Yesterday I was required to attend Peter Mac's Physiotherapy Department to undertake a bio- impedance assessment. This was to establish a baseline (pre-operatively) as to what the fluid level is in my left arm before they take out all my lovely hard working lymph glands from under my left arm pit. Apparently one can develop the "lymphoedema" - lymph meaning lymph gland and oedema meaning swelling. So albeit a low risk, I could end up with an arm like Guillermo Vilas. For those not familiar, Guillermo was a rather gorgeous tennis player circa late 70's early 80's, whose hitting arm was three times the size of his other arm!
So they run this electrical current through your body using these little stick-on pads that then connect to the machine to do the reading. They may have also thrown a piece of bacon on my tummy as well for their lunch but I can't be too sure - but here I am connected and feeling very Miss Frankenstein-esque. Felt very tempted to do a zombie like walk when leaving the department, arms outstretched and stiffly rocking side to side and groaning but they probably get that all the time. Reading is all good and within the acceptable range. I will head back in one month's time and they will check the levels again to see that the fluid is at an appropriate level and being redirected or re-routed to other lymph glands in my body (neck, groin etc) as expected.
But my real news for today is that I have finally succumbed and am about to confess - to come out, as it were to all you good people and tell you dear friends that I have finally embraced what living in
Thornbury is really all about.
Yep, I am officiallya card carrying Herbal.
I have thrown caution and conservatism to the wind and have gone to see a traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner who goes by the somewhat unusual Chinese name of Raffaele Vavala!!
See folks to live in Thornbury as a true native, is to embrace organic produce totally with the focus of a serial killer, to shop with an almost palpable religious fervour in search of the best super food that has travelled the least amount of food miles, adopt a superior sense of piousness about the goodness coursing through one's body that only comes from a diet of organic mung beans served with a brown rice pilaf and washed down with a chilled glass of 2013's finest wheat grass - brought not from the filthy capitalist supermarkets- good lord no- purchased only from either the Health Food Shop where the shop assistants all need a good shave (boys and girls alike) or from the local farmers market held at the local primary school of which Thornbury has plenty. It would appear that herbals are rather prolific breeders and have lots of chill'un with names like Zinia, Ennui, and Harness. Who knew?
So in the interests of truly assimilating, I have developed an acquired liking for independent music,
where such performances could be held in a telephone box, such is their appeal, a love of well-intended yet poorly executed community art such as an interpretative dance, the theme of which I think may have revolved around live animal exports followed by the possiblity of a commemorative fund raising purchase of such works portrayed through the craft of scrap booking!!
My diagnosis has afforded me the opportunity to slam dunk this sense of pure self and community by embracing those health provider options oft used by my more organic Thornbury brethren. So at the recommendation of the lovely Pauline, ( a free radical and non-conformist of long standing) I get my unshaven legs to take me to Raff's rooms where after a detailed consult, he sticks little needles in me like some voodoo doll to alleviate the return of meopausal symptons that have returned with a
vengeance, since ceasing HRT.
I was considering the purchase of some hand spun, hand dyed, home made garments to complete the transformation but seriously, herbals just don't do a good outfit that goes with heels!! So I leave you good people with the new Minogue Mantra.........
"All this biodynamic food and decaf beverages had better have some bloody benefit because they taste like shit"
Here Endeth the Lesson.
Kelly xx
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