Wednesday, July 5
My dear friend Cynthia is a certified acupuncturist, Chinese herbalist, and healer. When I asked her if I could fly her here from her home in New York, I had few expectations that she would have the time, but Janice had sent me instructions for how to treat restless leg syndrome that needed someone well-versed in Chinese medicine, and who speaks English. Cynthia said sure. She and her husband would be vacationing in Cornwall at the beginning of July, so she would arrange to come to Europe ten days early and spend them in Orvieto. I was thrilled.
Cynthia can feel a person’s qi, or vital energy – how it flows, where it is blocked, when it is running backwards – and was able to teach me to identify some of that phenomena myself. She gave me several hours of yin tui na each day. My sleep improved, I had hours of strong (if far from perfect) walking, my mood lifted, and gratitude soared to new levels. The RLS still bothers me but I am left with tools to deal with that myself.
What follows is from Recovery from Parkinson’s by Janice Hadlock and is profoundly true.
“Recovery symptoms are not a straight line. But to the extent that there is some degree of predictability, one can assume that return of fully normal motor function might be one of the very last things that occur during recovery. What might occur prior to a return of healthy motor function is resumption of nerve sensitivity, spastic, infantile motor function, back pain, heightened sensitivity in nerves that go to the bladder, exhaustion, and very often, an overwhelming, new sensitivity to heart feelings, and so much more.”
Cynthia also took this week’s photo.