Sprained Ankle

I never believed sprained ankles could be this serious. I always believed that they were simple issues that go away after a few days of rest, ice, compression and elevation, even if it meant that you couldn't do serious exercise for a longer time after that. 

I've sprained both ankles many times in the past, but never as badly as this. It was bad enough to make some scary tearing sounds soon after I came back to school from football. This alone is enough for the specialist to classify it as the nastiest type of sprained ankle. 

Grade III ankle sprains are complete tears of the ligaments. The ankle is usually quite painful, and walking can be difficult. Patients may complain of instability, or a giving-way sensation in the ankle joint.

However, I was still able to wobble around for a while, because the shock of it did not sink in and temporary pain relief had not worn out. But once I got home, I realized that I could no longer walk. That was a pretty nasty feeling, and the severe symptoms seemed to tell me it was a broken ankle. I now believe that not going home immediately was the worst decision I made, somewhat comparable to Guan Yiu being dragged around for more than a day after treatment. 

So off I go for a x-ray checkup. Everything was fine, I didn't break anything and I was taught how to treat the ankle properly. Got a nice bandage and a new big ice pack in the process. And a piece of paper that would give me school leave till the 27th (full week), when I would have to go get checked again. 

Two days after the injury, I decided that since disabled people with missing arms or legs ride anyway, I would try it, after completely immobilizing my ankle. It turned out to be a wonderful session, with the help from some other riders (to get in the saddle), my favorite horse and plenty of others to clean up after me. (There is a lot to do for the horse after riding. Like taking off the saddle bits, bridle, braces and whatever the horse is wearing, followed by showering the horse, drying off and feeding.) 

Perhaps the most important thing in riding with disabilities is to be confident as a rider, compensating for the disability and not let the horse poke fun at your inability to tell it to do certain things(If I don't have a right leg, then I would have to use the rest of my limbs really well, or else the horse would realize that you can't do anything if it were crazy at the right) when the horse refuses. Because I couldn't use my leg properly this time, I had to use everything else to tell the horse what to do. 

Monday came and it seemed like a busy day at school with 3 subjects. But I made the right choice and realized that the illusion of a healed ankle was only due to the prescription pain drugs, being wrapped up nice and tight and hopping to everywhere. I wasn't going to hop around that at school with lots of books in my bag.

Today is Tuesday and I woke up rather impatient about the ankle. My ankle was still very soft and obviously RICE is taking too long. To speed things up, I decided to try my friendly neighborhood Chinese medicine specialist. It was another very meaningful experience. 

It was apparent this guy had nothing in common with the other doctor/specialist. He was much more firm in the treatment. He was also much more confident about the condition. Of course, today is the 5th Day since injury and I had some time to heal. However, the swelling and pain still existed and the ankle was still soft, as expected. (Such ankle injuries are supposed to require at least 2 weeks of no walking and lots more time with support.) 

The treatment was fairly simple, consisting of wrapping lots of bandages saturated with some herbal stuff and then telling me to drink this stuff when I have time today. 

Took me only 3 minutes vs an hour. 

$150 vs a lot more, plus more in the future. 

"You can go try walk now" vs "Stay home and enjoy your leave."

That is far less complicated than anything orthopedics told me to do, and far more effective in my case. The pain is gone along with the swelling, and I have walked a fair amount today without feeling worse than this morning after using the ice-pack. Ankle strength has returned about 50% after a 3 minute procedure. This is even more amazing considering that I have not moved my ankle in 2 weeks and my right leg muscles have gotten stiff without any walking. 

Of course, this is not a fair test because the conditions were worse on Friday. But the issue is that the actual immediate effectiveness of the Chinese medicine treatment was greater, faster and cheaper than wasting away for two weeks and using up a ton of smelly bandages and ice packs. The only issue is that I didn't go to the Chinese guy last Thursday, which would be my ideal course of recovery.

I hope to make a full recovery before 2 weeks and go surprise my orthopedic specialist on Friday. I think I can make it. 

: )

Modes of the mind

I don't understand why people feel the need for someone else to make them do something.

I see that increasingly, people believe that they are small and helpless and they need external controls to make them change. They believe that they need to be "cured", or "someone needs to lead them". These people are all around you.

For example, it appears that hypnosis therapy has been marketed as a way to "reprogram" the subconscious and kick bad habits. It has been done in every habit, from smoking to seduction to procrastination. While all this sounds awesome to many people, the word "program" is already a severe, I have several concerns:

the safety issue. Almost all reviews of it claim that it is not harmful in any way. In particular, they stress that no one can be made to do anything against their will. Do you see anything wrong with this statement?

The term "will" simply means the conscious effort of the mind. But when the conscious effort is diverted (by the general process of hypnosis), then the person under the procedure is not in control. And suppose the hypnotized person does realize the immorality of what they are doing, there is still little he can do, as the willpower is controlled by the procedure. Worst still, people in a hypnotic state will most likely not reason, and therefore any sense of morality can be bypassed.

The next issue is that some believe that they are no longer capable of controlling themselves, or that a conscious effort cannot work. I'm sure there have been times when we just cannot help procrastinating and doing something else. Here, the actual situation is not that one is not capable of attention and must therefore be diagnosed of attention deficiency mental disorder, or must undergo hypnosis. What is actually going on is very simple. The person simply has things of higher order of priority for, say, watching music videos as opposed to doing homework. There is simply a higher demand within the mind for doing something else, or maybe that the work requires far more effort and stress than something else and the person is already overloaded.

What the person requires is not some reprogramming of their minds, or someone telling them what to do. What they require is a belief in themselves, that they are capable of making their own decisions and they can always be happy with the results.

Someday, some scientist may make education an entirely subconscious work. But when that happens, the individual will no longer exist and people under such a trance will not be human people anymore. Then, we the human race would be worse than any animal we currently believe to be superior to.

In our quest to understand more about ourselves and our minds, we must be careful that we do not see ourselves as mere programming objects and then become blinded by our own desires that we accept the belief that someone needs to "program" you.

Of course, in the end, it is a personal choice. Some may accept the objectification of their minds, but they must be reasonable.