Medicine Man

Lucy is very sad about her shoulder. It hurts, but worse is the feeling of panic when she can't balance herself, because one leg is up in a sling, and she tips over.  This morning, she cried out in distress whenever that happened, and would spin around in circles lying on the ground, unable to figure out how to get up. I could chivvy her into walking by putting a sling underneath her chest, straddling her, and scooting her along, but as soon as I'd stop, she'd keel over. And if I propped her into a sitting position, she'd stiffen her good leg and push herself over onto her bad side.

So I carried her over to George, who came up to the fence. He breathed on her right leg, touched her very softly with his nose for a minute, and then left.

I carried Lucy back into the house and put her down on the rug. She sat, well-balanced and unaided, for a few minutes, before lowering herself carefully on one leg into a controlled lying-down position.

Later in the day, I had her outside again. We're still waiting for her to pee, which is a little concerning, and I'm sure has something to do with the fact that she's unable to position herself. She seemed worried. I carried over to George again, who touched her again with his nose very briefly and wandered off.

I carried Lucy back towards the house. "That's all it takes, Lucy - just a moment with George is all you need," I said. I put her down into a sitting position and walked away a little. Before long she stood up and hopped a few sprightly steps towards me.

Now, in the interests of full disclosure, she had managed a couple of unaided steps earlier in the day, but they were much less agile and controlled. And this time the steps directly followed George's contact with her.

So, is George actually helping Lucy? Or am I now officially going batty?

Assuming the answers to the above are yes and no respectively, I'm thinking that what George is able to do is to convey very clear and concise information to the patient - that he is able to infuse knowledge. I'm a big fan of Chinese herbs, and I read somewhere on the web that they work by imparting information to the body, allowing the body to figure out how to fix itself. Sounds reasonable to me.

This is interesting, because I trained as a teacher of the Alexander Technique, which works by providing feedback and direction (via the teacher's hands) to the student about his or her body use. George seems to be doing similar work, but he is able to remotely telegraph this information in a very clear and targeted manner. It seems that after he "worked on" Lucy, she was able to reduce the disruptive tension which was preventing her from balancing and controlling her movements. In the two cases where I've been aware of him working on me, there was a similar effect.

I feel like I need to raise George's salary.