The Acupuncturist

Hi!  Well it's been a while (months) since my last blog.  It started feeling egotistical to both blog and write my book so I pushed pause on both.  It felt and still feels like it is presumptuous to share anecdotes from my life unless they are somehow worthy.  I have no idea what makes something "worthy," but I believe today definitely hit the mark.  Before that, here is a quick Chip-style bullet update on things:

• I now only uses canes around the house.  This is harder but keeps me from getting lazy and keeps me working.  
• I have been working out at a gym called B.U.C. Fitness Club a lot.   They have posted a few videos of me on Facebook and Instagram (most recently Instagram) working out.  They love a) that a guy in a wheelchair still hits the gym hard and doesn't make excuses, and that b) it demonstrates how versatile their gym and equipment are.  
• Rebecca and I headed to the US in June for her brother Chris's wedding to the lovely Emily Franklin.  Awesome wedding including a surprise visit by the Chick-fil-A cow during the reception.  I stood as a groomsmen and sang during the wedding and it went well.  After that we headed to hang with my family in Kentucky for a bit.  There I discovered that Norton's Healthcare's wheelchair center in Louisville is vastly superior to RIC's outsourced wheelchair clinic.  New wheelchair arriving soon!  Possibly sad that I am excited about that.  Also, I sang (the same song as at the wedding - Groban's You Raise Me Up) for Father's Day at church.  People seemed to like it.  
• I got my work visa (finally) here in South Africa.  We'll see what happens now.
• Other various travels and happenings.  Also I brewed some beer which is now carbonating or something.  I don't expect it to be good.

Chicken cow with the bride and groom.

That's in Annapolis.  I'm the guy with the crutches if you are slow.

Our little family.  Tucky is now 62 lbs.  

So back to today's story.  For my birthday a couple weeks ago, one of my gifts from Rebecca was a massage.  The guy had me in agony for a good hour and then recommended an acupuncturist.  The idea was that, "Who knows?  Maybe it will help?" but actually I had already researched acupuncture for spinal cord injuries a fair amount.  There was lots of promising evidence around it, but almost all of it was for people that got acupuncture early on (when you are recovering anyway).  But still, who knows?  

I had my appointment today with Dr. Lan here in Cape Town.  Highly recommended from Daniel the masseuse (Daniel is actually highly educated so I don't mean to infer anything there).  It didn't make me feel better that Dr. Lan's establishment was designated half to acupuncture treatments and half to Kung Fu training.  But I suppose that might seem normal in China.  I remained open-minded.  

I walked upstairs and waited my turn.  Dr. Lan saw me in his office, which was not much more than a desk in the corner of the waiting room.  I knew from the previous patient that everyone else could hear nothing I said to him, but everything that he said to me.  I told him about my condition and he promised me that there was a high likelihood of him helping, that he had helped countless stroke patients, people with sciatica, etc.  Okay, sure.  Let's do it.

He took me into a room where two other guys were already all pinned up and lying/napping on tables.  They seemed peaceful.  Promising.  It seemed slightly like an opium den or something but I let that thought go.  He directed me to sit in a chair so that he could begin on my... scalp?  Okay... Next thing I knew he was sticking pins into my head.  "What you consider pain, I consider energy. Take deep breaths."  It still hurt.  8 pins later, I imagined myself looking like Hellraiser.  

I apologize if that grosses you out.  Also I promise it wasn't that bad.  Also to be clear, that's not me in the picture.

He said, "I am just going to stimulate things a bit now..." and proceeded to wiggle around all the pins in my head, two by two (because he has two hands, you see).  Thank you for that, Dr.  He put two more in my neck and I headed to the table.  

I laid on my back and he stuck a few pins here and there.  Tricep, forearm, elbow, the fleshy part in between thumb and index finger, and then onto my legs.  I should point out that I was wearing a UK sweatshirt (go Cats!) and jeans and he put the pins straight through my clothes.  That was interesting. So anyway, a couple on the outside of my knees, then on my shin muscle (I know that has a more scientific name), then a few around each ankle.  Ralph (my right leg) did not like this treatment one bit.  He proceeded to buck the good doctor away.  "Are you okay?" he said.  I responded, "Yes, I don't think my legs like this very much."  I kept spasming until he was done.  Louie was surprisingly calm for once.

As soon as he left, Louie started acting up.  The spasms hurt about 10x more than usual because of those stupid pins digging into the involuntarily flexing muscles.  I resisted the urge to call him back in to take those things out.  When my legs crossed each other (they tend to do that), the ankle pins went this way and that.  It didn't feel pleasant.  I reached down to fix it only to find that moving my arms caused the pins around my elbow to hurt pretty badly.  And oh, that's right there are still a bunch of pins in my head.   

At that point, about 10 minutes into the hour session, I tried to remember when something had hurt so much.  It is not my habit to whine about pain so please don't think to yourself, "Pfff... this guy!"  I decided to start counting the seconds in between spasms to figure out how many spasms I would have in the hour.  I averaged about 18 seconds.  So something like 180 spasms for the hour.  The median was definitely 17 seconds.  I ran out of things to compute.  Then I started thinking about the hilarity of the whole situation and how I should probably blog about it.  Half of this was already composed in my head while I was in there spasming around with pins poking out of me like an idiot (including this sentence).  

About 40 minutes in, I was amazed at how my body had gotten used to the pins and pain.  They say that humans have a remarkable ability to adapt to any environment or situation.  I even started dozing off, incredibly, in the ~18 second windows in between spasms.  Then instead of thinking about the pain I just vaguely acknowledged it and went about mentally composing my blog and thinking, "How did I get here?"  

I have my next appointment on Saturday.  I am not looking forward to it.  But I'm gonna give it another shot.  Stupid, you say?  Well if something has a 1% chance of helping me improve my condition,  I will probably give it a try.  If there was research that said getting punched in the face for an hour straight was linked to spinal cord recovery, then I would probably inform Rebecca that I had found a new way to resolve our conflicts.  Too dark? 

Wish me luck.  I hope everyone is doing well.  I miss everyone back in the states.  

Dear Lord, please give me patience, strength, wisdom, guidance, compassion, and laughter.  Let me live my life the way You would like me to live it.  Thank You for my countless blessings.  Keep me humble.  Give me perspective and remind me how easy I have it.  Thanks for everything.  Keep healing me.  Please fill everyone with Your Holy Spirit and guide us in all we do.  Let us not take life too seriously.  Help us to live and love like Children, as you intended.  In Your name, amen.

Until later...
Chip

PS - I am probably starting a real estate investment company at some point.  It will be in the US but possibly spread elsewhere.  If you have any advice about that, let me know.