Yes, you're right, this is my golden retriever, Ruby, wearing a T-shirt that says "Your Body Is My Business. Have a Massage." And no, I'm not exploiting my four-legged friend by using her to advertise my business! The T-shirt is to stop her from pulling out the stitches in her right shoulder, following a minor surgery she had at the weekend (this was the smallest T-shirt I could find to fit her). Here she is looking like she's enjoying life in her new attire.
Ruby had been limping on and off on her right front leg for a while. Actually, a long while - several months, maybe even a year or more. It would come and go, and didn't seem to unduly bother her. She would limp briefly, hold up her paw, which we'd check, find nothing there, and she'd be on her way, seemingly forgetting about it. Our vet suspected arthritis in the shoulder. I would massage around the joint for a while and she'd stop limping.
Then a few weeks ago she stopped wanting to jump in the back of the car (she's always been a very agile jumper), asking for the ramp each time. She would still run at top speed when out on the trails, dig and play the "pully" game with her toys, so again, we put it down to arthritis and her age (almost 10). That was until last Saturday when the limping came on with a vengeance. She would walk a few steps, stop and hold up the paw, we'd check, find nothing, she'd walk a few more steps and hold the paw up again. Back home, she wasn't her usual self and seemed to be asking for something, but we couldn't figure out what. It appeared she wanted to go out, even though we'd only just come back from a walk, but as soon as we were walking again, the limp/stop/check routine would start over. Obviously there was something painful going on with her leg and we needed to find out why.
Once more, I went through the whole paw-checking procedure, this time wearing magnifiers and with the tweezers at hand. Once again, I found nothing, not even a pad sore to the touch, that may have indicated embedded glass or other foreign object. Okay, I thought, time for some Energy Medicine.
For those of you not familiar with Eden Energy Medicine, energy testing has a big role in the accurate determination of what is needed in terms of techniques. We use an indicator muscle to check the flow of energy, and can localize any point on the body to discover where energy is unbalanced, sluggish or otherwise upset. With small children, very sick people or pets, where asking for resistance in a muscle is impractical, surrogate testing is used. So instead of asking Ruby to "please hold out your paw and resist against my pressure", we have someone touch Ruby while we test their indicator muscle to show us what's going on with Ruby. So, I acted as the surrogate, while my partner, Tod, did the testing.
In less than a minute I had, with one hand, scanned the whole of Ruby's right leg, while Tod was constantly testing against my other outstretched arm. My arm faltered at the shoulder muscle. We went somewhere else and tested then went back there and tested again. Definitely "weak", i.e. I couldn't keep my arm up against his downward pressure while I was touching Ruby on her shoulder muscle.
I knew from previous discussions with our vet that the arthritis we were suspecting was in an area more to the front of the body, since the anatomy of a dog's shoulder differs from that of a human. The energy disruption we were seeing was definitely in the muscle at the top of the leg. Now I was thinking more in terms of a pulled muscle or tendon, maybe a tear in the tissue from digging or a sudden turn while running.
I palpated the muscle to see if I could feel any differences in the tissue quality. I'd massaged this muscle many times, but palpation is different. It's a lot more precise and focused. I moved my fingers over the muscle in small increments, letting them sink in a feel for knots or adhesions. Suddenly I was feeling something odd, something that felt like a small stick or toothpick lying horizontally under the skin, slightly embedded in the muscle, something that felt like - a cactus spine!
We live in Sedona. Cacti are everywhere. Ruby has often got a few spines stuck in her. She usually lets us know and we get them out. Sometimes it requires tweezers and a lot of patience, but we always get them out. Or so we thought. We'd obviously missed this one and it had apparently been in there for some time, jabbing her in the muscle when she moved a certain way. Ouch! A quick call to our vet's office in Flagstaff and we got the last appointment of the day (not bad for a Saturday afternoon). Dr Leon Ford of Canyon Pet Hospital performed a truly skillful surgery with just a local anaesthetic (on our request), and within 20 minutes was presenting us with this little beauty.
Had I not known how to do surrogate energy testing, I'm not sure we would have discovered the cause of Ruby's pain any time soon. Energy testing really helped us narrow down where to look and how, by pinpointing the area we should focus on. We could have taken her in for x-rays, which possibly would have shown the culprit, but not knowing where to look would have meant putting her through a lot of radiation, or maybe a very expensive MRI.
This is an instance where Energy Medicine was used hand in hand (or should that be hand in paw?) with conventional medicine with a very successful outcome. Energy testing is such a simple tool to learn, and the more you use it, the more proficient you can become at using it accurately.
For anyone in the area who would like to learn some simple energy medicine tools, including how to energy test, I will be teaching an Energy Medicine 101 evening class on Friday, February 19 and again on Friday, March 5. For those who want to expand their knowledge and furnish their toolkit with all the basics, join me for a 2-day Energy Medicine: Essential Techniques on Sundays, February 21 & 28. Follow the links to register.
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