Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Delaware Cheese Steaks, Chinese Doctors and the Year of the Tiger
So I’m in California and my lower back starts hurting. Stabbing pain and all that. So the lovely Lily takes me to a Chinese doctor.
So every day for a week or so, I go to his house. There I stick my feet in a bucket of hot water for about 15 minutes — i lost track of time because i was listening to the Golden Compass on my IPod.
Then I go into his office, where he places electrodes on my neck and back, as well as my wrists and ankles.
Pretty soon a mild volume of electricity is going through my neck and lower back, but not anywhere else.
Then for the next 45 minutes, he basically tortures the bottom of my feet with hard massage slash accupressure.
The more it hurt, the more I needed it, he said. I was OK with that.
“You need to eat less meat,” he told me about 10 minutes into our first session. “It hurts your memory.” Of course he said this in Chinese so I’m really reporting this all second hand.
Then his wife gave me a piece of paper with the names of three really terrible diseases on it. After much discussion, they wanted me to know that I had those diseases.
Oh great. Hey, I knew my back hurt a little, but cerebral palsy?
Even so, I didn’t worry about it. The next day I figured out they were not saying I had those diseases, just that they treat them.
Relieved nevertheless.
I did about 7 sessions but he and Lily said it would take 15.
My back did not really get better, though I do intend to finish the treatments next time I go back to Cali — and find another book for my Ipod.
But I made it back to Delaware where my back got better. Still a bit tender, but better.
My brother Dave gave me a few tips about sleeping and using pillows which seemed to work.
But we were eating a cheesesteak at the time at my favorite Delaware sandwich shop, Casapulas.
So was it Dave, or the Chinese doctor, or the Cheesesteak?
I don’t remember.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
