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Her lower back and the entire musculature of her spinal column were tense<br />
and rigid.<br />
Shajira responded nicely to tickles and pinches, which was very<br />
encouraging. But every time I put pressure on her right upper back she<br />
screamed out in pain and tried to wriggle off the table. Moment by moment<br />
I was feeling more confident that I would be able to help her. I wasn’t sure<br />
how much of the function of her legs and torso she would recover, but I felt<br />
the general prognosis was good.<br />
It had taken me many years to be comfortable enough <strong>with</strong> Don Elijio’s<br />
healing techniques and plants to incorporate them into my own practice.<br />
But here I saw a perfect opportunity to blend his system and mine.<br />
I told Shajira’s parents that I thought a pocket of infection left over from<br />
the flu virus had settled in her spinal column at the very point of a nerve<br />
plexus. This, I thought, was causing her paralysis.<br />
“She will need two naprapathic treatments each week for a while and a<br />
series of steam baths in between the treatments,” I counseled. “I would also<br />
like her to take something for that virus and have a good purge.<br />
“Are you willing to follow this therapy?” I asked the worried parents.<br />
“Doña Rosita, we have no other hope,” said the father. “Thanks be to<br />
God that you are here and there is hope for our daughter. We have four<br />
other children who are all strong and healthy. Shajira too has always been a<br />
healthy child. I can’t bear to see her like this. She sits in the window<br />
looking down on her brothers and playmates, longing to run and play. Yes,<br />
we agree. Of course we do. We will do whatever you say.”<br />
“Good, then,” I answered, pleased to have their cooperation and<br />
understanding of the task before us.<br />
I gave little Shajira a naprapathic treatment, paying special attention to<br />
her upper and lower back. She winced and cried out when I applied<br />
pressure in order to restore proper circulation of blood and nerve currents. I<br />
hated to hear her cry but remembered the words of our professor at the<br />
College of Naprapathy: “Sometimes there is no gain <strong>with</strong>out pain.”<br />
I tried to be as slow and gentle as I could, breaking the intensity of the<br />
discomfort <strong>with</strong> soothing massage to her neck and shoulders. She was<br />
obviously relieved when I finished.<br />
I left her parents to dress her and asked them to wait for me on the<br />
veranda while I went into the forest behind our farm to search out the Che