Stan the acupuncturist

I went to see an acupuncturist yesterday. Stan. Stan the acupuncturist. Imagine that. 

I went to Stan for help with the neuropathy in my hands and feet, hoping to invite the nerves that may have died to choose rebirth. He put needles in here and there, felt my various pulses, checked my tongue, asked about what I eat -- all those good Chinese medicine things. All seemed copacetic with my chi at that point. I'm thinking he's going to be impressed by my chi, in fact. But he tsked and tutted once he probed pressure points around my shoulders and neck (ai ya! as they say in Chinese -- it hurt). Stan queried me about my activity levels, then informed me that I am getting too much aerobic exercise.

He looked at me kindly, but as he spoke I could tell that he thought he was stating the obvious: "You are supposed to be getting rest." He advised me to run 2 miles instead of 3, to do more yoga, to take more naps, to get back to my meditation practice.

Stan said that the whole idea of Chinese medicine is that below the dantien, the physical center of gravity, one's chi should be strong, grounded. Above the dantien, one's chi should be light, clear, flowing. He says my chi is too heavy above my dantien, and that I'm not helping things by how active I've been, how little I am resting. If energy gets clogged up in one's chest and head, sometimes tumors appear. Also, that heavy energy may be behind the damned nose warts! Sold! That's all I needed to hear.

Resting turns out to be pretty difficult, though, as does making the energy in my shoulders, neck, and head "light and clear." I still live by my to-do list -- I like my list. I am like a happy kid in a marching band, with the music propped in front of her. I'm having a good time, but I'm following the notes, and maybe I am marching more than is good for my upper chi.

It's not like my list is heavy, thoiugh. Today includes "weed garden, pick up petals, water houseplants, meditate, run, call electrician, fix front step, call Elizabeth, go to organic farm." Come on, this makes one's head chi heavy?

How can I be lighter, clearer in my upper chi? Probably not by thinking about it too much, but thinking is one of the melodic themes in the music dangling in front of me -- has been for as long as I can remember.

Anyway, I am working on lightening up my upper body chi. Back to Stan in a couple weeks. Stay tuned; stay light, stay clear. Send upper body chi pointers if you have them.

Full disclosure in closing: It's true that I've stopped meditating regularly since all these twenty-somethings have moved into the house. It's been fun to have them around, but it's harder for me to find quiet time. There's a lot of activity, tidying up, talking, directing traffic. Plus these people are like locusts, except they take longer showers.

first things first

This is the kind of thing one learns only by having chemo: nose hairs grow in more quickly than head hairs. Nose hairs grow to their full length as fast as a chia pet -- then they stop, praise Be. What a mess it would be otherwise.

Though not all my head-hair follicles are visibly at work yet, I now have my full quota of nose hairs. Clearly evolution has conveyed to the body that this is the first order of business: filter the air first -- worry about covering the scalp later.

When they fell, nose hairs stole away like thieves in the night. I never saw one hair on all the kleenices I blew into during chemo. And that's a lot of kleenex, since chemo removes the washer from the nasal faucet. If the hairs didn't come off upon nose-blowing, it leaves me wondering -- did I inhale them? Did they fall off during an air puff over a witticism while I was reading? Are they hither and thither on rugs around the house?

Well. The upshot is that my nose drips more slowly now by virtue of these new plantings on the nasal hill. It still drips, but I can usually catch it in time, if you know what I mean.

While we're surveying the upper acreage, here is a shot of my eyebrows coming in. These hairs are very short, but promising. With the eyebrows it went entirely down to the wire, literally. Until yesterday, there was just one (relatively) long, wiry hair still standing from the old eyebrows. While the new stuff has been growing in, that one hair has been like a grand old mature oak tree you see in a forest, surrounded by spindly maple saplings. Anyway, the old oak fell sometime last night. Now it's all saplings.

Lastly, here is the pate. It's not quite the romantic horizon shot I achieved in the previous post, but this way I can show that there are finally some dark hairs coming in. The new hair is as soft as a duckling, and once you touch it you can't stop. I'm telling you. I just spent five minutes rubbing it back and forth while deciding what to write. Now I feel all peaceful and sleepy. It's like rubbing your blankie when you were a kid.

Soon I'll be writing about our We Could Have but We Didn't Weekend, where we ducked out (more ducks!) of the American Cancer Society We Can Weekend and instead went to Gloucester. Oh! Just lost another few minutes rubbing my head.  Everyone in the house is touching my hair (head hair, not nose) all the time, oohing over its softness. I feel like I could make a pret-ty penny standing out on Main Street, charging people for the chance to rub my head for good luck and comfort.

Except for the cancer thing, I guess, which tends to creep people out.

homebody, incurable, part 2

The kids, Laura, and I were scheduled to take part in the upcoming "We Can Weekend" sponsored by the American Cancer Society. This was going to repair my group experience at Stowe Weekend of Hope, from which I returned feeling acutely aware of my sometimes too solitary nature. I felt kind of like a -- what are some solitary animals? Wikipedia says: leopards, jaguars, almost all spiders, most species of rhinoceros, polar bears (except for mating), the maned sloth. Not much to work with. Certainly nothing maned. At Stowe I felt like a rhino at an elephant party. No offense to the very kind elephants who were enjoying the group experience.

Anyway, the kids were willing to go with us on this weekend designed to support the cancer survivor and her family. It offered groups for, among others, young adult "children," where they could talk about the impact the cancer has had on their own lives. I thought maybe that would be good for the kids, good for me, good for Laura. But as the time approaches, we all feel like doing something unprogrammed as a family might be better. And we already talk about cancer a lot. So we backed out. Homebody, still and again.

One thing, though, would have sent us to the Hell Yes We Can Weekend, homebodiness or no. Laura had an ultrasound on both breasts early this morning; she got called back after her mammogram two weeks ago. We exhaled around 8:30, chests pumping from holding our breaths for ten days. All clear. Her breasts are pretty bulky, so we saw all kinds of things in the ultrasound -- cysts, fat globules, my favorite striped sock, and that missing earring I wrote about in December.

Needless to say, we are relieved, as we had been entertaining some weird fantasies about being the bald and breastless lesbians walking together down Main Street, Farmington. Aside from being scary, painful, and extremely inconvenient, it would have been creepy to have Laura hit with cancer, too.

Despite our relief, Laura confessed that there was a part of her that had been curious to know what I have gone through. There is no thought that is so weird I can't imagine having it cross my own mind, so I understood this. Surely we all hold an innate curiosity about experiences, particularly things that test our mettle. How would we each cope, we wonder, given any conceivable trial that others have faced?

Truth be told, I haven't felt great about my mettle. I had hoped I'd be more of a brick through chemo; less needy of attention and sympathy, less fascinated by symptoms, less anxious about the whole thing. Maybe even more of a rhino, in some ways. The elephant in me came through more than I wanted it to. I like the sociable pachyderm in me, but am not always as accepting of the elephant that is clinging anxiously to the tail in front of it.

Here's an almost pastoral shot of my cranial horizon, hair slowly rising. The furrows in the foreground show you I am smiling.