Getting my life back. Twice a week.

My weeks are on a routine that looks pretty much the same month after month. And Monday and Thursday afternoons I have my back treatments. Monday and Thursday evening I get my life back for a few hours.

This winter, as well as the two last ones, February and March have been tougher on me, which means more pain and more difficulties. As a cool addition for the season I can present a stuck neck which makes me dizzy. Every time I move my head the room starts spinning. Looking down, looking up. Lying down. Carousel. As long as I am still I am fine though, so I am grateful for that. And I know it’s the neck, because you can unlock it and I feel better.

What I am always waiting for, I would say, is my treatments. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning hours is a build up for the Thursday afternoon treatment. And Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday morning is getting through the days to finally be at my chiropractor’s waiting room just minutes away to get rescued. And it really is a rescue.

Any person who has been in severe back pain being helped by a chiropractor, osteopath or a naprapath can witness about the miracle. You walk in there crippled and walk out of there with a new body. And I get to have that experience twice a week.

Today it’s Sunday. I am tired from struggling through Friday and Saturday. When stuck everywhere it is difficult to recall the after treatment release, but I will try my best.

It is Magnus or David from Civil Care who picks me up for the treatment. They help me out of my couch, puts my shoes on, escorts me to the car and helps me in. At the clinic, the same procedure but the other way around. Michael has been treating me for some 28 years, his colleagues Robin and Christoffer are learning the drill on how to take care of me.

I am a tough case. Ask any body worker around the world who has been treating me over the years, I am a very tough case, and it is hard on the therapists. Yet Michael greats me twice a week and reads my body like a map. The map that’s 28 years old and the map for today. He knows to keep frustration to himself, telling me the positive things I need to hold on to for hope. I am endlessly grateful to him for that.

So, he takes care of what needs to be taken care of for that day. It is important not to over-treat me, it can back fire. And walking out of his office I am let out of that prison my body creates out of mechanics, muscles and nervous system being in chaos. I am moving a lot better, my body is less scared, I can breath, the release reaches my heart and soul, I can peek out of my darkness and I feel…happy!

On the way back Magnus/David and I make a stop at my grocery store, and holding on to the shopping cart I joyfully harvest my supplies, buy tulips and give Emilio and Giorgio, the Romanian Romanies on their knees in the cold and dark outside, a chicken breast.

Back at the house I turn on the lights in every room and put the match to the candles. Tulips in a vase. Magnus/David are serving me dinner and I have the evening hours on my couch with a good TV series and my knitting. Exactly like every other evening, yet so different. Sometimes I am exhausted, sometimes I have energy. I am often in some after-treatment pain, but it’s a different pain. And my body feels free. There is an open room in my chest. There are smiling thoughts in my head. I am on a high. I feel like anything is possible! I feel like I could book a flight to Seattle! I feel like I got my life back!

I know though, that this will probably be over in the morning. I will and am waking up with a scared stiff body, unstable or stuck already. Life, as it was in the evening, gone, as well as the hope. Now, only struggle until my next chance to be let out. This roller coaster between the empowering insight that it’s actually possible for my body to feel a lot better and the hopelessness with the disappointment that follows, I am on twice a week. Gaining life, loosing life. Gaining life, loosing life.

I am wondering how this roller coaster is affecting me. It’s a tough trip for body and soul. Why do I do it? If life is not staying with me? Why do I risk loosing it twice a week? Because I couldn’t live without it. The treatments are my painkillers and my Prozac. Without them I would be in a constant painhell darkness. I get to have my life back twice a week. How many people gets that? And now it’s only 18 hours until next time.