The scene in Dr Jody’s treatment space is the first moment of ease in the performance of Breastless. And it doesn’t come until page 20, almost halfway through the script. The audience has been taken through the background tension, fear and pressures of a medical diagnosis. Then here is some relief.
As I perform, I feel the same calm warmth wash over my body that happened at the time. I breathe a little deeper and feel my face relax as I gently smile. In spite of it all, I feel healthy. At the time I would not have been able to describe that effect, but looking back I can see that this was me coming out of the fight/flight/freeze/fawn response and into the ability to feel into myself and to trust.
Trust was not something that came easily to me and I did not fully trust Western medicine by this point in my life. Experience had taught me to question its absolute and unquestionable, capital-T Truth.
A pivotal reason for this came at age 25 when I was taken out by severe back pain. It was a constant in my life by then, but an acute episode had me hospitalized because of my inability to urinate. They catheterized and removed close to 2 litres from my bladder. Finding nothing to explain it via x-ray or MRI, I was simply offered the advice to take the muscle relaxant painkillers (which appeared to be solving the urinary retention) and to “get a job where you can stand” when I pointed out that I still could not sit!
What happened next irrevocably changed my view of health and healthcare.
I am discharged with a prescription for codeine phosphate and little hope, but my boyfriend has been asking questions of friends and has booked me an appointment before heading home to cope. He helps me into the back of our SUV, seats down and blankets for attempts at some comfort and drives me to an Osteopath.
I am fascinated by charts on the walls of the spine and limbs, the exquisite interplay of bone and muscle, and the network of the nervous system; a spinal cord and nerves exiting between vertebrae. I have never thought to consider what my back looks like, or how it functions. I have been blindly living in a body to which I only pay inner attention when in pain.
He briefly explains his training and method to us both. He observes me standing. They both help me onto his treatment bed where he gently palpates my spine and then swiftly adjusts what he calls “a subluxation at L5”. After a few moments sitting up to gain some equilibrium, I walk out of his office with only a mild residual ache and am able to sit through the journey home without shooting agony.
I feel blessed relief accompanied by bewildered shock.
I had presented the exact same symptoms. One expert found nothing wrong, all tests were clear. Another expert saw an obvious issue and treated it successfully. It blows my mind. I had opened a Pandora’s Box of; “The problem you see depends on what you have been taught to look at”.
This was news to me as a 25 year old. It gave me new eyes to see and questions, so many questions! Blind acceptance of just about anything in my life was now a thing of the past and my absolute faith in Western medicine was rocked.
Much as I was scathing at the time, I do not view this example as a failure of the doctors. This was not negligence. It was simply the best they could do given their training. There is nothing in their textbooks that pointed to that problem in my body. It was a failure of the paradigm of Western medicine which had no explanation for the presenting symptoms and therefore had no treatment to offer.
However, the over-arching and far-reaching failure that does still anger me is the continued conceit in our culture that the Western medical model is the one true approach to healthcare. The arrogance developed around our health system dismisses other lenses through which to view human health. It self-protectively denies that practitioners outside of their paradigm are digging deeper into causes and contexts and finding resolution to chronic ill-health. Western medicine can even deny its own scientific research when it inconveniently proves that its tools are failing people - patients and doctors alike - as it sheds light on successful approaches that take into account trauma stories, familial context, epigenetics etc.
When an experience conflicts with our view of the world, the safest and swiftest way to resolve that conflict is to deny the experience. Especially if you have any nagging doubts as to the efficacy of your answer. Especially if you continue to see people suffering and in pain even with all the care you can give. Especially if you feel yourself buckling under the strain but are determined to keep going regardless.
And this was my experience during cancer. The help I was getting from Traditional Chinese Medicine was of no interest and even barred from conversation during my consultations with Western medical doctors. I was not encouraged to bring my health to their door, just the symptoms that they could label and prescribe for.
A few years ago, I was invited to present Breastless to a group of Family Practice Residents during their academic session. They were required to give their thoughts after the presentation and one doctor said with a broad smile, “I was so surprised to hear an alternative practitioner [note her words] commending Western medicine. I wasn’t expecting that!”. I responded by saying that this is one of the many reasons why I hope that a variety of healthcare practitioners choose to hear the play. That I hope it might play a part in ending the ignorance and embittered attacks and instead bring these apparent enemies together to hear what each other has to say.
In my experience, it is only when we are confident in our reasons and choices that we can ask others what theirs are and truly listen without defensiveness. It takes a wise, open-minded and honest person to consider that theirs might not be the only Truth or that our answers might not be Truths at all but simply models by which we explain the human body and mind as best we can. That takes a certain professional confidence, not defensive arrogance.
How Dr Jody consistently assessed my whole system of mind, body and spirit felt like healthcare to me. She was treating me, not my symptoms, with the medicines she knew to administer, while also acknowledging the need for Western medical tools. Whether the medicines/acupuncture can be proven to have “worked” or not, I believe that how she treated me brought me back to balance and wholeness as a person. The true meaning of health.
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I can't tell you how much I resonate with this. Especially this:
"Western medicine can even deny its own scientific research when it inconveniently proves that its tools are failing people - patients and doctors alike - as it sheds light on successful approaches that take into account trauma stories, familial context, epigenetics etc."
I am a nurse and I've gotten so tired of trauma and mental health being ignored when it comes to somatic symptoms that this is why I've chosen to come out here and start a substack and write/coach. I have been seriously morally injured by the industrial health system and I know for a fact that this is happening to 1000s of other HCPs as well, not to mention the patients. We all hate this dehumanizing system but, much like our overall societal paradigm, we are powerless to stop it. It makes me angry and full of grief over what I've seen. Thank you for having the courage to write about your experience, Emma. It is very much needed and appreciated🙏
This resonates deeply Emma. I had a similar experience with receiving an autoimmune diagnosis in my 30s which my doctor said was 'incurable'. I took this as gospel for some years, before discovering a wealth of different lenses and approaches (including acupuncture) which have ultimately given me back my health. I value and respect western medicine a great deal, but it is not the only useful lens for looking at our bodies and our health.