My son's Recovery

Irene Cohen, MD,  New York City

Hi Luke and Frank!
I just tried to send you a long email about Seth's recovery from his ankle 
fracture, but I think I lost the email (it doesn't appear on my "sent mail"), 
so I'll send it again. I wanted to document for you from start to finish how 
well he's been doing with the help of ChiLel.

As I reported before, Seth broke his ankle at summer camp on 7/30 in Boston 
and had to endure a long ride home to New York that night in a temporary 
cast. We listened to the Oceans of Love and Journey to H&H tapes the whole 
way home. I spent a lot of time doing Fa Chi to/with him until he went for 
surgery two days later. He broke three bones, the two lower leg bones (tibia 
and fibula) and the ankle bone (medial malleolus) was fractured straight 
through, going through the growth plate, which is important in a child, 
because if it doesn't heal right, the bone won't grow correctly. When I 
compared the xrays from 7/30 from Boston and the one taken in New York 
(7/31), the pieces of bone had moved very much closer together, only with the 
power of fa chi.

Seth had surgery and screws placed in his ankle (they are temporary) on 8/1. 
I spent the time of the surgery listening to various tapes (Chi Canopy, Hao 
La, Journey) and continually visualized that the ankle was healed. The 
doctors told me that on the post-operative xray the ankle looked as if there 
had been no fracture. They admired their handiwork I'm sure, but I knew that 
chi was working.

Seth had a very fast recovery, minimal pain, was discharged from the hospital 
a day early and had a great mental attitude. He was given a full leg cast. 
We did fa chi every day, he did a little LCUPCD with me, he did a lot of 
visualizations I had given him about the bone marrow knitting the bone 
together, imagining the bone cells healing and the bones being whole. He had 
feelings of chi during every session for three weeks - warm, cold, tingling, 
big, small - sometimes he said he felt the leg was so small that he could 
slide it out of his cast. After three weeks all the feelings of chi stopped, 
and I knew the ankle was all healed, but the MD said he should be casted for 
6 weeks and I wasn't going to argue about it.

He had his cast removed on 9/13 and the xray that day showed a perfectly 
normal looking ankle, as if there had never been any fracture. I''ve looked 
at a lot of xrays as a physician, and usually you can see evidence of an old 
fracture, but there was no such evidence on the xray.

He started physical therapy the next week, took a break because he went on a 
school trip for several days where he did such things as rock climbing with 
his crutches! Now after 7 physical therapy sessions (2 1/2 weeks) he is 
fully weight-bearing and no longer needs the crutches. His range of movement 
is not yet at 100%, but it is very close. We were originally told he 
wouldn't be able to walk on the foot for one month, but it's only 3 weeks 
now. We go back to the doctor next Tuesday for another check up and xray. 
Then he will have the screws taken out in 1-2 months. 

This has been an ordeal for me, as a mother, but Seth has done so well with 
this and his attitude has been great. He's faced all the challenges with 
ease and calmness, had no pain at all, adapted to the circumstances when he 
had to and made light of it the rest of the time. I really didn't hear a 
word of complaint out of him (pretty remarkable for a newly turned 13 year 
old who only spent one week at camp when the accident occurred).

This great gift of ChiLel Qigong has brought me so much more than I ever 
anticipated and here is another living example. 

Take care.
Love,
Irene Cohen