Oh, JESUS! (And Not In An Orgasmic Way, Either, Dammit)

Oh, dear Lord. I probably shouldn't even be sitting up to write this, except that lying down is far more painful.

As I mentioned yesterday, when I went to bed last night I had a cramp (or what I thought was only a harmless and innocent cramp) in my back. As my back is the source of most of my Random Pain Pangs (tm Laurie Notaro), I thought little of it, just took a muscle relaxer, finished up a few things I had to do, and went to bed.

Within five minutes of lying down I was writhing in pain and actually yelling as I thrashed around in the bed. I found the least-painful position and did some deep breathing until I fell asleep.

I had three parties to go to today (as well as a present to buy and a sick friend to visit), and I kept feeling the twinge throughout the day -- not an acute pain, just a "Hey, over here" every time I moved, coughed, or breathed too deeply. That sounds bad, but anyone with chronic back problems knows it's not at all uncommon. I've gotten to where I simply ignore them most of the time. As I was told this evening, I should probably stop doing that.

At Party #1 a friend did a bit of work on it, and what had become a mid-level stream of "hey, I hurt" babble went back to an angry mutter. At Party #2 I took another half a muscle relaxer and spent most of the night leaning into the corner of the couch.

Party #3 was the only one not being thrown by close friends of mine, and due to the need to visit 2 other places, I got there once most of the shindiggery had ended. (In fairness, I had called the hostess and been told to come on over, as while most of the child-having folk had had to make their goodbyes, there was still a party going on.) It was Chelsea's Pre-End-Of-The-World party, a hootenanny she throws yearly on 12.23 in preparation for the end of the Mayan calendar on that date in 2012. Chelsea is one of the Silverscroll members, and she invited me to her party at the Yule celebration (although apparently both times when I talked to her on the phone, she thought I was another Parce she knows, hee), so despite the lateness, I felt compelled to go; I'm trying to broaden my circle in 2006, and all the Silverscrollians seem to be interesting people worth including in that circumference.

By the time I got there, the party had turned into a chill-and-talk-on-the-bed..2 young lesbians, Chelsea herself, a very nice girl and her husband whose names I would probably remember were it not for the fact that I have had a Percocet since meeting her, and Kate, another Silverscrollian.

I approve of lying down and having nonsexual cuddling, which is what we proceeded to do; we talked about this, that and another. After Kate and the little lesbians made their exit, however, the twinge turned without warning into the same horrendous, stabbing pain that had me sounding like a pain porn last night, this time making it difficult to even take a full breath. Greeeeeat feeling, that, to sit on the floor and whimper in front of people with whom you have spent less than 2 hours cumulative in all your life. Hyperventilating in front of strangers is so attractive.

Luckily for me, Chelsea (and the other girl, whom I'll call Cassandra as her name was something close to that, if not that itself) are both healers. After trying to stretch out the now-stabbing pain, which only made it harder to breathe, I ended up lying down and having hands laid on.

The muscle theory was quickly laid to rest, both because the muscle relaxers had failed utterly to relieve any of the pain, and because, despite my orignial categorization of the twinge as "a knot", she failed to actually find any knotting of the muscles when she attempted to rub ir out. "It's nerve pain from lack of alignment in your back, I think," she said.

In the course of the previous conversation the subject of health had come up, so both women knew that I have degeneration in my bottom two vertebrae, so their identification of that as the major break in energy flow was not imexpected. Chelsea imaged my back as a tree whose knots showed her the blockages, while Cassandra "saw" a nerve chart in green and red, but both of them saw some things that were quite impressive, considering our short acquaintance; Chelsea indicated that she saw no "roots" of energy flow at all in my left leg, which I found interesting because until a couple of days after I got the flu, that leg and knee had been subject to near-constant and unexplained pain that had gone on for over 2 months unabated. She also saw a "split" in the energy at precisely the spot where my shoulders usually cramp and burn.

When you deal with holistic healers, however, you get holistic advice, which can be embarassing when they're near-strangers. "You don't listen to your body much," one pointed out, "because you see it as separate from yourself, just another object." Guilty; I spend more time being irritated at my body for failing to function optimally than I do treating it nicely. "Some issues with respect," the other said. "You're proud of yourself, but you don't necessarily think that you're worthy of respect, and thus have trouble giving it, too." (My response to that correctly identified me as a reader of Ayn Rand.) All the while laying on hands, they gave me some advice about body awareness meditation. Chelsea went so far as to predict that my misalignment would, at least temporarily, correct itself within 48 hours, about which we'll see, and gave me some self-monitoring advice. "I can't completely fix it," she said, "not tonight. It's physical and emotional, I'd have to open you all the way up." As I know enough about energy healing to know what time and effort that entails, I understood completely why she hesitated to do that this evening.

It's hard to learn from strangers (although, since she invited me to her next full moon party, I don't think she was as embarassed as I was by the fact that I had spent most of this party lying on her bed and gasping in pain every time I tried to fill my lungs to capacity.) It's especially hard when the learning is about things close to the center of yourself -- your body attitude, the ways you relate to yourself and your world, your faults, essentially. But if you want to be healed, even if only for a little while, you have to take the deeper stuff with the surface. I've never known a real energy worker who didn't work exactly lke that.

However, the Perc has completely kicked in, I'm nodding out in my chair, and I have a feeling that despite the fact that my back is still not happy, I won't be able to avoid sleeping once I lie down. I apologize for any typos I may have missed while touch typing under the influence. If I don't write again before it's over, Happy Festivus. (That said "Jappy" to start with, hee.)

Is it too late for me to page Santa and find out how mice I'd have to be to get a back that works? Oh, well. Have a very Chappy Hismus and a Hairy Maunakah, y'all.