(I forgot to post last night. Too much on my mind. Wee bit frazzled. I need a break.)
Yesterday I discovered I have a radial head fracture on my left (and dominant) arm. I have had it since it happened — in August — when I tripped on a street curb outside the Mandarin Oriental hotel and broke my fall with my knees and my left arm.
In September, roughly two weeks after it happened, I visited a doctor because the pain in my wrist was not going away and was seemingly getting worse. I asked the doctor if she thought it could be a stress fracture of some kind, because the pain felt deep and dull, under my skin. She held my wrist joint and my elbow joint and asked me if I could still rotate my wrist. I could, but it was stiff. She told me it was definitely not a fracture if I could move it with support, and that it was likely a tendon strain or overuse. She gave me anti-inflammatories and told me to stay off yoga for 3 or 4 weeks.
I did. I resumed after 4 weeks. The pain returned — even worse. Within another two weeks, I could hardly hold a pen. I returned to the doctor. This doctor — another GP — told me it was likely tendinitis and fascitis and gave me more anti-inflammatories, and told me it needed a good 4 days of rest. He gave me a medical certificate for two days off work, plus the weekend, with strict orders not to use it for 4 days. I did anyway, because I had things that needed doing at work, and little sympathy from my superiors for an overuse injury.
Of course, the pain never really went away. I did yoga thinking I just needed to strengthen the tendons. Chatturanga still always hurt, and I was beginning to think I was never going to be able to do a proper sun salutation again. Things like putting on make up and opening doors became impossible with my left hand, which was hard because I am left-handed. My dad joked that it was early onset arthritis. I went back to the doctor in December. This doctor — again, a different one, but still at the same clinic — told me I might need a cortisone injection but advised me to come back after my December / January holiday, seeing as I would have such a long break. If it was an overuse injury, it should heal over that time, provided I wasn’t using it.
January came, and I went back to work, and my wrist was feeling better, but I still did not have full range of motion. I had made adjustments for myself over the previous 5 weeks and there were now movements I just couldn’t do. They weren’t even too painful anymore — I just couldn’t do them. After two weeks back at school with increasingly limited movement when doing simple things like composing an SMS on my phone, I returned to the doctor. A different doctor yet again told me that I should probably see an orthopaedic specialist, considering this just hasn’t gone away. She advised that I might need physiotherapy, but that I should see the specialist first.
Within 3 minutes of my appointment with the orthopaedic doctor yesterday, after having told him the above tale, he asked if I had had X-rays taken. I hadn’t. He pretty much didn’t want to hear any more about anything until I had had the X-rays done. He asked me a few range of motion questions. I could do none of what he asked. He pressed on the radial head of my arm and it hurt like @$#$!@#@^#!!!. I yelped. He explained that was where the raidial nerve began, and it would radiate pain up my wrist, which was why the pain was there and not at the radial head (the elbow). He sent me off to radiology.
10 minutes later it was confirmed: the X-rays clearly showed a fracture. He pointed it out to me, but it wasn’t hard to see.
I was so angry. The first time I had visited a doctor I felt like it was a bone injury because of how “embedded” the pain was, but I was dismissed. I should have insisted. The orthopaedic doctor felt bad for me but said it basically came down to the GPs not beings specialists, and not knowing the right questions to ask. I remembered that my intuition was so strong on that day. But I didn’t insist on an X-ray to rule out the fracture I felt I had. Instead, not wanting to be that idiot patient, I went along with the doctor.
Never again.
I often have very very strong intuition. Not always, but often. And when I do, it’s always 100% correct. It’s very hard to describe. There are times when I just know something, in a way that is definite and without question — often without evidence. This is different than a hunch, which is a belief, or a leaning towards a particular outcome based on previous knowledge or experience.
Friends have suggested I might have latent clairvoyant talent. Perhaps. Maybe if I spent time cultivating this “skill” (is it a skill? I have never learned it) I would be able to do more with it. But I can tell you that there are many, many times in my life when I’ve known something to be true without being able to tell you why or how I know. It is not a prediction — though often others interpret it this way when I share with them. It’s pure, 100% knowing.
This is what I was talking about when I posted earlier about Knowing vs Believing. When you know, it is simply a state of what is. It is not a belief based on accumulation of facts, inferences, and outcomes based on suggestion. When you know, it just IS. It is very difficult to explain. When you know that your arm is broken, you know it just the same as you know that you are hungry, or whether you feel hot or cold, or if you are tired. It’s something you cannot argue with. One could say we don’t know most things. I have been told that my birth date is February 21st, but do I know this? I believe it, certainly — what reason would my parents have to lie to me? But I don’t know it. There is not something deeply resonant within me telling me when I was born. I was there, but I don’t remember it. I could have been born on February 22nd or 28th for all I know.
But I know that I am sitting here at sunrise typing this. I know that my arm is throbbing. I know that the air is thick — I can feel it. I know all of these truths. I also know things that you might not believe, like that a colleague is sleeping with her boss, or that another colleague hates his wife. Yes, it’s a knowing. I have no proof, but I know this beyond a shadow of a doubt. I’m particularly adept at knowing when someone is an abusive person, is in a deeply unhappy relationship, or has an eating disorder — no matter how good they are at covering it up. I have no idea how I know these things — I really should pay attention to the patterns better — but I can tell you without doubt that when I know, I know. It’s not a hunch, a maybe, or an “all signs point to.” And it’s not every time. It’s not like I have a radar that goes off anytime an abusive person, a person in an unhappy relationship, or one with an eating disorder walks past me. I am not sure the rhyme or reason to it at all — I honestly have no idea. But if I’m able to spend a bit of time with a person — 30 minutes? an hour? — these things are often like big red sirens to me, when I know they are not to others.
I’ll leave it at this for now. Yesterday’s truth is that I really must always listen to my Intuition, with a capital “i.” Because it’s nearly always (99% of the time) right.
