Fighting Breast Cancer

While Michael’s Aunt Denise was in town, she convinced me that I should try some alternative medicine. She found a very reputabale accupuncturist, very near to my home.

Today was my first appointment at Hugi Chinese Accu-Herbal Center. Dr. C was in her early forties and told me that she has about 20 years of experience with Chinese Medicine. She was the real thing; she had practiced accupuncture for 14 years in China and had been in the United States practicing for about six years. She also teaches. She had a very thick accent, which made it a little difficult to understand.

She handed me a clipboard with a “medical history” questionaire to fill out. When I was finished, she led me to a back room and gave me a gown to slip into. I was told to take everything off but my underwear. (That’s funny because most people won’t remove the underwear without a formal request anyway. Was she actually worried that I was going to get buck naked voluntarily and without being ordered to do so?)

A few moments later, Dr. C re-entered the room and began my examination. She gave me the once over and inquired about my cancer. Then she closely examined my tongue.  Not with a tongue depresser, but by holding the tip firmly and tugging. ”Your chi is very bad!” she shouted, alarming me ever so slightly.

“Very bad chi. I can fix.”

She can fix it; good by me!  She pulled out an accupuncture needle. Naturally, when I saw it, I took pause.  My immediate inclination was to- naturally- ask Dr. C if this was “going to hurt”.

She answered quite honestly: “Yes. Yes it is.”

Before I could say another word, she shot me between the eyes with a needle. It took me by total surprise, such that it completely stunned me at first. For a few split seconds, I just looked at Dr. C with wide, unbelieving eyes.

Then I started laughing, and she was soon to follow. This was fun, as it turned out. We were both having a great ole time. She reached up and wiggled and pushed on the needle (ouch! that’s the part that stings) before instructing me to lay down on the bed.

She put a needle at the very top of my head, a few in my chest, my lymph nodes, my hands, legs and feet. I’m still not exactly certain how she inserted the needles because I kept my eyes closed the whole time. After she initially stuck them in, she would wiggle them and push on them. Then she put one in my abdomen about 3 inches below my belly button.

“Do you feel this in your vagina?” Dr. C asked.

I didn’t know what to say because it was such an embarrassing question, but the truth of the matter is I did feel it in my vagina. How weird.

She had finally finished sticking me with needles. I had about twenty of them in me and I looked like a porcupine. I tried not to look at them (the one between my eyes was really distracting and made me want to go cross-eyed) so I just lay on the table with my eyes closed. Dr. C lowered the lights and put on some relaxing music. She left the room for twenty minutes and told me to relax.

I actually did become very relaxed. The needles didn’t hurt at all, as long as I was perfectly still and the music almost lulled me to sleep. The twenty minutes passed quickly.

Soon Dr. C returned and began pulling out all of the needles. I got dressed and went to the counter to pay. I noticed that I actually did feel better. Much less achey than usual and a little more energy to boot. The doc gave me some ginseng to help with my chi and I scheduled an appointment for the following week.

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