Poetry Train Monday - 179 - No Pain, No Gain

I'm on Day 21 of NaNoWriMo.

I had a lot of catching up to do on my NaNoWriMo manuscript this weekend, since I'd planned to be at 37,500 words by Sunday night when I laid out my original word count graph. This year - my fourth NaNo - I had vowed to be finished ahead of time. Not 15 minutes to midnight on the 30th, like last year. Or the other years.

No, this year I was going to finish before the 30th. That was part of my word count plan. And for the first time doing this writing marathon, I was keeping pace with the other writers who'd finished early in previous years.

I'm a year-and-a-half into acupuncture treatment for my migraines and chronic pain issues, and I was having the best writing sessions ever. No crushing pain. No mental fatigue. No having to sleep with a heated Magic Bag on my neck. This NaNo was turning out to be awesome.

Then I went to my every-three-weeks acupuncture session last Saturday. My acupuncturist treated my back (which is always more of an ordeal for me) and then did gua sha.

This is what my back looked like when I got home.















That's my body shrieking. No, really. My office has had renovations recently and I'm highly chemically sensitive. I'm hanging in there, but only because I was able to move to a different desk. Still, I've been exposed to a multitude of things that bother me, and it shows in my gua sha marks.

Gua sha urges the body to detoxify, so with this much internal warfare going on, I felt hideous all week, as if I had a really bad case of flu. I muscled my way through daily word count for NaNo, but I couldn't keep up my previous pace. By Friday I was 10,000 words behind schedule.

But here's the good news. We had a swift temperature drop here in Nova Scotia over the weekend, which usually brings on a migraine for me. I had some signs of an impending migraine on Saturday morning, including the dreaded floating prism visual disturbance, which usually preceeds intense nausea and other wonderful miseries.

But remember my detoxing gua sha from last week? The visual disturbance lasted all of ten minutes or so. Nothing grew. No miseries. No narcotic painkiller.

It's all good.

I've caught up on my missing 10,000 words. My NaNo word count now stands at 36,011. So for the Poetry Train this week, I give you this opus:

No Pain, No Gain


Gua sha stripes are red
They lay you flat like flu
No pain, no gain it's said
But they sure as heck fix you


© Julia Smith, Nov. 21, 2010


For more poetry, Ride the Poetry Train!

Thursday Thirteen - 163 - 13 Things About My First Year of Acupuncture

1 - Last June, my life was ruled by the all-encompassing migraine. I'd been captive to pain for years, and couldn't see a way out of it. Ever.



For my 45th Thursday Thirteen, I opened the door slightly on this aspect of my life by posting 13 Things About Chronic Migraine Pain.

Art work by Clayton Campbell


2 - I also had chronic knee pain from an injury I'd sustained in 1993. Sometimes it was so bad I had to borrow my gram's cane. This was after I'd had physiotherapy and surgery on it.

Basically, I was in pain 24-7.









3 - A woman from my office went to see an acupuncturist here in Halifax, and my close friend and co-worker asked her if the acupuncturist could treat migraines.

Of course, said our co-worker.

And does our health plan cover it? my friend asked.

Of course, said our co-worker.

So my friend made me call the acupuncture office, which was nervewracking for me, because I have phone-out phobia. But I persevered, made the appointment, and so began the most astounding year in my history here on planet Earth.














4 - Wei Yuan began my treatment with two sessions a week, treating my whole body literally from head to toe, generally using about 30 needles a session.

She focused immediately on my knee, and in a matter of weeks I regained strength in that joint, which used to give out on me without warning. The perpetual swelling which stiffened the knee disappeared. The unending pain which made touching the knee impossible faded away. Now I can actually tap my knee, which a year ago was unthinkable.


















5 - When I first arrived at their clinic (she treats patients along with her husband, Tom Tian at I Stop Pain in Halifax) Wei sat with me and went over my symptom history, establishing what had brought me to her in the first place.

She asked me what my goals for treatment were.

I said I wanted to stop missing work (my migraines made me at the least, late on hideous days, and absent when I just couldn't take it any more.)

Last year at this time I took painkiller with codeine every four hours, nearly 24 hours a day. This had been going on for years.

When my migraines reached a shrieking crescendo of agony, I had narcotic painkillers to turn to. But one must have experienced that level of pain to understand that it never actually goes away, opiates or no opiates.














6 - You'll have to excuse me for inwardly scoffing at Wei's stated goal to get me off those painkillers.

But hey - who am I to get in the way of anyone else's dream? Sure, I thought to myself. Like that is ever going to happen.

I didn't even have that little glimmer of hope perking up inside of me at the idea. I had a full-time job I had to keep. Painkillers kept me upright and functioning, and prevented me from hurling myself off of tall things when I just wanted it to stop.














7 - One year later, my treatment with Wei has radically altered my life.

Though I hadn't expected to be completely freed from the Iron Maiden of my pain-filled life - had hoped for some relief, but not freedom from it - one year later I have gone entire 24-hour cycles without any painkiller at all.

Imagine the power in these tiny, fine needles, and their placement at specific meridian points on the body. These needles spoke to the dormant energy inside of me, known as Chi.

Wei asks my body to listen to itself as she treats me. I am called to participate in my own healing.


8 - After Wei places the needles, she sets a heat lamp over whichever area needs a little extra nudging, dims the lights and leaves me to heal.

It's during this time that I use my own powers of visualization. I meditate on whatever my body brings to my attention. To begin with, I say a prayer of thanks for being given this opportunity to heal. Then, whichever section of my body aches, feels heavy or blocked, I focus on that area and imagine all sorts of things to break up the blockages:

Explosions!

Swirls of butterflies

Whirlwinds

Beams of light














9 - After she removes the needles, Wei often treats me with cups, which are placed over meridian points and the air vacuumed out of the cups.

These are left in place for awhile, but not as long as the needles, which generally stay in place for about 20 minutes.



10 - Because I knew I wanted to document my healing, I've been taking pictures of the myriad patterns that appear on my body after my treatment. This particular set of marks came from a session of moving cupping, where she rubbed the cups up and down my meridian line.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, marks are expected after treatment, as the body responds to the stimulation of blocked Chi. The types of bruising and redness, how dark or bright they are, informs the practitioner of the state of the body being treated.

What has been fascinating to me is what marks show up where. Not every cup will produce a bruise. Sometimes there's no mark at all. Sometimes it's incredibly dark.

As you can see from my back in this shot, the left side of my spine has no marks - yet she used the cups there in just the same way as on the right side. But the left side had no blockage.


Here are some of the cupping marks that appeared on my husband's back after one of his sessions with Wei.

Because he could see the incredible results I was getting with her, my not-so-great-with-needles husband actually began acupuncture treatment.

Brad has bipolar disorder and has been on powerful medication for two decades. We're both hoping to preserve his liver health, because he has no option but to take his sanity-preserving drugs. So he began whole-body treatment with a view to keeping his body in balance.

I have to say, I never in a thousand lifetimes would have imagined my husband receiving acupuncture. But his first session was on his birthday last November, and in these seven months he has missed two major depressions which generally hit in the winter and in the spring. They generally last for a month, and so far he has had episodes this year that have lasted about a week. We're heading into the summer now and normally that would bring a third month-long downer. So we'll see how it goes.










11 - This is the Gua Sha tool used to rub in a scraping motion along the skin to promote healing through stimulating the blood. It helps to break up blockages in the body system. It's often used for people with chronic conditions, such as my pain levels and asthma.

As well as cupping, Wei uses Gua Sha in my treatment. Sometimes I get the Full Meal Deal: needles, cupping and Gua Sha.

Below is the photo I took after my first Gua Sha treatment. You can see I had a lot of chi blockage in my neck, and along my spine.


















Here is another treatment with an altogether different pattern showing up - although following along the energy meridians and focusing again on my neck.














This is my husband's first Gua Sha treatment - check out how dark the mark is on his neck! He looked like he'd been in a motorcycle accident.















Here is another pattern of healing for my husband, including Gua Sha and cupping marks.



















12 - I have also been treated with Chinese herbal pills, which are perfectly round like tiny, 18th century grapeshot. So far I've had herbs for my lungs, my head pain and my stomach/spleen/gall bladder. As opposed to western medicine, symptoms aren't always what they seem. Currently Wei is concentrating on treating my stomach area, which has been the root of my chronic pain.

Who knew?














13 - As I embark on my second year of treatment, I no longer doubt the possibility that my life will no longer consist of four-hour blocks counting down the seconds until I can take my next painkiller.

I've discontinued a daily pain management drug (that I was surprised to discover was more effective than I'd thought.)

I've downgraded to extra-strength acetaminophen - something I haven't taken for at least a decade. Without the pain management drug, my pain levels shot up over these past two months, but still not in the same league as when I began treatment. Even though it felt like two-steps-forward, twenty-five-steps-back for awhile there, I had the memory of what we had achieved very solidly in my mind.

By next June, I may very well be truly pain free. Who could have imagined it?

Janet says Not only have you shared a most personal journey, but in that sharing, you will have opened someone else's eyes to the possibility that is Eastern Medicine.

Deborah Hale says Doing Toaist Tai-chi for the past year has certainly given me a great appreciation for the Oriental view of health and healing.

Akelamalu says I haven't tried acupuncture or cupping but I have tried reflexology (amazing) and of course I am a Reiki practitioner so I know the benefits of that. It's a shame that some people dismiss alternative therapies so readily.

Thursday Thirteen - 154 - 13 Things I Did This Week

1 - Even though last week included Good Friday, and this week included Easter Monday, which meant a four-day weekend for me, I worked so hard for the three days I was at my scanner - including two overtime shifts - that I gratefully embraced my Friday off. We're at an especially high-volume time for my department. I'm so-o-o tired.

2 - To make matters more trying, I battled a migraine last week which culminated with Thursday's rather exciting color-prism aura which developed in the afternoon. Since my acupuncture treatment which began last June, I have gotten to the point that my pain medication has been radically downgraded. But once the prism-aura started I went for my narcotic painkiller. Within 20 minutes the aura was gone. I guess it's true that if you're in enough pain, you see stars.

3 - My husband and I went to our every-other-Saturday morning acupuncture treatment. I told Wei about my migraine adventure, and she 'listened' to my chi along one forearm, and then after awhile along the other forearm. (The points she's feeling are not the same places western doctors feel your pulse.) Her expression was a mix of confusion and solemn concern. After awhile she pronounced, "Weak," as though beyond comprehension that my chi could be in such a state after all my treatment. I wonder if she's ever treated anyone before who visually appears to be living, but is registering as half-dead in the chi department, as I apparently do. I'm nothing if not a challenge.

4 - Was contacted by a major Acadian genealogy figure here in the Maritimes about our shared family lineage due to a blog post I did two-and-a-half years ago. It was my 22nd Thursday Thirteen - Introducing 13 of My Ancestors. That post has legs! It has led to a most incredible set of developments, including the upcoming DNA testing of my cousin through the AMERINDIAN Ancestry Out of Acadia DNA PROJECT.

5 - Went to lunch with some of the women from my writers' group on Sunday, then stopped in at Chapters before the meeting started and snagged a book by one of the Popculturedivas, Kayla Perrin.

6 - Learned about the YA market (Young Adult) at the meeting, with a workshop given by Renee Field.

7 - Worked overtime on Monday. It's like shooting at 18th century redcoats. No matter how many go down, the formation remains intact and the line continues to advance.

8 - Luckily, the second-last episode of Spartacus cheered me up. It ROCKED. Of course, it turns out that it was directed by Michael Hurst, who played Iolaus on Hercules. My three favorite episodes of Spartacus have all been directed by Michael Hurst.

9 - On Tuesday, Mom picked me up after work and we went to dinner at The Great Wall, my favorite Halifax Chinese restaurant. Then we found a parking space near St. Matthew's Church, nipped into Niche for an hour for coffee and headed to our choir rehearsal for our upcoming concert next Tuesday.

10 - It was the first of three rehearsals at the performance space, so there was a lot of rearranging of our physical placement as well as musical rehearsal. Here's a little preview of part of the Schubert mass we're singing, as performed here by the Ocean Springs High School Choir from Mississippi:



11 - After working overtime on Monday, and having a long rehearsal on Tuesday, I once again worked overtime on Wednesday. And my acupuncturist wonders why she can't find any sign of my chi.

12 - Today I discovered why it's a good thing to fully read work emails that say Wear pink to support anti-bullying. I thought it meant Friday. But it was in fact for Wednesday. So even though my manager sported a spiffy pink dress shirt with matching pink tie, and three other members of my team were radiant in pink, and even though I have several pink outfits I could have worn, I showed up today in my tiger-skin-print shirt. For Anti-bullying Day. Tiger-skin-print.

13 - It's 1:00 in the morning. Time to get off the computer. Only 5 and a half hours till my alarm goes off.

Janet says #4 - How cool is that? As soon as I'm done this comment, I'm off to read that blogpost and check out the link. Fascinating!

Anne MacFarlane says Hope the migraines - and the ot - settle down soon.

Sandy Kessler says #7 priceless.

The Queen's Meme - Mission Impossible

Mission Impossible Meme

In honor of the 40th anniversary of the Moon Landing










1. You are a guest on the space shuttle. You just arrived on the moon and realize you forgot something back home that you can't live without. What is it and how do you convince them to go back and fetch it?















My asthma puffers! Definitely can't live without them. When one of the astronauts cracks a really dark joke, I start laughing uncontrollably. This leads to much wheezing, tears and clutching at my throat - while still laughing. That's when the missing puffers are discovered. Or rather, not discovered. Luckily, the astronauts are a bunch of smarty-pants people. They rig up some concoction or other, and in ten minutes or so the wheezing settles down.

But then the same guy cracks another joke...

2. Pretend you are a teacher in a rough public school for one day. You have been assigned to teach Manners 101. You have the "challenging bad butt kids" class (remember this is a pretend school and anyway I can't say ass on my blog 'cause it's so unQueenly and I might get fined or something). They are jumping up and down, cursing, and throwing things at you.
What is the first thing you would write on the board?





First, I would use my Scorpio Dragon Death Glare to freeze all the rowdies in their tracks. This is the greatest weapon in my personal arsenal. I've used it my whole life, and it never lets me down.

Next I would invite whomever was willing to admit they didn't know the answer to my question to write the answer on the board, once we reviewed it in class. This would hopefully keep the disrupters from wanting to advertise their inadequacies. And for students truly interested in learning, it would facilitate discussion and push everyone a little farther along the learning curve.

3. Someone in your family or a friend has started a blog. They think it is anonymous but you have figured it out. They are saying derogatory things about you. Do you tell them or do you read it for awhile? How would you handle it?

















I read it, comment under a different name and wait. Wait for that perfect moment - perhaps a gathering of peers - to mention a tidbit along with my incognito name that only the offending blogger would recognize. Then I watch the blogger's skin go pasty pale.

4. If you had one dollar left in your pocket, what would you spend it on?



















A coffee. I often spend my last dollar on coffee. That's how I know.

5. President Obama and the First Lady are coming over for dinner. What do you serve?



















Once they arrive, I tell them to pile back into their limo. We're heading out to The Sou'Wester out at Peggy's Cove for fish and chips and gingerbread.

6. You walk in on your lover. He or she is trying on your clothes. What do you do?


















I tell him he looks very fetching.

Then I join him, and we goof around until the clothes come back off again...













7. Every astronaut must have shots! Choose your vaccination: You only get one and you can't enjoy any of the attributes of the other choices. You choose either:
(1) The fountain of eternal youth and sexual vigor but only for 10 years
(2) perfect health for a lifetime
(3) eternal mind-numbing nirvana and peace of mind
(4) unlimited hedonism for one year with no negative consequences.


Perfect health for a lifetime sounds awfully good to me, right about now (reaching for my painkiller...)

Luckily, I've got another acupuncture session tomorrow. A really intense weather system rumbling through has finally worn me down, migraine-wise - but it took a whole week. I've been abnormally able to withstand a really bad week with low pressure systems socking us in.

But I do have to sigh with relief that it's Friday.

To play along, visit Mimi at The Queen's Meme.

Mimi Lenox says "The astronauts are a bunch of smarty-pants people" cracked me up.

Ms Snarky Pants says Muhaha Your brand of evil payback. It warms my heart. :D

Dorte H says Hilarious answers! LOL I liked the one about the unruly kids.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday - 105

Thomma Lyn Grindstaff says I'm glad to hear that the acupuncture is helping! And Happy Birthday, Jacquie! :)

Shelley Munro says Ouch, Julia. That sounds painful.

Brooke says My friend SWEARS that not only is acupuncture relaxing but that it has done wonders for her pains and medicial issues.

Thursday Thoughts - 2 - Views of the Halifax New Year's Blizzard From Inside Our Cozy House

As I'm posting this, we're snug tight in our house while a heavy wind and freezing rain warning unfurls its red banner across the Weather Network site.



As you can imagine, the intense low pressure system gave me some trouble, since even non-intense ones trigger my migraines. I had trouble getting into work this morning, and, shh, don't tell anyone, but I had no luck at all making sense of anything once I got there.

Brain like sludge. Had to use my surface-to-air-missile medication just to remain upright. By 11:00 am, the sudden extreme shift in the barometric pressure felt like two swords plunged into both sides of my head.


Rather like this graphic that Sans Pantaloons made for me. Hideous nausea, no lunchey for me.

But once the ice pellets began hitting the windows, the worst of the pain relented. Then all I had to do was hope the drive home from work at 5 wouldn't be an exciting thrill ride. It all went much more smoothly than I'd expected. I got home on time, into our cozy, comfy house, where I could listen to the ice pellets and just enjoy the sounds of the storm from in here.

For today's Thursday Thoughts, I'm sharing some of the photos I took on New Year's Day, when we rang in 2009 with a blizzard.


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