A Pain in the Neck

It was with a bit of apprehension that I pulled up to the address and gingerly exited my car. It was only a few hours ago that I had called to make the appointment and was surprised that I could get on so soon. I really had no idea what to expect, but was willing to try anything to get some relief.
A few days earlier I had been in conversation with one of my customers regarding aches, pains and chiropractors. I had been to my doctor several years ago about the pain in my neck, which was progressively getting worse. Anti-inflammatories and pain killers were what he ordered, never once concerning himself about the origins or root causes of the pain. My customer sympathised and then told me her story, also about a sore neck. She now had relief and suggested I see Mrs. Banman who could fix just about anything.
After having tried so many different therapies and spending literally thousands on chiropractors, I was willing to try anything, especially if it had worked on someone else with a similar problem. I had not even asked what it was, exactly, that Mrs. Banman did, that brought about such wonderful results. I was trusting, and desperate.
I was a bit surprised at who came to the door. She looked familiar, but probably only because she had that typical old Russian peasant look, which is so predominant in our community. With a heavy accent, she acknowledged me and ushered me into her front entry. I was confronted by a strong odour of frying fish and horse liniment. It was going to be a hot day and she had all the drapes pulled tight and windows closed to keep the heat out. It also kept the odours in.
I followed her very large frame down the hall, trying to avert my eyes lest she suddenly turn and see me staring at her huge maternal stores. She led me to her ‘treatment room’. Four treatments later, I would change the name of that room, but for now, it was a converted den with a very narrow massage table against one wall, a squat bookshelf, and an oversize leather recliner with a wooden chair facing it. On a small table beside the recliner was the source of the strongest of the two odours in Mrs. Banman’s home. There was an assortment of bottles, tubes, and jars, all containing various strengths of balms, oils, lubricants, and liniments.
I was still in the process of assessing my surroundings when she mumbled something about my pants. Having not caught the comment at all, I asked her to say it again.
“Take off you pants,” she said a little louder.
Naturally taken aback, I repeated the statement back to her and she said, “That’s vat I told you”.
“There must be some mistake,” I countered. Thinking she had me mixed up with another one of her patients, I said, “My name is Terry. I called you this morning about my neck.”
“Ja, take off you pants.”
“I’m sorry, but my neck needs work and I do not see what my pants being off have to do with that! If it is all the same to you, I would prefer to keep them on.”
Very assertively she replied, “Do you vant to get better? Then take off you pants. I have to massage your legs.”
By this time, I am laughing inside and telling myself that I really don’t have to be here. “What on earth has that go to do with my neck?”
And just as she was about to explain, I got it. I had not yet seen the chart on the wall in my peripheral view, but it came clear. It was a reflexology chart, and a large one.

“I vill verk on your neck, but from the bottom to the top.”
“ Aha. I get it. You will massage my feet and in that way you will loosen up my neck. Ok, next time I come, I will wear shorts.”
She sat me down on the big brown recliner and extended the foot rest. She slipped off the sandals I was wearing and I was glad I had taken a shower not that long ago. She grabbed the largest of the jars beside me and dolloped out a large quantity of grease. Immediately the strong odour stung my nostrils and instantly cleared my sinuses. She slathered the grease on my feet and up my ankles and then began massaging. I knew right away that she had done this before, and many times. Her hands were well practiced, powerful, and knew the exact spots, both the ones that tickled and the ones that gave sharp pain. She was just warming up. I knew the appointment was for one hour, so I settled in and told myself I was going to have to get used to it. I didn’t.
“Now I vill verk on your neck.”
Finally, I thought, we are getting to the nub of the issue. I was about to prop myself up so I could move to the massage table, but she made no indication that I was about to go anywhere. With a plump, greasy finger, she pointed to the chart beside her and showed me ‘the neck’. It was, according to reflexology, the outer, lower edge of the big toe. She grabbed it between her thumb and fore finger and squeezed mightily as the toe bone slid between her fingers. There had to be a big nerve right there because I just about jumped out of the recliner.
“See?” she said, “ That shows that your neck is not good.”
“ No, that shows that my toe is not good. My neck is up here,” I protested as I pointed to that part of my body between the shoulder and the head. Quickly glancing up at the chart I said, “If I break your middle toe and it hurts like crazy, does that mean you have bad kidneys?”
At that she laughed, and the excesses of her body rippled and swayed at the effort. At least she had a bit of a sense of humour, but I was getting worried, because to this point, she had yet to look at or touch my real neck, where the real pain was. As if she was reading my mind, she inquired about my neck and asked if I was feeling any relief. I was not and I did not hesitate to tell her.
With that pronouncement, she perhaps decided that she should placate me and at once told me to take my shirt off and to get onto the massage table, face down. I am sure it was a table designed for small children, because all manner of parts of me were hanging off the ends and sides. She struggled to squeeze herself between the recliner and the massage table and in the process was pressing her ample warm flesh against my arm, which was already crowded for room. I faced the wall, reluctant to find out exactly which soft parts of her were becoming familiar with the back of my hand. She did not seem to mind one bit and after a few squirts from the liniment tube, leaned over me even further and began rubbing the horse medication into my shoulders and neck. Ah. Finally my neck was getting some much needed attention.
But, far from soothing and relaxing the stiff, painful muscles, the discomfort was growing. I wondered at that point if she had ever heard of the real massage tables, the ones with a hole for your face? The big problem for me at that point was the fact that I was on my stomach and my head was twisted to the side, something that I had not dared to do for many years already due to the nasty after effects.
With her hands finally feeling my neck and realising the extent of the stiffness, she declared to me that she had treated necks much worse that mine and that she would be able to fix me in three more treatments. She was so self assured, and she was so good at telling people what they wanted to hear, that I believed her. So, when the agony was finally over, I consented to coming back in three more days.
Fortunately, I had an old blanket in my vehicle and was able to throw it over the driver's seat to keep from contaminating everything with grease on my short drive home. I slithered out of my clothes when I got home and with plenty of soap and hot water, was finally able to degrease my body. My feet were feeling tingly and good. My neck was stiff and sore. More that it had been in quite some time. At that point in time, I was desperately wishing that my toe and neck were interchangeable, like the chart said they were.
The next three treatments were similar with a few exceptions. She tried to defend her science by getting me to feel both my big toes for the sake of comparison. The left toe, according to the wall chart, represented the right side of the neck. The right toe, the left side of the neck. The almost imaginary lump on the left side of the left toe, was the wonky neck, and it was here that she concentrated her efforts. I maintain to this day that the lump was a result of trauma inflicted in the first treatment. The pressure and continual rubbing on that spot almost forced me to walk out several times. I will admit that it got my mind off my painful neck. In that sense, it did work, at least temporarily.
She would talk as she massaged. I heard about every alternative practitioner in our community. She knew them all, what they did and how good their results were or were not. I was warned about many other old Russian women. "Stay avay from them. They vill hurt you."
During the third treatment, she was perhaps suspecting that I was not going to get any better so she brought up the subject of eel treatments. She told me how first the Chinese, and later the Russians used live eels to suck the toxins out of a patients body and all sorts of good things happened as a result.
" Let me understand this," I said. " The eels suck the bad poisons right through the skin? Where do they go, these poisons? Is there a lot of blood that comes with the poisons? Do the wounds heal OK? And what about the eels? Do they then die because they are full of poison?"
The laugh came from the deep and almost caused a tsunami. I thought my queries would put the idea to rest but she surprised me when she asked me if I wanted to try it.
"You have eels? Here?" I was thinking of the smell of fried fish that hung around like a tiresome neighbour.
She bent forward, as far as her lap would allow, and reached down to the bottom of the book shelf. Red faced from the exertion of hoisting her upper body to a sitting position, she proudly thrust forth the box.
"Look. I ordered these from Russia and they arrived last week. I vant to try them."
"Surely not eels," I thought to myself, but deadly curious. She carefully opened the box and there in four rows of six, were perfectly identical, thick, rounded, glass cups, maybe two inches deep and two inches in diameter. These 'eels' looked innocent enough. I asked her how they worked and she explained that each cup was heated with a candle as it was held up side down. Then, quickly, the cup was placed on one's slightly moistened back, (with liniment, no doubt) and as the cup and trapped air cooled, it created suction, much like an eel would. My mind conjured up burn rings and massive hickies so I was hoping my question would deflect her enthusiasm.
"Where do the toxins go?"
"They are sucked out of your body."
"But to where? Do they have to be washed off of your skin? What do they look like?"
" It is OK. You no like to try them, I try them on somebody else."
She put them away, obviously disgusted with me for my lack of faith. "Stupid man!" was the look on her face.
On the fourth treatment, she asked again if my neck was better. She seemed puzzled at my negative answer, as if she had never run into this situation in her life. After the usual toe bashing, she suddenly grabbed my arm and began to manipulate it up and down, backwards and forwards. It was the arm (shoulder) that I had dislocated 25 years previously. She detected the 'thump' as she rolled the socket back and forth.
"Aha! Vy didn't you tell me you had a sore arm?"
" I didn't know I had one," I said apologetically. "Besides, that's my left arm and it is the right side of my neck that is sore."
She looked mystified and utterly forlorn. She had finally met a monster she could not conquer. I had planned on reminding her that she was going to fix me in four treatments, but I suddenly felt sorry for her. After the many stories she told me of her successes, I wondered if she would ever tell anyone my story. Probably not.
With my neck as sore as ever, I left the torture chamber for the last time. As I slipped my greasy feet back into my sandals, she told me I should maybe go see a chiropractor. But not Mrs. Quiring! She would hurt me.
"Besides," she announced, "me and my husband are going fishing and I cannot work on you any more this summer."
She had no trouble taking the twenty from my outstretched hand. I turned to leave, looking over my shoulder before I walked out the door, only to see her waddling to the kitchen, presumably to fry up some fish.