out of thin air. For the medi-sadist this is just further proof of my pig-headed refusal to work with her constructively. This from a woman, who says things like “no, you are doing it wrong, you must go into the pain”, keep in mind the accent here, and “pain is good, it means it is working” (God’s truth, she really does say this).

Once when I was there she had some poor apprentice physio who was practicing on me (I wasn’t exactly ecstatic about this – “ah, so how long have you being doing this?”) while trying to pretend the sadist wasn’t glaring at her like Prof. McGonagall. I’m sitting there thinking this isn’t so bad, kind of relaxing actually. Sadist asks me if it hurts and when I reply in the negative, shoves the student out of the way and digging two thumbs under my shoulder blade, lifts me out of it. With an infuriating self-satisfied expression, she instructs the student, “that is the way to do it”.

For all the pain and trauma and, God help me, the bill, she has repeatedly and cheerfully got me moving again, and as I say once gave me back the use of my left arm. On further thought, maybe she winds me up deliberately, after all everyone’s got to make a living……..