Lumbering Along

It’s been nearly three months, so it appears it’s finally safe to say that I’ve been cured! 

Over the last few years, I sustained a neck injury that got progressively worse. I always assumed that it happened in one of two car accidents within a one-year span, but after talking over my injury history with a wonderful osteopath (Melissa Leverre, here in London) it became clear that it was more likely a fall in the bathtub. I went facedown on the edge. It cracked my nose, blackened both of my eyes and likely gave me a concussion. Chiropractic treatments only made my neck worse and over time, it gave me progressively troublesome headaches, the likes of which I’d never felt before.

The osteopath helped and so did massage therapy but the nagging pain was always in the background, just waiting to get aggravated by lifting a bag of groceries or bending to pick something up off the floor. If you’ve ever had chronic pain, you know what I’m talking about. You start living in fear that you’ll make it flare up and it just takes the fun out of doing things.

Enter a load of lumber. Specifically, a pickup-bed load of old barnboard we bought from a pal here in the city last Thanksgiving Monday. As Al and I watched Derek load the boards, we chatted about why we weren’t helping and it turns out that he had a neck injury as well. As he explained his quest for a fix, and how he nearly gave up, the similarities made a chill run up my spine. I had been starting to think about a life without riding a motorcycle anymore (there’s no way my neck could support a helmet) and asking Derek to do the most mundane chores for me. But as Al continued, all I could think about was finding out who made him feel better.

She’s a chiropractor in Lambeth, and I’d mention her name but you can’t get in to see her without a referral anyway. For a moment, I wondered if I had it in me to get my hopes up again but I realized that if I didn’t keep looking for help, I knew what the future held and it wasn’t great. Al referred me and with tentative excitement, I went to see Dr. Z.

She’s an unusual woman. Warm, beautiful and a great interviewer. Long story short, she did one tiny adjustment, so subtle and so gentle, and in that moment I knew in my heart that she had found the issue, high on my neck at the base of my skull. It was the most amazing feeling. And that’s that. I’ve been back a couple of times but not for that issue. I truly think it’s done.

Now my imagined life is like a feminine protection commercial! I’m riding horses (my iron horse, anyway), swimming, and feeling free! The message here? Never give up. It took more than two years to find someone with the right expertise but I’m glad I didn’t quit looking.