Massage Collage

As massage therapists, most if not all of the conditions our clients present with have a stress component.  Even conditions that twenty years ago were thought to be purely pathological are now known to be caused and/or contributed to by stress.  If you’re stressed for long enough, you’ll get sick, and if you’re sick, you’re almost certainly stressed by it.  My insight into these words of wisdom didn’t help me a bit this last week or so when I got really sick for the first time in a long, long time.

I had an inkling this was coming on a few weeks ago when some lymph nodes swelled right under my jaw.  Thinking I’d nip it in the bud, I asked the lymphatic drainage therapist on my staff to work on me.  The next morning, I awoke to find it had moved out of my neck down to the axillary area.  Normally, I’m the last person to go to the doctor, kicking and screaming all the way, but I had a really busy schedule coming up and just couldn’t take the time to be sick (so I told myself) and forced myself to go.  I’m sorry to say she didn’t grasp the concept that my lymph had been moved by human hands, and due to the swollen nodes at the side of my breast, she insisted I go get a mammogram asap, even though my annual wasn’t due for another four months.  It turned out to be a cyst.

Things escalated in the next few days with a sore throat, coughing, sneezing, some stomach upsets, and all the usual things that accompany a good old-fashioned “sick spell”, as my granny would have said.  I’m on the mend now, but it’s a reminder of a lesson I seem to have to relearn every few years:  when you think you don’t have time to take care of yourself, stress will usually force your hand.  I was allowing a few things that were totally beyond my control to stress me out, obsessing over the fact that I had a class to get ready for and a publishing deadline to meet and people coming for Thanksgiving to cook for and the house is a mess, and I was a great success at making myself sick.  At least I recognize it, LOL!

I have a friend who’s fighting cancer right now.  A family member is in drug rehab trying to straighten themselves out.  Another family member recently had a flooded home that is costing thousands of dollars and backbreaking work to dig out of, and this Thanksgiving there are a lot of people with loved ones who won’t come home from the war.  It makes my problems look pretty ridiculous in comparison, so I’m going to take a deep breath and let them go.

I’m going to stress less and be well, and I hope you do the same.

Many Blessings,

Laura Allen

Posted on November 23rd, 2007 by Laura Allen
Filed under: General