Today, I went to an acupuncturist for an arthritic ankle. Left ankle. It’s the result of multiple sprains over the years. Since the left side of the body is controlled by the right side of the brain, I suspect the arthritis is also connected to the walls I’ve run into with my writing – the story, the characters, the agent, the editor.
I’ve had two cortisone shots in the ankle, have gotten remote healing from a Reiki master, take Tumeric and Curcummin and other vitamins for it. I’ve never tried acupunture. When I mentioned it to my orthopedic, Dr. Sama, he nodded. “It depends on the acupuncturist. They have to be good.”
Years back, Rob had gone to an Asian acupuncturist and still had the business card. Today that clinic is called J&K Acupuncture Medical Center and my GPS found it easily. The clinic is tucked back to the side of from a car dealership in a newer shopping center with more than a dozen stores. When I walked in, I immediately felt like I had time traveled.
The smell of the air was different, more fragrant than outside. I felt like I was in an Asian culture, where the level of wisdom and knowledge surpasses what western medicine has. An older Asian woman hunts for my name in the appointment calendar. Behind her stands a case of medical supplies.No one else is in the front room with us until a masked Asian woman in a smock appears and gestures for me to follow her.
As I find out later, this is Jenny Lee, who shares this practice with her partner, Keh-Nan Fang. I follow her into the first room on my left – chair, bed. I slip off my orthopedic sandals and for moments stand barefoot on the floor.
It hurts to stand barefoot on any floor.
As I stretch out on the bed, Jenny examines my ankle. I tell her about the recent cortisone injection. She brings out a packet of needles, opens them and begins inserting them in my left foot. Four or five of them, I think. The one I really feel is at the bottom of my foot. She also uses a needle on the inside of my left wrist and one in the middle of my left leg. The needles vibrate. She turns on a heat lamp.
She mentions that I should avoid certain foods – bananas, watermelon, mango, cheese. I should eat more beans – black beans, kidney beans. How about fish? I ask her.
“Fish is okay, so is chicken. Papaya is good. Strawberries and blueberries are good.”
I make mental notes of all this, then she turns out the light and leaves me alone in the twilight. I shut my eyes and doze off, my left foot warmed by the heat lamp. While I’m laying there, I hear an older man in another room saying, “I never believed in this stuff, you know. I got my marijuana medical card and weeds helps…but these magnets and the acupuncture…really help.”
When Jenny returns to the room, she shows me how to massage my leg so that the toxins that create the inflammation leave my body through the sole of my foot. At least, I think that’s what she said. Her English is difficult to understand and I don’t speak Chinese.
When the treatment is done, the swelling in my ankle has shrunk. It shrank after the cortisone shot, but now it looks even smaller. I feel no pain as I stand. As I walk. As I pay my bill. $86.That includes several herbal patches that I can wear on my ankle from six to eight hours at a time.
What is most interesting about this is that throughout the time I was in my little cubicle, I never felt like I was in 2022. I felt timeless, untethered, the recipient of some kind of ancient knowledge.
After this treatment, I was able to walk barefoot, which I haven’t been able to do for months. I was able to walk like a normal human being. Will I be returning?
You bet. Cortisone shots can be given only every 3-4 months because more frequent shots can result in necrosis – death of the tissue, otherwise known as gangrene.
In between, I plan on using acupuncture. It’s the shamanic cortisone treatment.
