Give a little love to the world...

And the healing never stops! You want to know how it is that on the third day after my horrific sprain I’m up and hobbling around, with little pain but lots of trepidation about falling over again? Ok, I’ll tell you!

Let me give you a quick rundown of the situation as it’s been thus far:

(By quick I mean probably too long winded for anyone but my mom to actually enjoy)

Evening of the 9th: I fall down the stairs and brutally sprain my ankle. After assessing the situation and deciding that there is no break, I make the decision to not mention it or send for help, and spend the night alone with my ankle. I do this because I want to direct healing energy to it and make sure that I can fully assess the situation on my own, without anyone else getting into it and clouding my view, my judgement, or my body’s natural healing powers. It is massive amounts of painful. I give it Reiki and lots of love, telling it first that I’m sorry, second that I’m grateful to it, and third that I love it and it is a part of me.

Morning of the 10th: I manage to crawl my way up three flights of stairs to find someone to go next door to the café that my friends run, who then come over to look at me and ask what the hell happened. It bears no weight. It bears no movement, let alone touching. My ankle is very, very swollen, enflamed on both sides, hot to the touch, and I can’t move it beyond a feeble half inch to either side- and even this is brutally painful. Did I mention painful? Did I also mention that I’ve got a really, really high pain tolerance, so all this bitching about painful is legit? Forget about rotating it or turning it in a complete circle; I can wiggle my toes with some difficulty, but not quickly and not with much dexterity. And it hurts.

I am treated to two immensely, earth shatteringly painful massage sessions by Ganga (the mother of the owner of the café), who comes to my room, grabs my ankle and proceeds to forcefully massage all the tendons and tissues that are inflamed- she also grabs each toe in turn and shakes my entire leg with it. I beg for mercy, and ask her to please dear god stop. Despite this, I feel it is a positive session. The second session that night is painful, but not as bad as the previous one. I don’t say fuck even once (though I do degenerate into repeating, over and over, that it hurts like a bitch). I notice marked improvements in my range of motion and stiffness. She finishes by giving it a warm oil/tumeric rub and then wrapping it in bandage supplied by another friend. My foot officially smells the best it has, possibly ever. I get a Reiki session from a friend who has just been initiated into level two- it feels really good and I get a very positive energy surge straight from my foot up into my heart chakra, which then settles onto the outside of my shoulders. Just typing that, I feel like a blissed out new-agey person, but maybe that’s what I’m turning into. I fall into a much needed sleep.

Morning of the 11th: I wake up and notice that my ankle no longer feels like it is damaged, but feels stiff and sore instead. Unwrapping my ankle- hey! The swelling has gone down considerably. I hobble, assisted, upstairs, where I am informed by a friend who did some research that because my ankle will not bear any weight at all (a little weight is ok, but any pressure is met with horrible horrible agonizing pain), and due to the 48 hours of swelling (I really can’t stress how swollen it was- not only was the whole thing huge, but the right side of my ankle had a half baseball sized lump jutting out of it; the epitome of sexy) I have what is classified as a 3rd tier sprain- the most serious kind you can get, and advised that I should get an x-ray. I decide to wait and see how and if it improves, cause we’re not going to do much with the x-ray info either way, save know that I need to elevate it and not put weight on it- two things I fully intend to do anyway. I sit at the café for the whole day, chatting with Vikki (owner and son of Ganga) and drinking his strong ginger tea. Ganga comes by and massages the ankle, which is painful but not near the excruciating ordeal of the previous day. Through the day I have the constant urge to stretch and rotate it, which doesn’t hurt but instead, GASP, feels good. That night (or rather, tonight at the time of writing), Ganga sends a man into the jungle to find a specific leaf, gives me the massage (much less painful than even the morning session), rubs in hot (hot hot hot ouch of my god that burns! Is my skin crisping under this shit?) oil and tumeric, wraps my oil/tumeric covered ankle is said leaf, and then wraps the whole ordeal in a bandage- rather like a sprained ankle/tumeric/jungle leaf burrito, if you will.

And directly after the massage session- I can walk on the ankle. Let me repeat: I CAN NOW WALK ON THE ANKLE. Well, walk is an optimistic term- lets go instead with hobble. But dude, seriously…that’s such a massively vast improvement in 2 days time that I can’t even believe it. Everyone that saw my ankle two days ago visibly flinched and asked if it was broken. It was gnarly. And painful. Painfully gnarly.

This morning: The ankle can now rotate, and i can still walk on it. Well, I can hobble on it. Through the love and energy of Ganga, her son, my friend Caitlyn, myself, and the universe, my ankle is healing very well and very beautifully. And you know what, I'm okay with the injury and okay with the time it's taking to heal- long or short. Yes, of course short is better, but I'm learning so much through this process that I can only be thankful it happened. And i mean that.

Intense.

love&light
Jess

Good morning, recovery.

Oh, how I have over estimated my bounds. Here I, presser of bruises (my own, not those of others) and survivor of a vicious bout of kidney stones (it took a week for them to pass!), known kinkster and embracer of breathing over painkillers (painkillers! No thank you, ma’am, my pranayama and meditation will see me through), I have been brought to my knees.

Or rather, I have been brought to the status of whimpering and writhing patient on the surgery table of my own bed.

I sense confusion. Allow me to clarify.

As we know, I’m in India. I’ve got a bedroom on the very bottom floor of a hotel that overlooks, with grand sweeping views, the holy Ganges river. Very bottom floor as in, three flights of stairs and one construction site down from the rest of the rooms in hotel. I don’t mind the distance- it’s quiet and removed, with larger windows and more natural light than the other rooms. And it’s one hundred rupees cheaper. Sure, theres no hot water, but it’s nice to be far from everyone else. I always have been a slightly elitist hermit. Just ask my mom. All in all, the situation is ideal- and made even better by the slight inconveniences that might throw others off.

It is one of those inconveniences that brings me to the position in which I find myself now, one foot elevated and wincing with each weight shift. On the way down my privacy ensuring stairs last evening, I missed the last one and spectacularly ate it to the bottom of the darkened staircase. Now, let us assess: Jessie, shaken and battered, curled over her throbbing ankle/foot which are both swelling by the moment. Help? Three flights up. Ability to walk? Firmly in both the future and the past. Situation? Moderately dire.

Luckily I was retreating back to the dungeon (as my room is referred to) after going up to request a bucket of warm water in which to bathe. A man would be down shortly with said bucket- I would not lie in a trembling heap until exhaustion overcame me and I was found days later, half eaten by monkeys ( a concern which briefly crossed my mind). Bad news- now I am stuck in an Indian hill town, without the ability to walk. Hill town. As in, the town is built on a hill. And I live at the apex. At the apex, and down three flights of stairs.

Suffice to say, I am now getting very familiar with the inside of my room.

But it is not this which has me whimpering and convulsing in spasms of pain, it’s the ayurvedic massage treatment that I’m having done on said ankle, mainly involving the mother of a local friend coming in and, with no reservations whatsoever, getting into the nitty gritty painful bits of my sprain and rubbing away.

Now, it’s not painful in a sharp bad pain kind of way, but in a horribly stiff sore muscle kind of way.

And it’s turning me into a bed sheet gripping, hoarse throated, begger-of-mercy.

But really, I’m ok. More on the situation later. Now, i'm hungry. Where have my crutches got to...

Love&light
jess