fish hook, open eye

I have been getting a friend to do acupuncture treatments on me. In mere weeks he will be finished his doctorate in traditional Chinese medicine. In the meantime, he does treatments for me. I go and hang out on the futon in his living room and he sticks a bunch of needles in me.

I should note that I have basically no understanding of acupuncture. For reals. You get to the point when you have a chronic illness that you pretty much stop caring about the science and start caring about the results.

I have had acupuncture treatments on and off for almost 5 years now, administered by practitioners with various levels of training and experience. In the past I have not made a long enough commitment to it in order to garner any significant results. As with many healing styles, one tends to feel a lot worse before they feel better.

When it comes to pain and enduring strange and invasive procedures, I kind of feel that I have already paid my dues. I have had all kinds of tests done to me – poking and prodding – pills and concoctions. It takes a lot for me to sign myself up for any medically related endeavors.

But considering that my doctor friend has personally suffered from some of the same things that I am asking him to treat, I believe him when he says that he will be able to help reduce some of my symptoms - - - perhaps even help me to rebalance parts of myself that are causing physical and emotional stress that I haven’t yet begun to acknowledge.

I have only gone for a handful of appointments with him. Not to jump the gun or anything, but I can already see improvements.

You won’t be able to recognize those improvements in my health, but I can.

*******************************************************************

I felt really sad driving along in the car with Lief a few days ago. I have felt so negative, so limited, so exhausted by my health issues lately… and it has been showing. And despite me feeling all of these feelings – and sometimes expressing them whether or not I have wanted to…. the truth is that the people around me do not know what I have gone through in the last 4 years. Being, as one of my lovely friends would say, a ‘chronic babe’ is an amazingly lonely place to be. And I am beginning to see that a lot of that loneliness is self imposed.