Torbenated

Last Thursday I found myself having trouble walking. At 50, that was unexpected, annoying and slightly worrying.

I was heading down Grays Inn Road in London with two of my colleagues toward a local school where we volunteer to read to a student (Years 2-6) on our lunch hour once per week. I felt a twinge in my left leg, and then had some trouble walking comfortably. It eventually passed, and I was able to make the half-hour walk back without incident.

But in the days following, that discomfort was intermittent. When Tim and I were taking our usual two-mile walk to Gurnard along the Esplanade on the following Saturday on the Isle of Wight, I could only make it comfortably as far as the little ice cream hut at Cliff Road, just over a half mile from the house, before conceding that I should probably turn around and not push it.

That prompted Tim to suggest that I visit his osteopath, Torben, for a fix—or, as Tim says, to be Torbenated. Tim swears by the man, who is osteopath to several athletes including the current Number 1 WTP-ranked women’s tennis player Caroline Wozniacki (she’s Danish, and I believe so is Torben). Tim has the occasional bad back, and while I’ve come in handy to give the occasional tug of his leg to stretch his vertebrae, well, I ain’t the Torbenator.

I had only £56 ($86) to lose.

I arrived to find out that Torben was running a little behind, but I had nowhere to go but home and found a chair, dropped my rucksack and watched the world go by outside the clinic's front window. I got to the clinic by bus, rather than walk, not wanting to be late or be unable to physically get there. There appears a tall gentleman who has just emerged from Torben’s office floating on air—a recent car accident victim who has had trouble walking for two weeks even after several visits to a physiotherapist, he is feeling no pain for the first time since the accident, and he is singing Torben’s praises.

Torben, who I’m guessing having owned the clinic for 20 years is in his mid-forties, is pleasant, talkative, lean, and of slight build—years of judo, I surmise, from his website, explains the physique. He looks younger than what I think is his physical age. He has a wonderful manner that makes you feel instantly comfortable. He asks a lot of questions. He exits the room as you undress (at least, for females).

I’m standing in my undergarments—there are no hospital gowns that tie awkwardly--while he asks me to touch my toes, turn every which way, bend and twist. Torben tells me he feels some tightness, which I expect he will relieve. Finally I get to lie down. I’m noticing that the room is warm, the windows are open and, in fact, the view is not completely hidden from the street—we are up on the 1^st floor on Pentonville Road, a rather busy venue where double-decker buses pass by often on what would be considered a major thoroughfare. No matter; I’m practically naked, but nothing more than you’d see on a beach. (No matter that there are no beaches nearby, unless you count the man-made affair at Southbank.)

I am asked to bend this, and then push this way with all my force. Torben says I am strong; I am at once both relieved and proud. Torben talks; not incessantly, but enough to distract me from the prodding, and then, eventually, the cracking.

The first one is a bit daunting. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s loud—as Torben told me it would be. We talk athletes he’s recently worked with, and I mention Caroline first. He tells me about the Jamaican runner, faster than Usain Bolt was at the same age called Yohan Blake, who is a patient. Jamaican, like Bolt, he has just run the second fastest 200 m in history. We talk about Jamaica and its poverty, and about the gene pool that has created these wonderful sprinters. I feel but don’t see his elbow grinding into my hip; it doesn’t exactly hurt, but it’s slightly uncomfortable.

He cracks my neck. I think I should be using the word “adjust,” actually.

He tugs at my bare toes.

(A knock-on effect of the trouble walking is that I feel a bit of discomfort in the instep of my left foot, which I explained to him earlier. I also told Torben, only slightly embarrassed, that several years ago I broke a bone in my foot, only I can’t remember which foot, left or right. With perfect bedside manner he doesn’t laugh, just jots something down on my chart.)

Within several minutes he is done—I have been adjusted. I stand, and the world feels right. I can walk normally, there is no discomfort in my foot or leg, and I can touch my toes (although to be fair I could do that beforehand). Nothing aches, although I do feel tenderness at the place on my left side that has had a quiet ache over the last week.

Torben suggests I have one more visit. I shake his hand and wish him well; he sends his regards to Tim and his mum (who, by the way, Torben says is in good shape for 80). I amble down the winding stairs to the ground floor, pay my £56 and make an appointment for same time next week, and head out with a smile on my face.

I feel a slight twinge as I open the door to exit to the street. It is fleeting.

The short walk to the tube is uneventful; I’m walking at my usual pace comfortably, although given my last week of on-and-off pain I am tentative about placing the usual amount of weight on my left leg. I tell myself to get over it and just walk!

I find my way to the Northern line, get a seat heading toward Waterloo, and don’t you know a woman exiting at Goodge Street steps on the very same foot I’ve just had tugged. She apologises, and I smile and say “no worries.” I laugh to myself—that could be fifty quid down the drain! But it doesn’t hurt for more than the time it took her to lift her foot back off mine.

I make it all the way to Cowes with no other incident. I am still feeling sore in that space in my back, kidney-level, and hope I can sleep well.