In her book, Steering by Starlight, Martha Beck
tells the story of a man who lost his nose in a car accident. To replace it,
doctors refashioned cartilage taken from his ear, into the shape of a nose.
That cartilage, however, remembered that it was born and imprinted to be an ear, not a nose, and even during the surgery to
reshape into a nose, it was already working to restore itself back into an ear. So,
periodically for the rest of his life, this man had to return for doctors to
refashion a nose from an ear.
If that cartilage remembered what it was supposed to look
like; then, my hip cartilage is bound to bear the imprint of what hip cartilage
is supposed to look like too! That is my mantra and my focus as I sit here, resting, for hours on end. In addition
to reading, writing and occasionally watching movies either on my laptop or 3rd
eye - I spend a lot of time meditating, visualizing my doctor holding up the
before and after X-rays and proclaiming my hip joints better than normal –
“it’s a miracle!” I hear them proclaim… I see myself running through the park
at KLCC with my husband, and I see myself perform Yoga postures that once were
too painful.
It isn’t easy for me to rest. I’m fairly certain that if hyperactive had been a common
label on youngsters when I was a child… I’d been on the maximum dose of Ritalin.
Fortunately, I was spared that diagnosis but to this day am challenged to be still for any length of time. If it
is a discipline, and it may be, I am certain this experience will have me
trained. I am having fun with my “mental movies.” I also have fun with the
birds that live in the neighborhood.
Because of KL’s proximity to the equator, sunrise and
sunset occur at very nearly the same time every day. When I awake each morning
to 6 am medicines, it is well before the sun rises so I am typically wide awake
by the time it is in full bloom – so to speak. It is a beautiful time of day. As
the sun rises and morning traffic is not yet heavy, the sounds of multiple birds
singing entertain me. One morning, as I
sat writing, I heard several birds that sounded like they perched directly
outside my opened window, just inches away from my ears. Unfortunately as I
rose up to see them, they heard me and flew off to a palm tree in the distance;
however, before they disappeared from sight, I saw that they were three large,
bright yellow, black masked birds with a black stripe on their wings. What beautiful
birds they were. What beautiful songs they sang. Fortunately, that experienced
prepared me. I now keep my camera next to the bed ready to go, and I rise very quietly. Lesson learned,
I now have a photo of a pair of the most colorful doves I’ve seen outside the
Bird Park. Greenish in color with pink hooded heads, yellow on their breasts
and a touch of black on their wing tips, I’ve never seen birds blend in with
their surroundings better than those two blended into that palm tree. Good
thing they blend in so well too because there was a black and brown kitty cat
on a root top just 20 feet away, likely looking for a pretty bird meal. The
circle of life…
Another seldom broken circle is the life and times of the
staff here at The Ayur Centre, a lifestyle that many here in Malaysia,
predominantly the foreign workers from Myanmar, the Philippines and Indonesia
know intimately. The staff here rises every day, 7 days a week, at 5:30am to
prepare the medicines that make their patients better and to begin their individual rituals. Throughout the day they give treatments, provide us food and the
remainder of our medicines, some clean our rooms and serve our meals. They
don’t complain, are quite nice and friendly. My effort to communicate in Tamil
seems more to entertain them than to get a message across – I must not speak it
correctly - as they laugh at me when I try to say anything other than
“naandree”. Isude, my therapist, remains my salvation; aside from Dr. Siby, she
and one of the housekeepers, Kalayamal, have the best grasp on English.
Unlike Western
hospitals, at the Ayur Centre, they take blood pressure and blood sugar levels
only in the morning and not even every morning; the remainder of my day is
interrupted only by the much anticipated treatment, associated herbal medicines
and daily housekeeping. Medicines come at 6am, 10am, noon, after lunch, 6pm and
bed time. If I’m not mistaken, they are mostly all different except 10am and
after lunch. The objective of inpatient treatment is rest for recovery and
rejuvenation.
It must be working, every day I am noticeably better and better… and totally grateful for the
improvements I experience. There seems to be a side benefit as well; I clearly
see improvements in my body’s skin tone… you know the saying “smooth as a
baby’s butt?” Well, that would be me now! No longer am I glaringly reminded,
“You aren’t 29 anymore!” A friend stopped in for a visit last Thursday night
and raved that my skin looks so much more “radiant” and healthy that she is
convinced Ayurvedic is for her as well.
Beginning with Day 8 my treatment changed from the much
loved, appreciated and enjoyed massage of medicated oils to a “Pouring of the
Oils” treatment. I walked into the treatment room, noticeably easier than I had
the previous days. I sat on the long wooden table as Isude massaged Coconut oil
into my scalp and hair, then onto my face and tied my hair in a knot at the top
of my head. After that she cups her hand into the warm medicated oil, pouring
it down my back and massaging it around; then while I lie on my back, on that
long, hard wooden table, deep breathing the fragrant air and visualizing
healing, she and her partner, Wahsunde (again, I am certain that is not how it is spelled but the best I
could do) pour 9 bottles of warm, medicated oil on my body from my neck, to my
shoulders, to my abdomen, both hips down my legs to my toes with a seemingly
choreographed and synchronized timing; then they lightly massage it in; sweep
the oil runoff to the bottom of the table where equally impressively they scoop
it into their cotton cloths and wring it back into their pans; I turn onto my
stomach and they repeat the process down my backside multiple times before
asking me to turn back over and duplicate the pattern down my front side.
Finally, the coup de grace is a seated pouring of the oils back massage. Not as
enjoyable as Week 1’s treatment but certainly interesting and far better than
nothing at all.
I love the smell of fresh air after a rain, the coolness
of a gentle breeze and the sounds of distant thunder rumbling in the background
- typical afternoon in KL this time of year. As I sit enjoying the weather
through my open windows, my yellow birds return and sing outside my window.
This time, camera prepared I quietly rise to immortalize them but again, they
sense my presence and escape to the palm trees in the distance. Finally on Day
9 I succeed and one of the beauties posed elegantly while I snapped his or her
photo.
Day 9, my hip has a whole new discomfort. Not pain like
before, rather a dull ache just uncomfortable enough to disturb sleep and make
the day a bit more difficult. Dr. Siby examined it during his daily check in.
He puts his hand on it, listening to what it says and noticing how it feels. He
told me it is not “pulsing” as strong as it was and he surmises that I “slept
on it wrong”. Day 10 it is better but a new discomfort arises all along my
lower back. Unfortunately, there is now a rash where the pain medicine mud pack
was so I have to take a few days off. Day 11, the dull ache is gone but I still
experience the lower back discomfort and the rash, neither of which are as bad
as yesterday. I wonder if the dull ache and now the lower back discomfort are a
product of the “unwinding” process…
I’ve grown accustomed to the flavor of the medicines now.
I would not say I enjoy them, but I no longer hate them as I did when they cause
or enhanced my nausea. I still don’t know what any of them are but did ask my
doctor what they do for me. He said, the specific medicines I take are
- to improve my body’s ability to absorb essential nutrients, assimilate them
perfectly and eliminate unessential matter
- to improve my bone’s strength
- to reduce/eliminate inflammation
- to promote regeneration of cartilage
- to
boost the immune system.
It is interesting to me that when I first began this
treatment and became nauseous and worse, I did things like plug my nose just to
be able to force myself to swallow the medicine, whether I got it all down or
not was irrelevant. Now, perhaps because I see improvement or perhaps because I
am no longer nauseous or perhaps because I am used to them, I make sure I do
not miss a drop! Quite a switch. I trust and believe that they are a valuable part of the process that clears away the obstacles and barriers so that my
cartilage can remember its imprint and return to the perfect cushion for my
joints.
Day 11, Friday, I am now prepared to go home for the
night. I return at 6 am tomorrow morning. Downstairs I meet Margaret, an Indian
Malaysian who is the only other patient I see here. I know there is one other,
a Malay, but have only seen glimpses of her twice. Today Margaret and I had an
opportunity to visit. I learned she is here recovering from a stroke; she was
paralyzed on her left side. This was a surprise to me because she does not look nor sound like stroke victims I’ve seen before. She has 5 days left of
treatments before she goes home; like me, she is very pleased with her
treatments and the results.
Day 12, on Saturday night I stretched the boundaries of
my treatment. The US Embassy hosted an Independence Day celebration and we
attended. It was wonderful, I was able to adhere to a vegetarian diet in spite
of serious temptation, but, there was NO seating available. We enjoyed as much
of it as possible, met some very interesting people including the Under
Secretary at the Saudi Arabian Embassy, and a Moroccan Embassy representative
who did not divulge his role, a gentleman from Chico, California who is
starting up an International School here in KL and a couple who are friends
visiting from Chico, California. It was nice but seriously tempted my self-discipline!
Today, in spite of last night’s departure from strict
R&R regimen, my lower back hurts less than yesterday. The unwinding
continues, and I am determined to behave better to help the process. Tonight, I
look forward to Bombay Palace - the good side of Vegetarian. Next week on
Tuesday, my Pouring of the Oils massage is replaced with a Rice Massage. They
told me not to worry, the rice is treated…
until then, Namaste.
janet lee
www.BeliefChangeBook.com
www.AttractYourSoulmate.com
www.TheSecretSolution.net
www.APCD-Institute.org
www.MasterMindcleanse.com
© jan gentleman-ingersoll Eastern Shepherd, Inc.
2010
