“Darling I’ve booked us to see a Healer next
week. Apparently she’s just amazing and lovely. Isn’t that wonderful?”
My soy chai tea latte dribbled down my chin
as my mouth slowly fell open. This is it, I thought, Mum has finally gone
senile.
“What, on earth, are you talking about
Mum?”
And to cut a very long and tortuous story to
its core, yes, two weeks ago I went to see a Healer. Here are the reasons why:
1. The source of the
recommendation.
The family friends who told us about their
success with this Healer were the last people on the planet I’d ever expect to
be waxing lyrical about such an unconventional treatment method. The husband
used to be in the Army, and hurt his back falling off a horse. The Healer has been the only person to really have helped him in any way.
2. Mum is often right.
After much pouting, I remembered it was Mum
who bullied me into seeing yet another Physiotherapist and, as you may know, my
current physiotherapist has made the biggest impact on my pain and migraine
management. It’s also Mum who tirelessly persuades me to seek yet another Medical opinion saying, “It can’t hurt to ask, we might learn something, even if most of
the hour is wasted, we’re bound to come out having learnt a little something.”
So, I decided to trust her instincts yet again. (She didn’t pay me to write
this.)
3. The session would be free
and the Healer would hardly touch me.
This really clinched the deal for me.
Apparently the Healer only asks for a donation to a charity she runs and she
hardly touches you – so I decided she could do me no damage. I must also admit
the rather evil part of me thought this whole
experience is going to make the funniest blog ever!!
The
morning of the healing arrived. Dad asked me how I
was feeling. I held my hands up to heaven and in my best Southern Preacher
accent said:
“I see the light! I feel a healin’ coming
on today!”
“Oh stop being such a sarky little Bitch,”
quipped Dad.
“Yes Daddy.” I said in my best Queen’s English,
and wondered how I’d get through my healing without dissolving into a fit of
giggles. Anyone who knows me will know this is one of my most charming flaws. I
then also got a life lecture from Dad (complete with quotes from Hamlet) about the mysteries of Science
and Christianity.
Thus, it really was with an open mind that
I knocked on the door of a rather beautiful house in North London later that
afternoon. I do believe that, as a migraineur, you should try any and
everything that could possibly help and comfort you. I wasn’t paying, she
wasn’t going to really touch me, what did I have to lose? And, after all, this
was going to be the funniest blog I was ever going to write? Right?
But then I met the Healer. And she really
is, quite possibly, the nicest and most genuine person you’ll ever meet. All
she wants to do is help you get better.
And she is the exact opposite of what I was
expecting. In fact, the whole experience bore no resemblance to the séance I had
conjured up in my overactive imagination. I was expecting her to be the
stereotypical sandals, candles and bangles. Not this lady. By the way she
really is a Lady. Her husband was a distinguished soldier and, as she told me,
‘quite someone’. The downstairs loo of her house is littered with framed
letters from the royal family. She also didn’t tell me (she’s too modest) that she
once represented her country in the Olympics! No, this is not your average fair
ground, crystal ball healer. As Mum described it, “she’s the kind of woman upon
which the Empire was built.”
She was also quite embarrassed when I
called her a Healer and said “Well I just put my hands on people really, I’m
still learning how it all works. It’s to do with energy.” I think she’s being
modest. She originally trained as a physiotherapist but noticed that her
patients seemed to get better much faster than everyone else’s. This also put
me at ease, as I felt she truly understood my complex neck problems when I
explained them to her.
The
session itself was not only deeply relaxing but
great fun. She’s full of fabulous stories, I would happily go back just to chat
with her (and snoop around her fantastic house!) At first I sat upright on the
sofa, and she gently put her hands on the back of my neck. Her hands became
boiling hot, which freaked me out a bit. If I had to describe the sensation I’d
say it was a bit like an Alexander Technique lesson mixed with Craniosacral Therapy. I kept feeling like she was gently pulling my head up and back, so
asked her to stop, but then realized her hands hadn’t moved at all. We then
continued with me lying down as I wasn’t happy with tilting my head back.
And then events seriously took a turn for
the strange. The man who works in her study upstairs came to work on me too.
Man Upstairs (as I shall call him) has a unique gift. My lovely Healer Lady
described him as being a human MRI machine. He describes his abilities much
more eloquently and in far greater detail, he is also a Healer, but not a hands
on Healer; he can see your illness, he can see your energies, I believe, as
well as your bones etc. I’m not describing it very well but think of him as a
human X-ray machine. And this was the one point in the whole proceedings when I
really thought I was going to get a fit of giggles. He’s a very nice man,
again not at all what you’d expect, very neatly and conventionally dressed (not
in a turban and robes or anything outlandish.) He stood in front of me, explained
what he did and how he was able to tell my Healer Lady where to place her hands
and he then stared at me as if I was naked.
And here’s the rather creepy/scary/amazing
part. He proceeded to repeat, almost verbatim, my latest set of MRI and X-ray
results.
Pointing at parts of my body, starting with
my head, he said: “She’s got bulging discs in her neck about there, bit of a
twisted spine there” and on he went… apparently I also have deformed ankles! It
really was quite impressive. I guess some of it most physio's could do as well,
such as uneven collar bones, tight thoracic spine etc, but I was still
impressed. All my Healer Lady had told him was that I had migraines and an old
whiplash injury, which is only the tip of the iceberg but all I felt like
divulging. I then divulged that my left hand and shoulder often go numb, have
pins and needles (part of my cervical radiculoapthy) and Man Upstairs said he
could “see” that the nerve had "retreated" up my arm…
They then worked together, Man Upstairs
telling my Healer Lady where to place her hands to start correcting some of the
many things apparently wrong with me. But, they both assured me, I was fixable,
and it would take at least 3 sessions.
So, after session one how did I feel?
Before I went I was actually starting to get a left sided migraine, I had that
horrible pinching pain and tightness down my left side. As an experiment I
decided not to take any painkillers, as I usually would, and during the session
she completely relaxed my shoulder muscles and arms, and the pain did go away
while I was with her. At the end of the session she looked at me and said, “Gosh, you did look quite ghastly when you came but now your face looks
normal.” The migraine didn’t develop.
I am under no illusions that there is a
cure for migraine. But I so loved my Healer Lady, and when I was with her the
pain was a little better, that I’ve decided I’m going to go back for two more
sessions. Why not? Annoyingly, I had to miss the second session so Dad took my
place. He wants to see what they can do with his hand tremor. One condition of
my attendance was Mum going too (she also gets migraines) so the Saxton family
will keep you posted on our progress! As I write this Mum is actually having
her second go… she’s going to have the human X-ray this time, so I’m
looking forward to hearing about that!
This is, far and away, the craziest thing
I’ve ever done in the pursuit of a migraine free life. What’s the craziest
thing you’ve ever done?
