Pijat

I love a good pijat, massage. Back in lowland, thanks to a good health insurance, I had it at least once a month, but there were times I had it on weekly basis because of my connective tissues problem. Most of the time it was done by professionals: physiotherapists (I had 3 on my list for different specialities), Chinese tui na practitioner; sometimes a friend did it for me.

Back in Indonesia, I havent found any good physiotherapist, let alone someone specializing in Manual (in Dutch: Manuele) therapy. In fact last week when I asked about it to an Occupational doctor, she said her therapist is a doing it manually. Sigh.

There are a lot of people who can give you a good pijat in this place, some studied it through courses, some did it autodidact. But sometimes, I need manipulation for my joints too. That's when I have problem finding someone I can trust not making me in a worse state than I already am.

This morning I tagged along W to her office, to get what she called an 'abuse of our body' by this sweet gentle Timorese guy with a funny laugh. W did it before after a fall, and she said it was quite painful when he manipulates her bones, but afterwards it was worth it. Since I am a bit of a masochist, I decided to try it out as my upper back (T4) has been hurt for a while.

First I looked at, joked, teased W during her session. Then it was my turn. He started on my left foot, because I asked him to check my ankle which has been dislocating off and on it's place when I do certain movement ever since I sprained it during a speed skating session more than 7 years ago.

OMG. There were moments I wanted to scream had it not W was on her phone with her boss!

But to his credit, my foot looks and feels better now. Then he did my back, and ended with my left shoulder that was dislocated back in the beginning of 2006. The guy said it's going to be painful to manipulate that area. Guess what? It's not nearly as painful as when he did my foot. W was wincing each time he did something on me, while I was pretty ok about it. The guy said it's good that I have a high threshold of pain, because otherwise I'd be crying by then and he'd had to stop before putting every things back to its position. He told me to heat up my shoulder twice a day. It took him 3 hours to work with W & I. Afterwards we had a great lunch that we deserved. Do you notice, being in pain makes you hungry.