Day 10: Empirical truths

I had to take a test today and I failed.

I've lived with carpel tunnel syndrome for years, watching it grow from a dull, vague ache in my wrists to a burning tingling numbness when I hold the phone too long, or ride a bike or, even write -- you know, the old-fashioned pen and paper thing. Now, it's causing pain in several of the Reiki hand placements. The only tingling I want to feel is from energy flowing though my hands, not from the swelling of my tendons. So I scheduled the electro diagnostic test.

It was time.

The physiatrist, the rehabilitation medicine doctor, was a very nice man but his big personality did not nearly make up for what he puts people through to earn his living (sorry, I'm still sore).

I knew I was in for the electrical shocks, so I laughed politely at his jokes and let him tape wire electrodes to my arms. So this was how I thought it would go -- he'd send electric currents through my nerve pathway, the electrodes would capture how fast the signal is traveling (or slow in my case), then he'd write this all down and I'll look for the exit door with the huge Angel Fish wall hanging on it.

Except there was more.

Apparently there were two parts to this test and the second involved needles. Okay, so they're small and thin but please don't tell me, Mr. Physiatrist, that people preferred this test to the first. We're talking multiple pin pricks to only the most sensitive areas on my arms, hands and the nape of my neck. On top of it all, he had me tense my muscles -- with the needle inserted casually in me like a sewing pin in a roly poly pin cushion -- so he could listen to the electrical signals from my muscles. The volume dial on his electro monitor was turned up, so I literally heard my muscles reta-ta-ta-ta-taliating in protest (and pain).

For about an hour, they made me go through this modern-day torture session -- just so the surgeon would have empirical data that the pain I had been feeling for years is real. Really?

I drove home from the medical center, bloated with righteousness and moral superiority toward the entire medical profession. They could have just listened and I would have told them that, for years, I haven't been able to hold a book up to read for any length of time. That, the last time I was preparing to accompany my daughter on the piano as she performed her flute, I consciously limited the use of my hands to only necessary activities, so that I can lengthen my practice sessions on the piano. That I almost did not want to continue with Reiki because my hands couldn't take the hour-long treatments.

And then, it hit me -- like a mental pin prick through the surface of my conscience -- how many times do I make myself go through a similar torture test, just so I could get proof that something is what it says it is. That Reiki truly works, for instance, or, if my choices will get me what I want, or if the right thing to do, is in fact, the right thing to do.

So much of my consciousness it spent on this rigorous exercise of finding facts to verify and substantiate. To attest to some empirical proof that exists outside of me.

Maybe I should stop.

Be silent. Listen.

Maybe I might even learn something.

_____________________.

Reiki update:

The mornings seem to be more of a rush these days. I am only managing a 15-minute session but I've started to do a 'make-up' session at night before I go to bed. Note to self: Some Reiki is better than no Reiki : )