Classes & Courses

My Left Foot

The earliest memory I have of the condition is when I was 21 years old, it is Friday night and myself and some friends are walking towards the next public house. I find I am unable to hide the discomfort or to keep the walking pace being set by my mates.

“Come on Rick, why you walking so slow?” asks one.

“It hurts” I answer.

“What hurts have you sprained your ankle?”

“No I don’t think so” I answer “My foot just hurts.”

It hurts is an understatement. The pain is all consuming, I cannot ignore it. Even hobbling is near impossible; it leads to severe tensing of the shoulders and requires the whole of one sided swinging, half of my body, the corresponding arm, and the corresponding leg to propel myself forward. It is a very poor walking action.

I am 21 years and invincible, or so I thought. I put up with this debilitating pain, poor posture and very poor walking action for a number of months. I have the mistaken belief that the issue will rectify itself if given time.

Poor walking action and poor posture lead to more debilitating issues. My left ankle and toes become ridged; the joints of the lower extremity become nearly locked. It causes issues with my knees, hips and shoulders, there is pain in my neck and I have debilitating lower back pain. I am sleeping each night on the floor because spending a whole night on a soft surface brings consequences.

I suffer.

Eventually I bite the bullet and take the problem to the doctor.
The general practitioner diagnoses a verruca. The general practitioner spends the next three years periodically subjecting my foot to extreme low temperature treatments or to chemical burning treatments. Each treatment results in the loss of copious amounts of skin which relieves the symptoms for a few days/weeks but the symptoms always return. The symptoms always seem to return with increasingly bigger, more bitter, and more biting vengeance than the time before. Eventually the general practitioner accepts defeat and refers me to hospital for treatment.
After many months on waiting lists, the surgeon, within ten seconds of seeing the planter surface of my foot, announces “this is not a verruca!”. The surgeon diagnoses hard skin and informs me that because of the time I have suffered the condition he would consider surgery (cutting a large lump of otherwise healthy flesh, along with the offending hard skin, out of my foot in the hope that the flesh that would grow back would be free of the recurring symptoms). He described the surgery required as quite brutal; at no time did he inspire confidence that the original problem would be overcome. I am reluctant.

It seems that western medicine has reached the end of this particular road.

In search of an alternative approach, on reading around the subject I find an interest in eastern medicine and in shiatsu in particular. I find a suitable course, at convenient time and in convenient location. I am ready to start learning and exploring something new.

On the first evening of the two year course the lecturer fails to show. I am given emotional apologies and give assurances that the class would start one week later. I remain optimistic but one week later I am given more emotional apologies and informed that the class has been cancelled. The situation depresses me. I have budgeted the finance, I have allocated the time, I have planned, and I am mentally prepared for a new chapter in my pursuit of healing and knowledge, seemingly, to no avail.

The next morning I am far from over the bitter disappointment, I treat myself to lunch at an expensive wholefoods eatery. While having lunch I come across and read one of the flyers left in the shop. The flyer advertises T’ai chi classes. I am not sure what T’ai chi is but it has my interest, the classes are at the same time that the cancelled shiatsu classes would have run and at a location that is four hundred yards from the office I am working at.

Everything fits neatly into the huge void that had been left.

The stars aligned and my journey of supreme ultimate discovery began.