I wanted to share this experience with the group, in case anyone else
can be helped by it. It's kind of long, you may want to save for
when you have some time or print it out (the idea of someone printing
out something I wrote is very pleasing, I confess). I won't even go
so far as to give the usual disclaimer "consult with your doctor
rather than take my advice," etc., because I don't put much faith in
doctors, but I will say that I am not medical professional, nor have
I ever been one—I am a Webmaster whose knowledge of human anatomy and
medicine is no greater, and probably less, than yours.

Yesterday I suffered a serious injury. The emergency room diagnosis
may prove incorrect, but my most serious problem is a dislocated
tendon—the tibiofibular, which is near the ankle. Less serious is the
sprain, and the least problem of all is a small break called an oss,
where a tiny piece of the bone chips off and is free-floating. Yep, I
managed to break, dislocate, and sprain my ankle, all at once. I'm
very good at multi-tasking

After I twisted my ankle, it looked to me as if the bone was
dislocated—it wasn't swollen, just bent in a strange and alarming
way. It hurt to put weight on it, but I didn't feel the excruciating
pain of a dislocation or a break. It felt as if my ankle had popped
out of the socket, and when I rotated the ankle, I could hear a
strange clicking noise, and it seemed the ankle bone was moving
around in a place where it didn't belong. So I spent a half-hour
trying to pop it back using two thumbs. This process was far more
painful than the injury itself. But finally I heard a very loud crack
and everything slid back into place to my immense relief. I walked to
work and thought I'd be only a bit sore the next day. After sitting
and typing for two hours, I started to feel pain, and my ankle was
almost as swollen as if I had broken it. I went home and had another
go; it clicked into place, instant relief, and the swelling
immediately subsided. I made sure not to sit down, to keep moving,
and called some friends to get a second opinion. We did some research
online, figuring it was a dislocation because my manual re-locations
provided relief, although it wouldn't stay in. When I read that
dislocations should be treated immediately because of the risk of
nerve damage, we went to the emergency room (big-time favor from that
friend, by the way, there is no bigger favor, in my book, it's worth
twenty "pick me up from the airport"s and at least ten "help me move
to a new apartment"s)

As you can imagine, the emergency room in NYC is filled with addicts
with the DTs, psychiatric patients, hypochondriacs, and people
without any form of health insurance (since that is the only place
they are guaranteed treatment), but very few emergencies involving
severe pain or life-threatening problems. One thing that bothered me
a great deal was after about two hours, the pain was so severe I
started to cry. Not boo-hooing, it wasn't that bad, just a few tears.
I was embarrassed, but what really pissed me off was this father of a
college kid with a peanut allergy just kept staring at me. Even my
friend had the good grace to just ignore the tears, I mean, he knows
that I hate for anyone to see me cry. And this total stranger was
staring and staring, as if I was some kind of freak, if I wasn't so
preoccupied with the pain, I would have knocked him right out of his
chair. I couldn't get up and move somewhere else because it was the
only bench, the other furniture was chairs, and I needed to stretch
out my leg. So I just tried not to think about how incredibly rude he
was and maybe he did me a favor because I was so pissed off I stopped
crying.

When I was finally seen by the doctor in the treatment room, he
rolled up my sweatpants and left me there for a few minutes with a
bag of ice. A couple of thuggy-looking guys took this opportunity to
discuss me amongst themselves, the consensus seemed to be that I
wasn't much to look at but have great legs. Probably true, but I look
a hell of a lot better out of my workout clothes, when I'm not in
pain, and have showered within the last twenty hours, and just cause
my pant leg was rolled up to my upper thigh doesn't mean they had to
look. But I softened up because they clearly cared about their
suicidal friend, and later brought me a little stand to prop up my
leg, and inquired about how I was feeling, so hey, maybe the
emergency room is a good place to score chicks after all.

So after three hours of waiting and two hours of treatment, during
which all the doctors assured me that nothing was broken, and my
numerous requests for painkillers were brushed aside, some guy in
scrubs comes along while I'm sitting in the hallway and starts
prodding my ankle. "Does it hurt here, how about here, and here?"
Most of the ankle was tender, a few places were quite painful, but
there was a small spot where it was absolutely excruciating, and he
kept pressing there. He didn't introduce himself, and seemed to be
taking an almost scientific interest in me, as if he just happened to
be strolling along the hallway. "Can you stop doing that, please?" I
snapped at him. And then it finally came out that he was the bone
doctor and had seen my X-rays, and in fact a little piece of the bone
had chipped off and was free-floating around, and that was where it
was most painful.

I don't know why he didn't tell me this up front, but in the
emergency room, the doctors seem to always downplay the seriousness
of the problem. The last time I was in the emergency room, I had a
fever of 103.4, was wearing layers of wool sweaters and flannel
shirts in the middle of August, and hadn't eaten a scrap of food for
four days. I could not even drink water without, well, best not to
get too graphic, let's just leave it at I could not drink water, nor
eat food. I was completely delirious, and being the total idiot that
I was as a teenager, I refused my boyfriend's offer of assistance
because I didn't want him to see me when I wasn't looking sexy, so I
went to the emergency room alone. When they told me to go home and
take a Tylenol, I believed them (not that they actually gave me a
Tylenol, mind you, and so I never even took it). After a week of
pushing 104, the fever dropped down to 102, and I could drink water,
but I didn't want to. I was so weak that when I walked to the grocery
store to see if I could find something that I might want to eat, I
could only walk about five steps before I had to stop and sit down.
On the sidewalk of NYC, which did not even draw strange looks. No
point wondering where my friends were during all this time, I lived
in a college dormitory, and as I discovered, my so-called friends
were not my true friends. It was a full month before my fever dropped
to 100-101, and by that time, I was so ravaged by illness,
dehydration, and improper nutrition (instant mashed potatoes not
being a complete food source) that I had to withdraw for the semester
and move back home; it was 3-4 months before I fully recovered. I
found real friends when I returned to school, though.

But the purpose of that anecdote was only to illustrate how few
actual emergencies come into the emergency rooms, so that a severely
dehydrated person with a dangerously high fever is considered to be
just another hypochondriac. I don't believe they actually even took
my temperature. Except for an early bout with pneumonia that almost
claimed my life when I was 4, that was my most serious illness. But
you know, even with the pneumonia, which I remember so distinctly
because of the pain, my mother had to bring me to second emergency
room because the first one told her that I was perfectly fine, even
though I was crying because each breath was agony. It seems so
heartless that an emergency room would refuse to treat a small child
in such pain, so that we had to drive to the next town to find a
different doctor, but that is exactly what happened, so I guess my
distrust of doctors started young, but luckily I've only had those
two near-misses and I am actually in pretty good health.

Maybe I was a bad doctor in a previous lifetime, because I've had
awful luck with emergency rooms and doctors in general. I don't know
why, but they always seem to think I am shamming. I visited five
different doctors, including well-respected specialists, in the last
ten years, trying to get treatment for what later turned out to be a
very common problem, runner's knee, well, four months of physical
therapy might have saved me ten years of pain, not to mention some
permanent damage to the cartilage. I honestly think NYC doctors are
the very worst in the country; I have yet to find a decent physician,
one who listens and accepts that pain isn't a normal state, in 14
years of living here.

I've learned to take responsibility for my own healing. Sure, it's
painful sometimes, but if I know what is wrong with me, then why
bother going to the doctor? Why bother with stitches if no-one will
ever see the scar (it's on the palm of my hand)? Cauterizing a
puncture wound is not fun, but it allowed me to heal in the time I
would have spent waiting to get an appointment with the doctor (I had
already had a tetanus shot). I haven't pulled my own tooth, I
recently suggested that my mother assist me in this procedure, but
she rolled her eyes and gave me a check for the dentist. (Money also
has something to do with my unwillingness to go to the doctor, but I
don't trust them to preserve my life, is the main reason—luck or
grace or whatever you want to call it is the only reason I am still
alive.)

Working with horses as a teen, I've seen a lot of injuries, and some
are quite similar to human injuries, if not exactly the same. Horses
are not good patients; I recall an especially bad experience with
arterial spurting where the horse would not stand still and, well,
perhaps this is getting a bit too graphic. Certainly it's too long
and I should wrap it up. But what I have right now is similar to a
bowed tendon in equines, and that usually means the end of the
horse's working life; they can no longer be ridden. For my dislocated
tendon, all the research I've done indicates that surgery is
mandatory, but I refuse to believe it. I just cracked it back into
place and it's like the injury never happened. I feel great. The
problem is I cannot get the tendon to stay there, but it is staying
there for longer and longer lengths of time. I won't accept surgery
until every single other option has been explored, and even then, I
don't know if I'd agree to the procedure.

Cracking in a bone dislocation must hurt like an S-O-B, because
cracking in a subluxation, a minor dislocation, doesn't feel so
great, and cracking in a dislocated tendon hurts a lot worse than a
subluxation. But it leads to instant relief. Please believe me when I
tell you I have no special skills, aside from my experience with
horses. I just use common sense and try to listen to the messages
from my body. There is a lesson to be learned in every injury, and
our Systema teacher explained to us that there is also a lesson to be
learned in every illness, as well, about preventative medicine and
living a healthy life (he did seem to be making an exception for
communicable diseases like the Black Plague, and a few other
instances)

I have rambled on too long to really describe what I learned from my
injury in this post, but I want to emphasize my lack of special
skills; no-one should be impressed by my ability to set my own
dislocated tendon. Anyone can do the same; all it takes is some
rudimentary knowledge of your own anatomy, and a willingness to
inflict pain upon yourself to gain the relief—that is the hardest
part, is hurting yourself, but it's momentary; the relief lasts much
longer. And oh yeah, a colorful vocabulary of swear words helps too;
good thing I removed the swear jar from my apartment or I'd owe
myself a few hundreds bucks by now (I finally gave up; I couldn't
bankrupt my friends but they have learned to watch their language in
Chez Raquel).

So I completely ignored the "RICE" treatment, rest, ice, compression,
elevation. I didn't rest because walking eased the pain, as did
standing. I put my full weight on it while I walked and tried to use
the full range of motion, because I didn't want to end up favoring
it. I didn't ice the leg, because I wanted to keep blood flowing into
the area. I refused crutches because I didn't want to end up with a
permanent limp, from breaking my other ankle, I know the limp lasted
far longer than the actual injury, and the psychological "crutch" of
a pair of crutches was not going to help me. I left the compression
bandage on for 24 hours, but took it off because it wasn't preventing
the dislocation and I needed access to the tendons to relocate them.
And elevation does not provide relief, I feel the least pain while I
walk. I asked the bone doctor how long before I could exercise again,
and he said probably 3 weeks. That's when I started to boo-hoo like a
little girl (note the "little" there—best not to use the
expression "Cry like a girl" around me!) because I hate to miss
class. But I went to class today, thinking I could just watch, but I
was able to do most of the exercises and since I was walking around,
it eased the pain a great deal. And cold water dousing and creative
breathing visualization—"breathing" through the injured part—are also
helpful pain management tools.

I figured I'd be completely drunk by now, self-medicating as a last
resort, but I am actually pretty comfortable and can hop up and down,
no problem. After ignoring the doctor's advice and RICE, the
conventional sprain treatment, in every way imaginable, almost doing
the exact opposite, my pain is greatly lessened and I don't intend to
miss any training, even if I have to modify it a bit. It's hard to
believe I can train the day after suffering such an injury, but the
bone break is not serious, the dislocated tendon seems to be staying
in place, for now, and the sprain feels sore and tender, but not
painful. I will probably be myself again in a weeks' time, if the
tendon will stay in place.

An interesting side-note: I have a cat who is very timid, runs and
hides from almost everyone but me. Heck, my cat is more than a little
like me, I run and hide sometimes too. But I have been limping around
my apartment, sometimes I move clumsily or stumble a bit—she runs and
hides from me, even though she knows the sound of my voice, my scent,
she recognizes me, but because my walk is different, she is
frightened of me when I move around. I am not sure how this relates
to Systema, but I find the honesty of children and animals
delightful.

*Vsego nailuchshego* (best wishes),
Rachel