by John Varga of Australia
Nine years ago I failed to see that pothole in the middle of the road. It was big enough to bury a couple of footballs but I guess it was just one of those things. I don’t even remember falling. All I recall was a totally disorientating bump which was strong enough to send me into space or back in time. Next thing I know I was trying to get up off the road. It must have been quite a sight. No wonder I didn’t get run over, I am sure that everyone must have been watching the show.
With the typical adrenalin cum shock situation, I had yet to realize any pain but I did notice that I had mobility problems with my left arm and shoulder while something was moving around in my upper chest. Obviously seriously disorientated but still very diligent, I showed up at the office and managed to stop all activity with my appearance. One look at me and they said, “you should go to hospital man!”
By this time the bone in my chest was moving around with an audible clicking sound and you did not need to have a medical degree to realize that I had a cleanly broken collarbone. To most people that may not mean much but in reality it is just as debilitating as a broken limb. Modern medicine has no answer or remedy to this problem except for prescribing painkillers and pulling the shoulders back in a heavy elastic brace. The doctor said all I could do was wait for the broken bone to bond and strengthen which would probably be a month.
For the next few days all I could do was lay flat and completely motionless on the bed. You see, even the slightest movement caused excruciating pain. Not to mention the unnerving clicking sound of bone moving against bone. Just to give you an idea of the situation, in order to sit up and go to the bathroom required about five minutes of painstaking effort and several failed attempts to achieve verticality. The gravity of the situation was great indeed!
One of my classmates told Grandmaster Shan Fo why I was absent from class. On about the third day of my holiday in hell I suddenly saw Grandmaster Shan Fo standing at the foot of my bed. Subsequently I felt an amazing sense of relaxation and well being while drifting off into one of the best sleeps I have ever had. I know what you are thinking, “the painkillers must have made the poor boy hallucinate.” That is highly unlikely. What’s more, I had the same vision and sensory experience the next day.
After a week I could begin to move more freely as the bone had begun to bond and I no longer had that excruciating bone-clicking sound with the slightest movement. The result of all this was that I was back at work doing half-days only ten days after the accident. I was amazed at the speed of this recovery. After a month I was perfectly fine, except for some stiffness and soreness. I was filled with a sense of amazement and wonder. When I next went to class, Grandmaster Shan Fo asked me how I was. I told him about my experience and about seeing him in my room. He did not say a thing. All he did was laugh.
No matter what you may say, think or what conclusions you may reach, all I can say was that it sure was an amazing recovery!