Natural Healing For A Broken Ankle
Read more natural healing stories at spiritofchange.org/Journal-of-Natural-Healing.
It was the first Friday of the new year. The year was 2014 and I was living in hilly central Massachusetts. Temperatures had been in the frigid zone for days, and the ground was covered by a crystalline snow blanket. As I prepared to leave for work, I removed from the hall closet a black wool coat that had a big hood attached. I had not worn this coat for a long time, but it seemed perfect for that morning.
Gathering my possessions and heading out, I felt the extreme chill of the air as the door opened. While walking to my car with my head full of workday ideas, the air around me shifted. The temperature seemed softer somehow. My inner self caught this shift even as my outer self was contemplating the best course of action for the day. I was almost to the driveway when I heard a voice speaking, so I looked toward the street to see which neighbor was passing by. No one was there. The voice came again, and this time I heard very clearly these words, “All is well. Trust.”
As I took my next step I abruptly slipped and suddenly found myself flying unreasonably high (and in slow motion) into the air in a fully horizontal position. Once again came that shift in the air, and the voice returned saying, “It’s up to you now.” At that point complete and utter silence, all-embracing stillness, eternity-in-the-moment enveloped me. Flying in slow motion, horizontally, I watched my left leg sail higher than my body then pause in the air. Next came three distinct cracking sounds as I watched my left foot and ankle flop 1,2,3 rearranging itself in a 45-degree angle to point toward my right leg. Once this observation was complete, or so it seemed, it was time for me to come down to Earth, which I did with detached aplomb.
I lay on the ground of the front yard, still in a time-out-of-time reality, multiple thoughts racing through my mind. The voice, its messages, the shifting air, the slow motion, my ankle…. Then, like a lightening bolt, it became crystal clear to me that when I hit the ground my skull would have cracked wide open if I’d not been wearing the coat with the big hood this morning. Its large hood pillowed and cushioned my head as I came crashing down to Earth!
Then another lightning bolt…I was not in any pain! Here I am looking at my left ankle pointing like a hunting dog’s snout toward my right ankle, and I’m not in any pain! Then a voice arose from somewhere deep within me. It was not flowing through the breeze like the voice that had addressed me just a few minutes ago. This sound was distinctly different, its tone resonating and reverberating with my entire being. This voice from within me proclaimed as a qualifiable statement, “I am one with the all-prevailing healing powers of love!” Um, ah, ok.
Gradually it came to my attention that I needed to get some help. So I sat up and started calling “Help!” at the top of my lungs repeatedly. As life would have it, there was a man doing construction repairs on the house across the street. He followed the sound of my voice and came to my rescue. 911 was called, police and ambulance arrived, and I was whisked away to the hospital while the medics assessed the situation. What I remember hearing was, “Ooohh, this doesn’t look good.”
Once the ER admitting staff realized that I did not have health insurance, I was handed over to a physician’s assistant, who set my ankle bones very gently, skillfully and attentively. While in this process he informed me that I needed to see an orthopedic surgeon within the next two or three days so they could schedule the surgery. When I asked for details, he explained that the most likely course of action, based on the extent of this damage, would require three metal plates with multiple screws to secure the bones stay in alignment — one on the left side of the ankle bone, and one on both the right and the back. If all went well, he offered, in eight to ten months they’d go back in and remove the plates and hardware.
He also wrote me a script for pain relieving pills. At this point I realized yet again that I was in no pain! How could it be that I was experiencing no pain? The whole visiting voice aspect of the morning’s events returned to me with a rather fuzzy clarity. ”All is well.” “Trust.” “It’s up to you now.” Those were the messages that came just before the slip-up, but what in heaven’s name did they mean? And who was it that proclaimed from within me with absolute certainty that “I am one with the all-prevailing healing powers of love”?
As soon as I got back home, I called my chiropractor — my primary care practitioner — and shared with him the events of my momentous morning. He asked if I wanted the surgery, and when I adamantly replied, “No,” he conveyed a plan for healing my ankle that made much more sense than surgery to me. It included taking a homeopathic remedy called Symphytum. Comfrey is its more common name, and knit bone its ancient name from times when herbal medicine was clearly recognized for its strengths and purpose.
I connected with a homeopathic pharmacy and took their recommended dosage for the next four months while staying mostly in bed with my left ankle elevated. I also took a trauma relief remedy that harmonized with the knit bone to supplement and support the amazing process my brilliant and magnificent human body was designing and initiating. To this daily practice I added the declaration of faith that had arisen from within me, “I am one with the all-prevailing healing powers of love!”
During the next 12 weeks the wholly natural healing process that my body crafted and directed was complete and comprehensive enough for even my orthopedic surgeon. He reluctantly conceded, “In less than 5% of these types of fractures, time mends things so there’s no need for surgery. You are in that percentage.” I am in complete agreement with him that time was a powerful component of the healing my body so cleverly conducted. Time, it is said, heals all wounds, and my ankle was no exception.
My healed, whole and healthy self now understands that it was time, in partnership with my inner knowing’s proclamation of unity with the ultimate healing power — love — when wrapped in the recuperative therapy of Mother Earth’s garden of homeopathic medicinals, that all combined to bring the magic of natural healing so graciously my way. What a way to go!
