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Let me preface all of this by saying that I grew up with 2 doctors. Grown-ups always said dumb stuff like, "Well, I guess you'll be a doctor someday, too, huh?" No. Absolutely not. The hours suck. The stress is outrageous. The ego-trip is unbearable. Nope. Negative. Not for me.

I was also jaded by sometimes painful, sometimes careless experiences and a one time near deadly one. My birth experiences were less than mother-centered. In short, I have a less than cozy relationship with Western Medicine. And still I was a little skeptical about iridology.

But Curious swore by it. She wouldn't shut up about Dr. Hill. Her kid has had near constant ear infections since birth. He's had surgery after surgery and finally experinced hearing loss. He's 9. She took him to Dr. Hill who has a Ph.D. in Alternative Medicine. He practices at a desk in a Health Food Store in a little country suburb of Pensacola. He has cured Curious's son. For the first time in his life he doesn't have fluid in his ears and has just passed a hearing test with perfect hearing. Wow. OK. I'll try it.

Since I don't have health insurance and haven't been to a doctor in almost 3 years, I figured a healer was as good as I was going to get anyway. What the hell.

To say that I am astounded, sold, in love with Dr. Hill is a total understatement. He is a miracle worker and an angel on Earth. BECCA LOVES IRIDOLOGY.

It went like this. I got there and sat next to him at his little desk. He asked me nothing. NOTHING. He looked in my eyes using a magnifying glass and a pen light. He "mapped" my eyes out on a chart. This took about 15 minutes or so.

SPOILER ALERT: If you don't want to hear about my medical history, stop reading now.

He sat back, looked at the chart and said, "Tell me about the trouble with your breasts." OK. I was diagnosed with Juvenile Papilomitosis when I was a teen-ager. That's just a fancy word for fibrous masses that come and go with your menstrual cycle. He said that he could see several small ones in my left and 1 big one in my right. And that is correct, ladies and gentlemen.

Then he said, "What happened to your right hip?" I was quickly becoming a believer. Well, after carrying 2 very large babies in my relatively small body, my hip comes out of joint on a regular basis. He asked me how much pain this caused me. I kind of shrugged, as if to say whatever or not enough to slow me down.

And then he said a phrase that will stick with me for quite a while. He looked me right in my eyes and said in a very sincere and calming voice, "Pain is pretty relative for you, though, isn't it?" I knew by the way he looked at me and the way that he said it that he knew. He knew about my tallest mountain. My greatest obstacle. My Herculean task. I started crying and he handed me a Kleenex.

He said, "Were you hit with a baseball bat or a car?" I kind of laughed. He said, "It had to be something like that. It's the worst back injury I've ever seen in anyone that can still walk." So I told him. When I was 15, I fell down a flight of stairs. I did one flip and then bounced all the way down on my butt. He said, "Is that how you broke your tailbone?" I told him that I had never broken my tailbone. Dr. Hill smiled and said, "Yes, you did. And now you have a bone spur where it healed improperly. That bone spur has rubbed away the coating on your sciatic nerve. It's exposed now." And that all makes sense. Why the pregnancies were excrutiating at times. Why sitting for any length of time or standing for any length of time is very uncomfortable. Why sleep comes only in spurts.

He got out anatomical charts and showed me exactly what is broken, for lack of a better word. He explained why I hurt where I hurt. He spoke to me in English and not the medical jargon mumbo jumbo bullshit that I've been hearing for 15 years. He hugged me, cried with me, and took my face in his hands and promised to help me.

I came home with a bag full of vitamins, herbs and supplements. Dawn helped me organize and label everything when I got here. I'm ecstatic. Naysayers, keep your mouths shut. I don't want to hear it. This is the only ray of hope I've had in at least 6 years. I promise to keep you updated. And I promise to hear you out if I don't get better or God forbid, I get worse.

Send good vibes my way, Friends. Hope. After walking around in near constant pain for 15 years, Hope feels really good.

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Yee-Haw!

I'm not cured, but certainly better. I can still feel the catch in my back, but the horrible stabbing lightning strike of pain associated with that catch yesterday is all gone. As my friend Curious would say, "I've got a hitch in my giddy-up."

Dawn's at work, so the kids and I are going to load up in the Old Slow Coach and see if we can find any yard sales. Then we're going to the Used Book Store to sell our finds and hunt for treasures. I LOVE the Used Book Store, which refers to itself as an Index which makes me love it even more. Index is much more romantic than Used. Doesn't it call to mind a dusty forgotten library where our hero finds the last of the clues that will deliver the world from certain evil? Yes, it does.

Fall has started straining at the womb that Summer has made for it. She will soon be here, and we will hang orange garlands to celebrate. Until then, I hope you all enjoy a restful Saturday! Don't forget to revel in the last days of Summer. In a few months, we'll all be bitching about how cold it is.

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Debilitated, Damn it

I have hurt my back. I'm not sure how badly yet, we'll see. When we got home from picking up the kids from school, Dawn parked on the street and hopped out and ran into the house because she had to poop. The 3 little kids and I were left to carry in a few odds and ends. I'm in charge of the Scholastic Book Orders for Ray's classroom which involves putting together fliers which are bundled in big blocks. While simultaneously trying to keep the kids out of the street and gather the bundles and the small bag of groceries, I heard and felt something pop. Pain, immediately. I sort of collapsed onto the car seat and told Faith and William to go and get Dawn right now.

Several minutes of pretty severe pain later and still no Dawn, I managed to find one of the cell phones on the floor of the car. I called the house. She was laughing when she answered, "Yes?" She came running. She carried me into the house which is no fall feat considering that our driveway has a pretty substantial slope and there are several steps up to the porch and then several steps down into the den. She said she never saw Faith, and William came in singing, "It's a Small World." Thank God for Cell Phones.

So now I'm confined to the bed. Dawn is very sweet to me. She's got me set up with the laptop and has even gotten it rigged up so it's not burning the skin off of my legs. She changes out my ice packs regularly. And when I threaten to get up and help with the nighttime routine, she reminds me that she has to go to work tomorrow and that I HAVE to rest and get better or the children will burn the place down in the morning and I'll have a hard time getting myself out a window to escape. sigh.

I HATE being immobile and useless.

She's been giving me regular updates on the kids, the hysterical kids. She said William left his shoes right in the middle of the kitchen floor. When she asked him to pick them up, he said, "OK, as soon as you give me some cash." What the hell?

Ray comes in to check on me and put his little chicken head on me. A few minutes ago, he came in with chocolate in the corners of his mouth. I asked him if he had cookies for dessert. He said, "Yep. All done. My mouf" and then opened up to show me the Oreos ground into his precious teeth. Lord, how I love this baby.

I can hear the kids running up and down the hallway. Sometimes I can figure out the gists of their games. Sometimes I just catch a few words, "Charge!" and "You're under arrest!" Lord, how I love these kids.

It's strange to experience my life from behind a door.


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