Eight Weeks of Little Tiny Needles, So Far

I am sure there are a number of random readers who have not been following this blog for its whole life span, and they might not know there has been a side trip into the world of acupuncture. Ever since March 20, I have been going once a week to see Tuan, on the advice of two people who felt so strongly positive about his work that I could not ignore the opportunity.

After eight visits, I am accustomed to the routine but still completely mystified about the plan.  I asked Lani, my sister who is an acupuncturist for horses, what the general theory is.  As she explained it, every week is different and every week there is something new to tweak/adjust/fiddle with. There may not be a plan. There may not be a linear course of action.

For the last couple of weeks, the treatments have seemed mellow.  I wondered whether we were winding down, whether I was getting closer to being in balance.  I didn't really want to ask because it seems like just about no information is volunteered (I don't feel like this is bad, necessarily, but I am still very curious) and one of our workers who is studying acupuncture and other related disciplines told me that it is the practice not to say anything. They are taught to stay quiet. I know that I can ask questions and Tuan will answer me, but I feel like this is not the culture. I am supposed to wait and see.

Lani says that eventually my visit schedule will get less frequent and eventually I might end up going every other month or so. But she said it seems like this is doing me a lot of good (just by looking at me, she feels like I look younger than I should these days) and why would I stop now.

So, today I went in for my early morning appointment and expected it to be just as easy and quiet as ever.  As always, Tuan asked to see my tongue (both top and under) and then he felt my pulse in each wrist.  Took a lot of notes, as always, and then said, "let's go."

As I lay with my face down in the doughnut hole of the massage table, I heard some clinking.  Uh oh.  Once before, I hadn't seen what was happening but it had felt like he was taking little pinches of fat all around my back and putting those pinch-fulls into some kind of a hair clip or something. I didn't figure out that they were cups until he took them off and I heard him stacking them together.  Today, he said, "cupping" and he went to work putting little suction cups all over my back. Some day I am going to open my eyes and look.  He quickly attached 22 little cups. I said, I bet this is harder when people don't have any fat. He agreed, it is harder.  Then he said, "some people have a lot of hair all over their bodies and that is really hard.  The cups won't stay on." Then he left the room. When he came back in, he said, "They all stayed on! You have really good skin." I told him it is my mother's skin, just to expand the conversation a little. So then we talked about my mother and how she is Chinese and has great skin and then we talked again about Hawaii a little bit and why it is a great place to visit but most of us wouldn't really want to live there.  Too small. But then I did ask why he decided to use the cups and he said my pulse seemed "submerged" today.  That means nothing to me, so I let that one go.

But THEN after the cups were gone he said, "This is going to hurt you a little."  What?! He has never said that before. So I had to ask, what are you doing now?  He said this is to work on the radiation area. In a little while it is going to give you fits. Again, no explanation about what that meant but he stuck a forest of needles down near my tail bone. It did hurt a little. Not a lot, not enough to make me want to stop, but more than usual, possibly because of the density of the needles. Usually they are just kind of sprinkled around. Then he did the normal sprinkling around of needles, some in my legs, some in my back.

I have to say the time went much more quickly today with all those unusual pokings and pinchings.  This whole process takes 90 minutes.  90 minutes of lying quietly without any form of distraction besides my own mind. I am getting better at it. I was a little worried that I was going to feel some after effects but I didn't. I worked the whole day without thinking about it at all.

Tuan said he treats a lot of people after they finish radiation, and they have a range of side effects, but that I am the best he has seen. I said that's because mine was so targeted, and he said other people have targeted radiation too.  So maybe it's just because I was so healthy and strong going in, it didn't really knock me back much.  Or maybe it is the acupuncture. You just never know.

Anyway, I can't tell everyone that acupuncture is definitely the best way to health and well-being because I have no way of knowing how I would be without it, these past few months.  It is absolutely fascinating.  Tuan does not hesitate or appear to think about what he will do next, he just puts those needles in some mysterious pattern, never the same twice. But Lani is completely certain that this mode of treatment is effective and I should keep going. So I will. Today I graduated to biweekly visits, so something must be changing.

At one session he did talk for quite some time about his childhood in Vietnam, about the clear and beautiful water in the bay (he could see 100 yards underwater) and how much he loved fishing and eating fish. He saw an aerial photo of his beloved bay recently and it is all gone, surrounded by high rises.  But mostly there is very little conversation, just a business-like quiet.  I feel comfortable either way, and I think this is now a part of my regular routine.  I will let you know if I learn anything that will help me to understand what is happening, but I am not super optimistic.