I’m thankful you can’t smell me right now.
I smell like vinegar and Chinese medicinal herbs. But the good news is, for the first time in 22 days, my pinched nerve situation is getting better! Yesterday I finally reached an absolute breaking point in my ability to cope with the pain.
After another sleepless night on the sofa, it was high time for action. And the fact is, I was willing to try anything — other than steroid injections or more anti-inflammation meds. (I’ve taken those for weeks now and they simply can’t touch this pain!!) But things were getting pretty desperate… And, to be blunt, Lou was at a breaking point over all of this, too.
My beautiful friend, Sangeeta, was the first person to suggest the use of vinegar to help me with my pain, and so I tried that first thing yesterday morning. But I didn’t know how to do it — I just soaked a washcloth in apple cider vinegar and let it sit on my neck for awhile. Sadly, it only made my eyes water and my head spin, but there was no relief from that effort whatsoever. So finally, Lou called one of our really close friends who had mentioned a doctor in the East Bay who had done a miracle on his back when he had a pinched nerve.
Our friend texted us the name of the doctor, his address, and some sort of cryptic instructions.
The doctor’s name is Dr. Dong, and he doesn’t take credit cards, insurance, or appointments. You just show up at his office with some cash in your pocket, and you wait until it’s your turn to see him. So Lou carefully loaded me up in the Chevy, and we made the hour drive to the heart of this area in Oakland that felt like we just drove into a subberb of China. It wasn’t easy to find the office — mostly because neither of us can read Chinese, and, there were a lot of “Dongs” in the area. But our friend told us that we’d know which office was the right one because there would be a lot of people gathered in the hall waiting for their turn to see the good doc.
The office was just a huge room with dingy red carpet, a few uncomfortable chairs, a pile of tatty magazines — all written in Chinese — and, a paneled wall divider that was more like a fence than a wall. In fact, if you were tall enough, you could probably look over the divider and see the doctor’s work area. So while people are waiting, they can hear the doctor moving around behind the wall doing things that make lots of clacks and clatters. And, everyone could also hear the doctor speaking to his patients in Chinese.
I got a little nervous that I was going to need an interpreter to help Dr. Dong understand my issues, so while I sat in one of the “waiting room” chairs, I practiced explaining my situation in my mind by using only hand and facial gestures. By the time it was finally my turn to meet Dr. Dong, I was pretty much at the end of my rope pain-wise, and, I was totally ready for this guy to help me.
I had already made up my mind that I was going to surrender to whatever he needed to do to me — that’s how desperate this pain was making me.
But part of that surrender meant I had to stop being “me” for the next little bit of time. So I simply ignored the things that normally bother me — like the cleanliness factor my environment, for example. If I saw something dodgy — which I did — I deliberately moved my eyes onto the pattern on my scarf, or…I just closed my eyes altogether and prayed. So when I found myself on the other side of the divider wall, I hardly noticed much of anything other than the warm smile of the tiny Chinese man who was going to help me.
Luckily, Dr. Dong spoke some English, and, he had this well-worn lamented book with pictures of the neck and spine to use with me so I could show him exactly where my pain originated. Within a minute of pointing things out, Dr. Dong started pressing on all of the places where I’ve been so sore, and he seemed to know exactly which vertebra in my neck were causing all of my issues. Once he had his “road map” sorted on my back, he had me climb up onto a rickety massage-like table with a hole in it for my face, and he proceeded to get to work.
First, Dr. Dong rubbed some really smelly wet stuff on my back, followed by some very intense pinching and rubbing all along the left side of my body. Then came some super hot rocks (I think) and some chilled rollers and ice packs that he rolled and pounded all over my back. Everything hurt — especially because being on my stomach causes the pain in my arm to flair up like nothing else. But with each pass of hot, and then cold, my body started to believe that this was going to help.
To his amazing credit, Dr. Dong talked me through everything he was doing in his broken English. He really wanted me to understand why my body was in this state. Lou was seated in a chair off to the side of the massage table, doing his best to help me communicate, too, and so Dr. Dong included Lou in his explanations of what he was noticing about my issues. I was so thankful to have Lou there so I could fully let my guard down and surrender into this experience. It helped me handle the pain and discomfort a little bit easier.
But when Dr. Dong said he was going to “light fire” to my back, some sort of spring-loaded mechanism in my body launched “normal Sonja” back into my awareness!
There was no time for normal Sonja to react, though, because no sooner had the words “light” and “fire” registered in my brain, I could feel Dr. Dong draping these furry strips — that Lou later told me were pretty much thick strips of toilet tissue — all down my back. He was explaining in his broken English that he was going to put something on the paper and that he would light the paper on fire. He said the fire wouldn’t burn my skin, but it would shock my muscle so it would release, and he could move things back into place.
With some kind of paintbrush, Dr. Dong covered the furry strips on my back with a very cold liquid. Then, with the kind of kitchen blow torch you use when you’re making creme brûlée, Dr. Dong lit the paper on fire! A shocking burst of heat hit my back — which caused my whole body to jolt — but was quickly extinguished with a splash of cold water. Immediately, Dr. Dong took his finger, and pushed my muscles with a firm, broad stroke. The release of pain was almost euphoric! I felt the area he was working on sort of slide into alignment, and all of these endorphins instantly scattered down my back and into my legs.
Dr. Dong lit my back, my neck, and my arms on fire multiple times, each time shocking me at first, but then quieting my body into a place of extreme relief. Once the fire situation was complete, Dr. Dong adjusted my neck and both of my elbows, and then he showed me some specific stretches I could do for “200 seconds” three times a day to keep my body in balance and alignment. He also gave me a small paper bag with some instructions (typed in English) for making an “herbal wash” to soak my neck and arm in twice a day. He also prescribed me an anti-inflammatory tea, and he told me I could get it at the Chinese market across the street. He said to drink as much of the tea as I could manage — which I knew was his way of telling me it was going to taste nasty.
And that was that.
As Lou and I made our way to the other side of the divider wall, I was almost afraid to believe how much better I was feeling! My left arm and fingers were still numb, but Dr. Dong told me the herbal wash would help with that, and the tea would also help my circulation return to normal in the next few days.
Lou and I went directly to the Chinese market and handed the lady behind the counter the scrap of paper Dr. Dong gave me with Chinese words written on it. It was the tea he wanted me to drink. When the lady handed Lou a bag of tea that was pretty much the size and shape of one of the throw pillows on my sofa, I was a bit worried about how much tea Dr. Dong was expecting me to drink. But the whole bag cost $3.00, so I just figured I should go with it…
Everything with the exception of my left elbow and pointer finger and thumb went right back to normal after that appointment. It was such a relief!! And as soon as I got home, I brewed up my first batch of the herbal wash — which combines two cups of white vinegar, eight cups of water, and the entire bag of herbs that look exactly like dried up twigs and leaves and a few pieces of some kind of wood cut into thin discs.
The smell is horrible, but after my first twiggy wash session, my arm felt so much better. I did my second wash just before I started writing this blog, only this time, I strained the twigs out of the bucket so I could better soak my arm without all of the messy bark clinging to my skin.
If you’ve been reading The Imposition Tour posts, then my visit to Dr. Dong’s office can’t be a surprise to you.
And, I know that people can and will totally judge Lou and me for going outside the norm when we’re seeking things to heal us. I’m cool with that… Sometimes the unconventional remedies we find work, and sometimes they don’t. (But to be fair, if Dr. Dong would’ve told me to rub honey all over my arm, I’d do it — but obviously, now I’m too smart to fall for watching a movie to cure my problems!!)
But my day with Dr. Dong was so enlightening and so incredibly helpful. Cleary from a physical standpoint, lighting my back on fire had a great result. But from an emotional and spiritual standpoint, the experience was incredibly useful, too. I learned how capable I am of surrender when I’m fully motivated to give up and give in. I can be so stubborn sometimes, and I see how stuck I can get in my ideas. I think that has been a consistent conclusion I’ve come to in many of my blog posts that have been related to the pain I’ve been experiencing.
