By Rosanna Marshall | Volunteer Alum
Excerpts from Rosanna's blog
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Monday, another work week begins. It was a big day. I saw 10 patients this morning, and then another 7 after lunch. Word seems to have gotten out that I’m here doing acupuncture. Patients are feeling better and bringing their friends. And I think the doctors at Shechen now feel confident in my skills because I am getting many more referrals. The hardest part is that I don’t have my own interpreter, and I have to keep finding someone to help me talk to my patients. I have a few cases that are very difficult, but mostly people are doing better. No one is cured, except maybe a patient with shoulder pain, [...] but then she came back with pain in her other elbow. And I treat her for her grief. It’s interesting, I now see where the term ‘widow’s peak’ comes from, as Tibetan women seem to shave a large triangle of hair from their foreheads, I think when their husbands die. But after 17 patients, I’m starving. Off to dinner with Isabelle and Josien.
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47 patient treatments this week. That number now feels very manageable and I can imagine doing more. Some did return, some were new. Things seem steady. I wish I could help them more. I am no longer dead-tired after a workday, which I attribute to daily yoga and meditation practice. And settling in. Think I’m going to try to contact Chapagoan clinic this week (HIV/AIDS). I also met a man, James, who works in the Beggar’s Camp, and I might go practice there perhaps. I’ll find out more tomorrow about his project (quilt-making with/for the poorest of poor) when we travel back to Pharping together to go experience some important lama named Thinle Norbu. Matthew came today, bearing gifts and thanks for helping [a local man] (who is much improved this week, stronger pulse, no more diarrhea or black marks on his tongue, he’s feeling good--transitioned him from Wen Dan Tang to Bu Zhong Yi Qi Tang). He told me about ThinleNorbu first, said he’s some superlama uberguru, kind of like the Dalai Lama in importance and just being in his presence is transformative. He recommended I come. Then when James mentioned he was going, it seemed like fate. So, I’m going to check it out, I could use more transformation. I guess it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, although sometimes it seems like those happen every day here.
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Instant success story: [A man] came in yesterday limping with sudden left foot pain if he put all his weight on it. It had started in the morning. It was clearly on the stomach channel, right under the ball of the foot where the toe joined the metatarsals. Stomach pulse was full, but pulse in general was slow. Tongue typical thick white/yellow coat from the diet. Feet felt cold to him. So I needled [him]. Then I did about 50 cones of direct moxa on the bottom of his foot behind the second toe--Japanese point for digestion. Result: No more pain! Yay!
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