Cast Away (a Jin Shin Jyutsu story)

A nice young intern removed my son's cast this afternoon. My son broke his wrist while swim training 2 weeks ago. He's delighted to have the use of both hands again.

Before we left the hospital, the orthopedic doctor came in to review my son's x-rays taken just before his wrist was put in plaster 2 weeks ago. He said that the wrist had been broken at least a few weeks earlier than my son said it had. My son said no, he had never injured that wrist before and he would certainly remember if he had hurt it. The doctor wasn't convinced and ordered new x-rays taken, so off we went.

When the new x-rays came in, the doctor looked at them for a long time. More tut-tutting and head-scratching ensued.

"I'm revising my opinion," he said. "This wrist wasn't broken 2 weeks before it was put in a cast. No, I'd say that because the healing in the bone is so far advanced, it must have been broken at least 6 to 8 weeks earlier. Just look at the x-ray. This bone has completely renewed itself." From what I could see, it had indeed.

My son and I looked at each other and smiled. It was pointless arguing with him. I proposed that perhaps my son's broken wrist had healed so fast because he was a healthy young boy. Some Belgian doctors are very old school and thoroughly dislike being questioned or contradicted. He raised his eyebrows at me and harrumphed. "No, Madam" he replied with finality. "It simply isn't possible for bones to heal at this speed. Impossible."

With that, we were dismissed. We thanked him and walked out into a sunny afternoon.


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


In fact there was something I chose not to disclose to the doctor. I chose not to tell him not because it was a secret - not at all - but because he would never have believed me.

I didn't tell him that I was a Jin Shin Jyutsu* practitioner and that I had given my son three JSJ treatments right after he had hurt his wrist. One of the flows I gave him, the 15 Flow, is known to help broken bones mend very quickly. I know that if I had suggested the reason my son's broken wrist healed so fast was partly due to the simple and gentle application of my hands on certain parts of my son's fully-clothed body, the doctor would have thought I was completely crazy. [And so might some of you reading this, haha.]

Thank you, Jiro Murai and Mary Burmeister.



* Jin Shin Jyutsu is an ancient healing art. It's thousands of years old, even older than acupuncture. If you want to find out more about it, go here. There is also an excellent book about it called The Touch of Healing by Alice Burmeister and Tom Monte, if anyone's interested.