The day started out like any other, with the rest of the house asleep. I particularly enjoy this time of the day, as the house is still and I have some small solitude, watching the sunrise as its warm golden light bathes the valley just outside the kitchen window to the north. During these silent moments, I will often imagine what I would like my day to be like. Usually, this involves happy and cheerful participation at school, pleasant imaginings about when I might someday see Darwin again, or the wicked things I am going to do to Joe when he’s feeling a bit better. Certainly, I don’t imagine myself being screamed at by a homeless man with a broken leg.
School today was Sports Massage 3 (of 6) – Cryo-therapy. In today’s class, we learned the benefits of using cold in bodywork sessions, especially as it relates to the inflammation response, when cold therapy is both indicated and contraindicated, the stages of sensation when dealing with cold, and finally, we did bodywork sessions of ice massage. Yes, we rubbed ice over each other’s bodies.
When one performs an ice massage, the client first feels, well, cold. From cold, the sensation moves to a stinging and tingling sensation, then to a burning sensation, an aching feeling, and finally numbness. The skin turns incredibly red during this process and as the tissue is moving toward a numb state, the texture of the tissue becomes spongy and soft, which is a little disconcerting, as it feels almost dead. But once numbness has happened, you can do incredible work with trigger points, cross-fiber friction and longitudinal release. As the tissue becomes warmer, you can go deeper into it and effect some incredible changes.
I partnered with Kristin, a classmate who is studying massage to work while she is going to nursing school. She’s got a really nice touch and it’s always a pleasure working with her. I was the client first during the bodywork sessions, and I asked her to work on my right rhomboids, which reside in the area between the shoulder blades. Lately, I’ve had a burning sensation there from all the work I’ve been doing, and wanted to see how the ice massage could help it.
She started numbing my shoulder with a small dixie cup that had had water frozen into it for a convenient package – you tear the cup back to expose the ice, and use the remains of the cup as a handle. You use some hand towels or wash cloths to catch the water as it melts and keep it from annoying the client and making a mess. After around 12 minutes or so, my shoulder was numb, and she started working on it.
I can report that the use of ice prior to a massage feels amazing, and that the work itself was also wonderful. My shoulder feels much better and the burning feeling is gone.
OK, all of that is a long-winded way to get to how I ended up sitting down for dinner at Munch Haven, a newish fast food place on Market Street across from the Ramada. I was hungry so I ordered the chicken teriyaki bowl and some chili fries. While I was finishing eating, a man fell down into the gutter and appeared to go unconscious. I immediately called 911 and reported the incident, and two passers-by helped the man up out of the gutter and onto the sidewalk, then walked away, leaving the man by himself. That wouldn’t do, so I walked out to him and told him that I had called the paramedics. It was then that I noticed that his left tibia was broken,and probably his fibula, too, just proximal to his ankle. His foot was twisted at an unnatural angle.
“Leave me alone,” he growled at me when I told him that the paramedics were on the way.
“I can’t do that until they get here to help you, Sir,” I said in reply.
We repeated that conversation several times, then he started shouting “NOW! NOW! NOW!” over and over at me, but I just continued to stand there, finally saying that I’d leave him alone if he could stand up on his own power and walk away.
“NOW! NOW! NOW!”
So, I asked him what his name was, and he said, “Paul. My name is Paul Lucas.”
“I’m Paul Brown, please to meet you.”
“LEAVE ME ALONE!” he said again.
“The paramedics are just two blocks away now, Sir,” I told him, “and I’ll leave you alone in just a moment.”
When they pulled up, I walked up to the driver and related what I had seen saying, “I thought somebody should help him, so I called you.”
“Thanks,” the hunky otterish paramedic said.
I finally turned back to Mr. Lucas and said that I hoped he was feeling better soon, and walked the rest of the way home. When I got to Franklin and Oak streets, I decided to turn up Hickory Street, and found myself walking through the back gate into the garden of the small Episcopal church on Fell Street, and wandered into the church. Their evening Low Mass was going on, and I sat in a back pew. The service was almost over, as the wafer and wine were being blessed to be distributed to the four churchgoers in attendence.
I just wanted a quiet place to sit and breathe for a few minutes, so I watched the service, with its similarity to the Roman Catholic Mass. My mind wandered back to when I was in parochial school, going to mass at least once a week, and I could almost hear myself give the responses to the priest. Why had I come here? I don’t believe anymore. I thought about whether my current thinking was just another of the many crisis of faith, but my heart didn’t even need to finish that thought before it gave its answer: no. I did just want a quiet place to process the poor man’s plight.
When the mass ended, I was cruised by one of the parishioners! We exchanged pleasantries out on the sidewalk, then I turned back up Fell and finished my walk to UGH.
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