Happy New Year

Happy New Year! Well, if it doesn't turn out to be a happy one, then at least it will be a significant one.

I have had three acupuncture treatments so far, and you know what? They are making a difference. My acupuncturist’s name is Jason, and he trained in acupuncture after doing martial arts as a boy. Which actually I think is rather cool - it’s not such a stretch, when you think about it; the vulnerable points on an opponent’s body are also the sensitive ones, and those are the ones when the chi energy is apparently the most accessible. He showed me a tai chi move called (I think) Rolling the Ball, and when he prepared his stance, you could see the martial arts warrior!

At our first appointment, I told Jason about my heart problems, and what western medicine so far had revealed - the underperforming left ventricle, the bundle branch block, the shortness of breath, etc. Then Jason checked me out and said it seemed to him that it wasn’t the heart that was so much in trouble as the pericardium (which Chinese medicine considers an organ, but western medicine does not). It’s the sheath that surrounds the heart, and Jason said it seemed very hard and he wondered if it was actually constricting the heart. He also said that maybe we should begin by treating the spleen, where the fluids seemed very turgid. I think that was the word he used – it didn’t sound very pleasant, anyway, and he clearly felt this needed attention. Okay.

The spleen filters the blood and does other useful things like help to fight off infection. So there is a connection to the heart, and if the spleen is in trouble, the heart and liver have to take over some of its duties. That it should need some TLC makes sense to me, especially since while I never felt any pain or twinges in my heart, when I was really sick I did sometimes get little stabs under my ribcage on the left side. And wouldn’t you know, that’s where the spleen is.

Now, I try to be a compliant patient. So I asked about diet, and what I can do to help the spleen. “Congee” says Jason. What? It’s slow-cooked rice, like cooked all night in a slow cooker. You eat it as often as possible throughout the day, warm, especially first thing in the morning. Cut out the dairy products (which I know from experience causes phlegm to collect in your throat). Cut out the extremes of hot and cold. (Oh boy, there goes ice cream AND cheese!). No vegetables or fruits eaten in a raw state. (No salad, no nibbling while I am cutting up veggies, no apple a day! This is going to be harder than I thought.) No “over consumption” of animal products. Well at least I have a bit of latitude here – that means I can still have chicken (it’s a bird) and fish. I ask tentatively about chocolate, with warning in my tone. Jason considers this, and says a little a day is okay because it’s good for the spirit.

So, I am now trying to restore balance to the spleen. I go home and since we don’t (or didn’t then) have a slow cooker, I cook a cup of long grain rice as slowly as I can in a double boiler, and store it in the fridge. Each morning I sprinkle it with slivered almonds and raisins and zap it in the microwave for 30 seconds, have it for breakfast, and this I proudly tell Jason at the next session. WRONG. It seems that zapping it damages the chi. Okay then for the next week I carefully warm it up in a small bowl in water in a saucepan instead of nuking it (I am still working through that first cup of rice].

I am missing the point, says Jason. I need to eat warm food that has been carefully prepared for my spleen and not just warm it up in a hurry and get on with my busy day. You can get a slow cooker in Zehrs for $14.99, he says. I give in (in spite of the fact that my husband has said he’s not going to bed to sleep for 8 hours while there is a electric kitchen appliance doing its thing all night, especially if it’s only cooking some minute quantity of rice) and go to the biggest Zehrs in town. There indeed is one slow cooker sitting on the shelf, priced at $14.99. So I get it. In both senses of the phrase. Congee isn’t that bad, and I can cook it first thing in the morning and then eat it throughout the day.  And I can vary rice with oatmeal, which I can probably get my husband to eat. And I can add it to soup which His Lordship will eat as well.

Well, things are getting better. I do have less phlegm. And the other day I was able to run up the 10 stairs from our basement without stopping. And I can walk down the slight hill into the river valley and then up the other side without breaking my stride. I wasn’t able to do either of these things two months ago.

Here’s a picture of the meridians than govern the spleen. I noticed when I first saw this diagram that they are shown from the right side, and this brought me up with a jolt. Every major injury I have ever had is on that meridian, on my right side: the big toe I am always stubbing, the ankle I injured on stage, the knee cap I broke in a car accident, me appendectomy, and this little cyst thing on my shoulder!

Which brings me to something else that happened on Wednesday. Jason put a ring of needles around this little lump (which my doc has said is harmless, and just a little fluid filled cyst) and after 20 minutes about half of it had disappeared! This is something I have lived with for about a year and a half. He called it circling the dragon. I am becoming a true believer. My baby sister, who knows it is hard for me to do what I am told, says she is sure Jason will fix me one way or the other – either with the treatments, or with a martially artistic blow if I misbehave.

A couple of days later I went to see a friend who asked after my health. When I told her, she asked if I had “vented my spleen”. I was a little taken aback (it sounds so rude!) and then I thought that if that means being really angry about something and getting rid of it by totally losing control, yes I have often lost my temper in the past. Oh dear, do I now need to see a shrink or do more meditation to figure out what I am so angry about? More reading, more work! I am still thinking about this - more soon.