It was 1973 when Hector Prestera and I moved from living in a wonderful hand-made wooden house on Hudson’s Mountain, 1500 feet above Esalen, into Carmel Valley. We wanted to live as close as we could to our dear friends at Esalen and still be near a decent school for Hector’s two young boys. Esalen did not have a school until several years later when the director Dick Price had a daughter, that Esalen’s own Gazebo School was created.
Hector was a fine physician, board certified in internal medicine and cardiology. He was also trained as a Rolfer by Dr. Ida Rolf. He studied acupuncture with Jack Worsley and many others. He treated many of his medical patients in Monterey with acupuncture and Rolfing with quite good success. Lucky for us, Hector started his medical career in Monterey reading EKGs at the hospital. The other doctors got to know him and got to see how very competent he was, and they voted him hospital privileges. A doctor without hospital privileges is not allowed inside the hospital to treat his patients. This makes him rather useless when his patient ends up in the ER. This is the way doctors have a good old boys club that unofficially polices their ranks for the unconventional. Hector said that if the other doctors had known he was planning on treating his patients with Rolfing and acupuncture, most likely they would have voted no for his hospital privileges. Rolfing and acupuncture were exceedingly unconventional in 1973.
We bought into a new medical building in the planning stages to be built in downtown Monterey. I got to work with the architect to redesign our medical suite with health in mind. Ours was the only office out of the eight suites in this new state of the art medical building where all the windows opened and had screens. The lights were full spectrum. We had a large plant in most of the rooms, which did splendidly because of the lighting. The carpets were natural wool to avoid chemical off-gassing and they had extra anti-fatigue padding. We had extra sound insulation in the walls for privacy which worked so well we later had to install an intercom for patients to call us if they needed something. With the addition of a sliding glass door and a very large planter, the outside of Hector’s personal office became a private walled outdoor patio. Two black iron chairs and a small table made the patio a very good place to relax outside for lunch and breaks. One treatment room was designed for the future installation of one of John Lilly’s Isolation Tanks. The Tank Room was the largest treatment room and was big enough to do Rolfing in. We even installed a shower so Hector could freshen up after a long day’s work before going out to dinner. We had a huge supply closet with an autoclave to sterilize the acupuncture needles and other instruments. The three exam room tables were finely crafted in cherry wood with steps up and drawers with dovetail corners with a beautiful natural dark finish. They were made for Hector by a grateful master carpenter whose wife Hector has helped. At the carpenter’s suggestion, I had the tablets upholstered with real rubber padding with matching back supports and knee bolsters. All of our little old ladies would remark that they were more comfortable at our office than at home.
For about a year and a half I ran the office, doing all of the reception, appointments and charts, taxes, insurance claims work, and dealing with the drug company representatives. I learned a lot. I also maintained a Rolfing practice and was taking care of Hector’s two boys who were five and seven years old. After everything at the office was running well and we were making good money, we hired some medical staff. I am amused to say that it took five people to replace me. A nurse to follow Hector around and keep him supplied, a bookkeeper who also did the insurance work, a tax accountant, a nurse receptionist, and a janitor.
The nurse who took over reception in the front office was the person who had the first scar I worked on. She became curious about Rolfing and decided to try it. She both liked the work and was in an educated position to appreciate what Rolfing was doing for her. We did ten session series at our office using the Tank Room.
She had been the driver in a car accident where the car had rolled over about six times. She was not wearing a seat belt and was thrown part way out of the window of the driver’s side. As the car rolled, it caught her legs just above the knee and broke both of her femurs. She could not fold one of her knees to 90 degrees so she could not sit for long without pain. By noon every day she was on muscle relaxants and pain killers. Her doctors had done five surgeries using the same scar through her right fascia lata to try to make it so her knee would fold again. They had even trimmed the top of the fibula off to make room for it to fold but with no luck. The last surgery had been about 15 years earlier. The doctors told her she was about as good as they were going to get.
When I got to the third session, I was supposed to create a “mid-line of the sides”. I did OK for her left side and then started on her right. I found that I just could not get her right knee to move straight forward and straight back because that scar was so stuck down it would not let her knee track properly.
This scar was about 8 inches long with a deep, wide, square-edged groove wide enough and deep enough that I could almost hide my first finger out of sight in the groove. For an inch and a half around the scar, the discolored red-brown tissues were plastered to the bone with leathery, ropey ridges and strings. It looked shiny and felt stiff and hard and very uneven with lumps and holes everywhere. There were large areas of numbness and loss of sensation around the scar.
I remember asking Dr. Rolf about scars. Her advice was to ignore them and establish the function. I had done everything I could think of and ignoring this scar wasn’t working out. I had the thought if I could ease the rigidity of the tissues around that scar perhaps that would help. So, I asked her if it was OK to work on her scar. She had no problem with the idea, and I set about working on it.
Since I had never seen Dr. Rolf or anyone else work on a scar, I let my fingers just go and do whatever they wanted, and after about ten minutes of work, I had stopped to get a good look at what I had done. Where I had worked, the deep groove had completely filled in and smoothed out all nice and even feeling. All of the ridges, lumps and holes had disappeared. Except for a white line, it now looked pretty much the same color as the rest of her. Where I had not worked was just the same as before.
I had her sit up and look at her scar because I could not believe it! We both agreed that neither of us had any idea that it was possible to change scar tissue like that. Then we joked that we’d better not tell anyone because no one would believe us.
As I went back to work on the rest of the scar, I had a moment of panic as I realized that I did not clearly remember all the things I had done to get such a dramatic change. I was afraid I would not be able to repeat what I had done and would be unable to match the scar up. It was an interesting spilt of consciousness as I let my fingers fly again. Only this time I was also watching and learning. I was able to get the same results for the second half of her scar.
With the slack I gained on working on her scar, I was able to unstick her fibula and roll it out of the back of the joint to where it belonged on the side of the knee. Then she could fold her knee very close to full range again with no pain. One surprising result was that all of her lost nerve sensation area became fully functional again. There were no more areas of numbness and diminished sensation around the scar. All of this occurred within this single session.
At the end of the ten-session series, she was free from pain and off of all of her daily pain medications. Without her pain, she was able to let her naturally sunny disposition shine! She became warm and friendly and cheerful, the most perfect person for our front office.
I hope Joan is pleased to be remembered as the start of this work.