Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

I woke up in a cold sweat. That was it. It was happening again. Each and every time I had been seriously meditating from my heart, something happened, and never what I expected it would.
Ask for patience, and they’ll send you various opportunities to be patient. Ask for freedom, and they’ll make your chains unbearable, to push you to break them.
In fact, the previous nights, lying on my mattress with no bed frame, I had reluctantly been asking to give me strength to reach for my dreams. Reluctantly because I know too well by now that a request for quality, automatically generates an opportunity to overcome a challenge. I asked for peace and direction. So, there it was, the golden opportunity. I sat up, knowing deep down that this wasn’t a passing thing, knowing too well that this was part of what I had asked for and there was nothing to be scared about; yet, this glimpse of things to come, if I didn’t change my ways, terrified me.
My arms were swollen and I couldn’t feel my hands, the joints were stiff. Was this the beginning of the end, after so much fighting and determination to heal myself and become independent? I started thinking that maybe it was my karma to be enslaved forever. If I couldn’t use my hands, and this thing was progressive, who was going to look after the children? And what about my job, which was nearly my only form of revenue? These and more questions bounced about my head.
As soon as the hour was decent, I phoned the clinic.
‘I am sorry Amelia, but I won’t be able to come to work on Tuesday’, I said, catching my breath. ‘Can you do me a favour, anyway? Can you check if I’ve got any appointments, bodywork or similar?’
‘Yeah, sure, no problem’, Amelia put the phone down, got the book, grabbed the phone back. She wrote me off the book for the week. I could barely move my arm and I couldn’t work.
‘You are going to the doc, aren’t you?, whispered Amelia, and I could just picture her with her bright blue eyes wide open and a bit worried.
Fortunately September, especially the beginning, is never too busy. Summer, with all the waxes and beauty things and eyelashes and body exposure, is mayhem for the beauty section of the centre. You get waves of people off to Spanish or Portuguese or Greek beaches, or generally willing to wear a skirt, and you are working around the clock if you are in beauty. Reflexologists and massage therapists work hard in the months after Christmas, helping people recover from regular abuse suffered during the festivities ( self-inflicted alcoholic abuse, or food excesses or simply repeated night out syndrome). February to June are usually the busiest months.
I had gone back to work that week, while the children were spending the last week of their holidays with their father.
‘I’ll miss you’, I said to them. Perhaps, if I had been selfish enough to keep them with me instead of sending them to their father, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome would have hit me a month later, or a couple of weeks later, or who knows. I wouldn’t have worked that week, and maybe, I would have had enough rest to make my body a bit stronger for a little longer. A few weeks longer.
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is results from the compression of the medial nerve, which passes through the carpal tunnel, situated in the wrist area. Damage to the medial nerve causes a loss of sensation, numbness in the fingers, pain, pins and needles and muscle weakness. The condition can be so severe to be debilitating and surgery has to be applied in the worse case scenario, where the patient loses the use of the hand. Carpal Tunnel Syndrome may be caused by overwork, inflammation of the digital tendon, fluid retention, trauma, repetitive strain of the wrist. Activities that involve continual flexion of the wrist, such as hair cutting, massage, reflexology, keyboarding, playing the piano or anything really if you are predisposed can cause this illness.
I had been a Reflexologist and Pregnancy Massage and Reiki Healer therapist for about 6 years and never had a single problem. It has to be said though that stress levels had been very high in the times proceeding this, for several different reasons.
The timing of what was happening to me was weird, because I had been thinking about getting another job for some months.
I used to mumble between myself, ‘I love my job, why should I change?’, but this was my mind speaking. My body knew it was degenerating, and it kept telling my intuitive brain to start something new. But I didn’t know why.
It kept nagging me, like a tune that keeps playing in your head, so I went to a clairvoyant to see if I could make sense of this obsession.
She looked serious and said was that indeed I was going to have to change my job. Not now, there was time, but that was the message she was getting.
‘Start looking now, dear, you have time. It’s not that it’s going to happen the next month, but it’s going to happen’.
‘But I love my job, and I get on very well with...’
‘I know, I know’, she interrupted me briskly, ‘that’s not what’s about. They are not telling me, but the message is loud and clear. I believe you have had thoughts on this line, love?’
I nodded, silenced.
‘There you go. I say, don’t rush into anything, but have a look around. You have many talents, and many dreams. I can’t tell you what to do, love’.
Fortyfive quids wasted, as if I could afford it, for her to say that I should move on.
I liked the clinic and the work and I was making good money, why would one change? Plus the hours were perfect, with all the mornings and only a couple of afternoons, so while the kids were at school, I could work, then for the rest they were at the school club. And it was very local, and my colleagues were lovely and I liked the job...
Nevertheless, I didn’t dismiss the clairvoyant completely: she had confirmed a feeling I had had. My intellect could still not see, though, any possible reason as to why I should consider to change a situation that suited me so well. So reluctantly and half-heartedly I put out some ads to walk dogs and got immediately a small job, which I could do in my spare time with the children. My daughter was delighted, as she had always wanted to have a dog and we could not afford one.
I also wrote a few articles about health issues and lifestyle and sent them to various magazines, via net. I was very surprised when a response came to publish a couple. Paid.
My main interest, though, remained the clinic and my work as complementary therapist.
Yes, actually, I considered, it wasn’t a bad idea to have an alternative, if it meant more money.
That last week of my life as a therapist I worked hard. The kids gone, I worked at all hours. I was happy to be back in the swing of things, after the holiday break.
I should have seen the signs but I missed them, assuming that my body had to get used to the routine again.
It was Wednesday and my hands felt stiff in the morning. I dismissed it as tiredness. A good day of work, a good night of sleep, and my hands would be as good as new. Thursday I didn’t work. Friday on other hand I was very busy. I had many appointments plus they were all in a row. I got home and I collapsed. That night I couldn’t sleep very well, for some reason. I think my intuition was telling me something, but still I didn’t want to listen.
Saturday morning, my hands felt really stiff.
‘Ok, go today, then it’s bank holiday and you’ve got two days of rest’, I reasoned.
At the clinic, I was booked for three long hours, or at least so they seemed. I had very difficult treatments, a couple of huge backs and deep pressure and it was very very long. The hours have that expanded quality when you are doing something difficult. I could feel the strain on my back and my left foot went a bit numb, because of standing for so long.
‘Fancy this is the last time I ever do a treatment! Maybe I will change career!’. I silently joked to myself, thinking of the clairvoyant business and all the fuss, and how ridiculous it was, really. Little I knew.
Sunday night I went to bed very late, as I lost myself in my reading and writing; nothing serious, my poetry, the articles and bits and bobs which I can only afford to do when the children are not at home.
At 2.00 am, I woke up and both my hands had lost sensitivity. I sat up, moved around, and they seemed to become normal again. Aaah, ok, no worries, it must have been that I was lying on my stomach and the arms were in a funny position, I reasoned, half knowing the truth, half in denial. I lied down again, confident that I could catch up on lost sleep. Again, immediately, the hands went numb, this time with pins and needles. Again, I sat up, moved about, and they seemed to be normal again. Finally, I found a position that seemed to keep the circulation going.
When I woke up, both arms felt restricted and the hands, again were numb, got some coffee ready and went to the garden to worry a bit more, and things settled down again.
I called NHS direct. The nurse asked me millions of questions and seemed to be reassured that it was a case of overwork, and she advised me to see a GP. So I went to the doctor, and booked acupuncture and osteopathy at the centre, to help the healing. The GP prescribed some Neurofern and that seemed to help, together with the other treatments.
I felt ok all day. I was nearly about to forget that I had had a problem; went to bed and got a good night sleep. This thing was going to go away, it had only been a bit of tiredness and now with some rest and the Neurofern things would settle. Shame for the fact that I wasn’t working as it meant that I wasn’t earning, but these are the pitfalls of being self-employed. But I was confident that things would be ok. I went to sleep.
At 4.00 am in the morning I woke up in a state of total panic. My left hand and arm were fine. Obviously the Neurofern Plus was working; the right hand though, was gone for good.
I mean, there was nothing, nothing I could do to bring it back. I moved around, I jumped, cried, used water, massaged it, you name it. All sensitivity had gone; an excruciating pain was shooting through the thumb while I could not feel anything I touched, and the hand felt heavy and the fingers felt big like sausages and I could not move them.
Desperate and very scared, I called NHS Direct.
‘Look, I called yesterday, but it’s happening again and it’s worse’, I mumbled anxiously. Again, a different nurse asked arrays of questions, eliminating the worse. Can you go to the loo? Can you stand? Are your movements coordinated? Can you see? Is the right side of your face normal?
Gradually, while speaking to the nurse, who probably thought I was a hypochondriac as she suggested that this all thing was caused by stress, sensation came back. I could move the hand again and the fingers felt nearly normal, although the joints were stiff.
‘Maybe I am a fantasist, and I am really a bit stressed out’, I thought. In fact the day was not that bad. This mysterious syndrome seemed to strike at night: having excluded a few nasties (various degenerative diseases) and the fact that this was a passing thing which could be left alone, I set out to give a name to what was happening.
I didn’t have to wait for long.
‘Oh, I know what it is’, said a colleague who works as a beautician at the centre, ‘I had a client who had exactly the same symptoms. It’s Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Sometimes you have to operate. Tough luck’.
As soon as I heard ‘Carpal Tunnel Syndrome’ I knew it was true. I had some more time to think about it that day, and by the evening I also knew that that was the end of the line with body work for me. I was never, ever going to work again, if I wanted to keep mobility in my arms.
As soon as this awareness came to me, I felt an enormous sense of relief. I cried for hours that evening, and a huge sense of peace descended over me. My children caught me crying and asked me why.
‘Sometimes crying is good, because it means that all the hurt goes out’, I said, ‘It’s just my arms. They hurt a bit’.
My son looked at me, wise old soul as he is, and he said, hugging me very tightly:
‘Don’t worry mama, you’ll be fine. I just know it.’
That evening, I reassessed many things. I wrote a few letters to people I haven’t seen for a long time. I asked mentally many others to forgive me for things I said and didn’t mean. I thought about what the acupuncturist, who is also a colleague, had told me about forgiving others and forgiving myself.
Suffice to say that I spent most of the session crying. He had talked about resentment and suffering.
‘Work on your base chakra’, he had said to me.
What he told me, opened a huge window on how I can take my healing a step further. What a gift my illness has turned out to be.
I cried and cried that evening and decided to tell my boss as soon as possible what was happening. It was very difficult, as everything had happened so suddenly; I could see she was hurt to lose me as a therapist, and problematic as the centre relied on me. In spite of this she was very generous and offered me to work on the reception side of things.
I feel what happened to me was meant to happen in a way. It was very scary but I know it’s all for the best.
A few days after all of this happened, I was following a meditation with Archangel Gabriel, who in between other things apparently assists people in finding direction and guides them on to their path. While meditating, I asked for a sign, more as a game than anything else. As I finished my request, I heard the post dropping through the door. It’s very funny. I opened the letter. It was a letter from a writing course I had thought of attending....
I have decided now that I will seriously thing of a career in the writing world. I collaborate with a few magazines and I am thinking about writing my first serious book...
I have also taken on a few more dogs to walk so this is allowing me time to spend in nature and relax, which is what I need.
Epilogue
A door that closes, closes for a reason and I have no illusion on the fact that my days as a therapist are over, and there is a bit of sadness in this too, especially as it happened so suddenly.
If something like this happens to you, embrace change, as you never know what spiritual gifts and new exciting adventures change might bring: what may seem as a tragedy, may well be a wonderful opportunity for a new beginning.