Verdanta

As I said at the end of my last post, I had reached rocked bottom, and with nowhere to go but… well, nowhere. 

So I prayed.  Hard.  Slowly, a plan started to evolve in my mind.  It was an ambitious plan, it was crazy, but it just might work.

Before I tell you what the plan was, I should tell you that I had stopped by my physical therapists office to get her opinion on my situation.  I had explained that my speech therapist thought my neck muscles were far too tight, and that’s what was preventing me from improving beyond where I was.  I knew my neck muscles were tight.  In fact, they never relax.  Ever.  Not even when I’m laying down.  My neck and shoulders are where I’ve carried my stress since high school.  By now they don’t know the meaning of the word relax!  But my PT examined me and said that with a massage therapist’s help, she thought she could get me feeling better in “not too many sessions.”  I was so relieved, I started crying right in the middle of the gym, surrounded by doctors, patients and people working out.   Shocked her a bit, I suspect.  She knows me well, and knows I’m not generally given over to emotional outbursts.  But that is how bound up I’d become. 

It was from this small ray of hope that I fashioned the plan I mentioned earlier.  I still the chiropractor’s plan, but I knew my husband would never go for it once he saw the price tag.  But the good thing about it was that in comparison, my new plan looked relatively inexpensive.  I was going to take a team approach.  I would keep the speech therapy once a week, and I would add in physical therapy twice a week, and masage therapy once a week.  I would keep this up for three weeks and re-evaluate.

So that became the plan.  PT on Monday and Wednesday, Massage Therapy (MT) on Tuesdays, and Speech Therapy (ST) on Friday’s.

I saw rapid improvement over the first two weeks. My PT managed to unlock a joint in my neck that’s been frozen since the Clinton administration.   But week three came and went, then four and five, and I felt like I had plateaued again.  My PT said my neck was in great shape.  My Massage Therapist, well, her job is like housework.  You clean up a mess and five minutes later it’s back.  I don’t envy her.  She spent an hour on my neck and shoulders alone.  And my Speech Therapist, welll, I admit I may have fibbed to her a bit.  I told her I was great when I was in fact, only good.  I felt like I had plateaued with her as well, but I didn’t want to offend her by quitting since she’s the only ST I can see in the whole state of Arizona.

By the end of five weeks, I’d weaned myself off all these therapies, but still I had some ongoing hoearsness.  My voice felt thick and unresponsive.  And it had started cracking occasionally.  My neck felt better than ever, more relaxed and flexible that it had ever been.  But my voice was feeling worse.

What was going on??

Then one day, a little voice whishpered in my ear.  That little voice which guides me in times of trouble.  That little voice which I’ve learned to listen to over time, because it’s always right.  That little voice whispered in my ear… but you’ll have to come back to find out what it said! Until then….