The Gainesville Report, Part 3

I'm baaaack! Home safe with my kitty and my buggy car.

So, it's time to update you all on my adventures, and I'll try to answer some of the questions - sorry, couldn't check comments while I was away. But first (and most importantly!) let me just say that meeting Calliope was fabulous! She is one cool chick (as I always knew she'd be). And just as gorgeous in real life as she is in photos, and we all know she's pretty darn photogenic, so that's a lot to live up to. I had a blast meeting her, and hope that we'll be able to get together again soon. It's just so heart warming to finally meet someone that you've connected to, and to have so much in common. And yes, she's a dork for worrying if I'd like her. Duh! I was worried that there were so many cooler people in her internet fan club than me that I'd just seem very ho hum and boring. But hey, we talked about sperm and vaginas and RE's and IVFs and internet friends, so no worries about running out of things to discuss!

OK, so back to Gainesville. The clinic is set up kind of like a doctor's office, but with more "homey" touches so it doesn't have as much of a clinical feeling. There are 5 treatment rooms, with a fancy massage type bed, supplies and of course, tinkly music. You strip to your bra and knickers (or panties if I'm being American), and put on a robe. There is also a paper gown to wear if you want to, but I found it hot, crinkly and sweaty, so I stuck with the robe. Each patient also has a blankie - the blankie and robe are yours for the week, which they put in a big plastic bag with your name on after every session. When the therapist is working on you, they usually have you lying on your back, with the robe open at the waist, and they put a towel over your knickers for a bit more coverage. You can have the blankie on you too, if you want. Mine was usually over my toes which got a bit chilly.

Every day they worked on my abdomen. They would palpate it and move it around to find stuck spots, then would dig their fingers in and hold it. The first couple of days, it would feel like the skin was tearing when they were doing that. After that, it felt like a hot poker. I started thinking of it as the house of pain at those moments. But after it got really really hot, it would release and go back to normal. Then they would let go and palpate again, and you could totally tell that the restriction was either gone or completely lessened. I thought several times of asking them to stop, but usually just said "ah-ah-ah" like I'd put my hand on a hot stove or a pathetic "it buuuurns" and we kept going after they checked if I was OK. They also worked on my head, neck, jaw and thighs. I found the worst points to be my left hip flexor which hurt like a mo'fo', and this morning as they were working on it I had a memory pop up of falling down a metal slide as a kid and landing badly, and my jaw on the right, where I got an overwhelming feeling of sadness and ended up bawling my eyes out as they touched a sore spot. They say you can store memories of trauma in your tissues, which I totally believe. Didn't find out what was causing the jaw issue, but it may come up later I guess.

I had four therapists working on me over the course of the week - 3 women and a man. The man did 2 out of the 20 total hours, one woman did 4, the others more. At first I was worried about having different people see my flab, but it was actually good because each therapist was a little different in technique and personality so I felt like I was getting the best out of each of them.

And I got an internal session every day too. It usually lasted about 10-15 minutes out of the 4 hours total treatment I got every day. They'd have me take my knickers off, and while I was draped in a towel, they would glove up and stick their hand up my va-jay-jay. Usually lying on my back, though I did have to get in some pretty weird positions. Again, they'd find a stuck spot and push on it, until it "gave". Sometimes this hurt a lot, sometimes not. It was actually fine most of the time, except when they were moving my cervix to make my uterus move, which felt pretty damn odd. On Thursday, I got the internal treatment in the other area. Yes, a man stuck his finger up my arse. But apart from the unpleasant feeling of his finger when it first went in, and when he took it out, the actual treatment up there didn't hurt. He was pulling on two ligaments to move my tailbone. I think the thought of it was worse than actually going through it, but I definitely won't be volunteering for it again any time soon.

So, I'm sad that the week is over. Not that I like pain, but they were so nice and caring, and it gave me so much hope. It was a profound experience in so many ways, and I didn't want that to end. But also because I feel that there are still areas of my body that are stuck and restricted that I'd like more work done on, even though they said some of it will continue to heal based on this week's work. However, in my discharge evaluation, the therapist was able to move my cervix all around without pain, my uterus is much more mobile, my legs are the same length (one had actually shortened by an inch or two because the muscles were so tight) and I can open my jaw without pain. She measured me bending through different angles, and as an example, when she had me lean backwards, I could bend my spine back 10 degrees more than on Monday morning. 10 degrees! Just from loosening the muscles, tendons and ligaments.

Pretty remarkable stuff. I highly recommend it to anyone with adhesions, blocked tubes or other tightness, and a high pain tolerance. And five grand (though hopefully insurance will reimburse some of it). And a BMI less than 36. And a willingness to believe that it works.

In other words, it was a fucking fabulous week.