Acupuncture!!
Our friend Rachel, also newly married, to our friend Joseph Digerness, is Korean. We stayed with them for a couple of nights in San Francisco. (Awesome!) As I'm getting to know her and hearing wonderful stories about growing up with immigrant parents, I learn that he father does acupuncture and has taught her how to do it on herself. (I'm very intrigued by this.) She said she mostly used it for menstrual cramps or constipation, but you really can use it for just about anything that's wrong with the body. I was secretly thinking, my back hurts so bad, I wonder if needles would help. She was out of practice, so I didn't ask her to try it out on me.
However, the next day, Chris and I were walking around San Fran's China town, and we both had an itch for a real cultural experience. We went into a tea store (I guess) and poked around a couple of herbal stores, but instead of buying some real Ginkgo Biloba, we thought what the heck, acupuncture is were it's at!!!
After reading some signs, we headed upstairs to a little Chinese woman's clinic. While we nervously waited she was treating a young girl with cancer, who assured us that this doctor was very good. When it was my turn, she gave me a brief examination and gave a quick look at my tongue, and next thing I know I was lying on the table.
Since it was my shoulder that was hurting me, I was lying on my stomach with my elbows above my head on the table. She only put a few pins/needles in me at first. Maybe six or seven. Then she hooked each one up to a tiny electric cable the sent pulses of electricity to each needle making the muscles contract and relax, contract and relax. Much like a self induced massage. With a heat lamp on this area, I was in heaven. It felt amazing. After about 25-30 minutes of this, she removed the needles and turned me on my side. This is were it gets interesting.
With what looks like a reflex hammer, she begins to beat my shoulder. Not to hard at first, but slowly more aggressive. I looked at Chris in shock, thinking what is going on? On his face was also in shock, because what I didn't realize was that the "reflex hammer" was covered with tiny needles. AS she continued to beat me, sure enough my shoulder was covered in tiny little beads of blood. THEN, if that weren't enough, a flaming cotton ball was moving towards my face. Quickly, she moved the fire ball across the opening of a small glass jar, removing the oxygen so that it would suction itself to my shoulder. She did this again with another jar. These two jars were there to suck all the poison out of my arm. Unbelievable.
When all this was done, my amazing doctor wrote me a prescription for a six day regiment of herbs. The prescription was of course written in Chinese, and was to be taken to an old Chinese herbalist who didn't speak a word of English and calculated the the coast of my regiment with an abacus. This was amazing in it's own right. (Chris fell in love with him.)
Aside from the taste of the "tea" made by the numerous unnamed roots, mushrooms, barks, and other herbs, this was by far my most memorable moment so far.
Disney Land here we come!
