Chinese Medicine

I feel so great right now! Since I started taking the Ritalin in the morning, I can get through the day and even make dinner sometimes.  People ask me often if I'm in remission.  Unfortunately there is no true remission for my kind of cancer.  I will be on chemo the rest of my blessed life.  I have no way of knowing if this honeymoon period will last weeks or months or years.  I had a friend that survived 17 years with stage 4 breast cancer (little quality of life the last 4 or 5 years).  I also have friends who only make it 2 or 3.  That's why I try not to take one day for granted.  I try to complete something every day (usually into the wee hours of the morning!) that gets me closer to completing my Legacy projects.  Right now, I'm working on my 2014 book.  That was one of the toughest years of my life, and I didn't take a lot of pictures.  That was our first full year in Riverton.  That was when my Mom fell and broke her femur.  That is when she had to go into rehab and assisted living.  That is when we sold our parents home.  That is when it got "the ultimate of ugly" amongst most of my siblings.  Dividing her earthly possessions was ... interesting, the method and justification was SO wrong. Enough of that! 2014 will be one of the shorter books.

This isn't me.  I've never had toes
that looked like that!  But this is what it looks like.

I go up to Huntsman every couple of weeks for acupuncture.  I have NO idea how it works, but I come out of there feeling so relaxed and refreshed. I'm a big fan! My acupuncturist is the greatest.  She has a doctorate in Chinese medicine and acupuncture, she knows pretty much everything.  When I come in she will ask me what I want to focus on. Today I told her sleep issues and anxiety about sleep issues.  I usually have needles in the top of my head, my wrists and hands, and my ankles and feet - like the picture.

So we talked for a good long while about what Chinese medicine says about sleep and anxiety.  She said Americans have it so wrong! (My words not hers!)  We rush, rush, rush from here to there, we are glued to our phones or other screens, we try to do everything and don't accomplish much of anything.  We are stressed out to the max, we are short tempered and impatient (again, my words!).  I'm totally paraphrasing.  I told her when she came back in to remove the needles that I lay there during the session thinking about how I wished I had recorded our conversation because it was so profound.

We talked about how great our generation had it as kids.  We went outside all day and played in the fields and with the neighbor kids.  My family had a "party line" so to make a phone call, we had to pick up the receiver to see if someone else was on it.  We had 2 acres of land, a huge vegetable garden, a handful of dogs, an occasional pony and rabbits we raised in the barn.  My dad was going to get rich selling the pelts.  I watched more than my share of rabbits losing their lives in a quick, efficient manner.

The thing that really stuck out to me was she said that in reality, we need only 3 things.  Breath, Food, and Sleep. And if we put equal amounts of effort into each one, we would be much healthier.  She's not talking about the shallow, fast breathing we tend to do naturally.  She's talking about deep, slow breaths to help you relax and focus.  She's talking about healthy food, avoid the junk! She's talking about using the hour before bed for meditation and prayer to clear your mind and help you sleep better.  It's all so logical but it's all so foreign to us!  There were so many other great things she said, but that was my take home.  In other words, I've forgotten everything else.  But it was good.

My heart is breaking tonight for my cousin I mentioned.  She had her PET scan today.  She is shocked, emotional, frightened, just trying to absorb everything.  I hate that other people have to go through what we've been through!  CANCER SUCKS!