Phew! The end of a week of about 40 (half-hour) treatments
for people suffering the after-effects of the gas and water from the UCC
factory accident in 1984. Even though many of the problems are current and
'normal', such as you or I might get, there is an underlying pathology that
leaves the client/patient with impaired resources to deal with their healing
I cannot name any of the people nor identify them in any
way, even though you reading this are unlikely ever to meet them. Sorry – only
a couple of pictures this post!
********
One example is a smashing man of ~72 suffering long-term
affects including mental problems and general physical complaints including
fibromyalgia and a heart attack. He is always full of fun and joking when he
arrives. In some way his story is very sad and he comes to Sambhavna because it
fills his life and gives him joy and peace.
His first sessions were filled with cries of pain almost every time I
touched. By the second session I decided that a more shiatsu style approach was
appropriate and then sessions have become quieter and more relaxed. He is
getting benefit even though I cannot say what it is – he reports feeling better
and in less pain. His spirit continues to fight.
********
A much younger man of 32 would have been only 3 at the time
of the disaster yet has a full life yet to live. Sometimes his wife or one of
his two children are with him:
A young daughter waits patiently for dad. In the whole half-hour she sat quietly without a word, at one time looking like a real 'yogi' with legs in a semi-lotus and back upright in a perfect pose, and dozed off towards the end of the session.
A few months ago he was hit by a vehicle which broke both
his legs. Now he has metal in both and at the moment is using a zimmer-type
frame to walk. When he first came at the beginning of this week he was bent
over the frame as he entered and his hip was definitely going to suffer. But he
had come to have his right foot sorted – it was stiff-solid, partly painful and
partly numb part of the time!
After his second session he could bend his toes more and I
showed him how to walk more easily with his frame, holding himself upright. He
left somewhat cautiously! Subsequently each time he arrives he is walking more
upright and his energy is changing. He can rotate his foot slowly and bend it
more and can almost put it flat on the floor while standing – almost, there is
still a finger width to go yet, but it was only his 5th session
today.
********
A new patient today, is a young woman of 46, she would have
been 17 in 1984. She has constant headaches with sometimes numbness in her
skull. Also variable tingling and numbness in her arms and hands. She is a
Moslem, from her dress, so this was a treatment where she lay on her back and
simply slipped her shawl from her head and I sat at the end of the table and
placed my hand inside it to contact her neck and occiput.
Contact between a man and woman, even though in a medical
context has to be done with sensitivity.
She has no English and I no Hindi – a common problem, which
makes the treatments quite intensive and I need to be constantly focused on the
patients reactions in whatever way it manifests. Such are the different and
typical challenges of this work. Bhopal is about 40% Moslem, one of the highest
proportions of any Indian city. Sambhavna is committedly non-sectarian.
********
A final, lovely patient is a little boy, and something of an
anomaly. His family lives some kilometres away and was not gas or water
affected but is related to a doctor. He is four years old and has Cerebral
Palsy (CP). He cannot attend Chingari since his parents are not survivors of
the disasters.
With CP, essentially incurable, physical therapy can help in
a palliative way to make life more comfortable for person – there is no
particular lowered life expectancy. With him I want to teach his mother how she
can do treatments on a daily basis as he will need some form of therapy for the
whole of his life. She clearly cares deeply for him as does his father, who
came with him last Saturday. You might like to know that many fathers would
abandon their wife and child if she gave birth to a child with disability.
Yesterday and today, when she lay him on my table he was
relaxed and ‘straight’ – not the only measure by far but a great improvement
showing that the spasmed muscle can relax.
This week she is going to do the work herself and return
next Saturday with any questions. Her biggest fear is his weak neck – he cannot
support his head. So we worked out a ‘trick’ to get him to turn his head to the
side and she will make an isometric exercise of it to help strengthen it.
********
A little insight into my working week.
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