Thursday, December 6, 2018, 1:30 p.m.
I have been having more pain the last two or three weeks and I don’t know why. I do NOT want to increase dosages of my pain medication! Maybe I need more THC. Or more CBD. The Humboldt Apothecary tincture I have is only 8.5 grams twice a day) instead of 10 grams. But here I am, waiting in line for my acupuncture session.
It’s the black girl who calls my name. She can’t see me because she doesn’t come far enough into the waiting room to see all the seats. So I answer with my voice. “I’m here.” And I put my cell phone into my purse as quickly as I can.
She leads me back to Paul Simon’s treatment room. I know it’s his room because the pressure points chart is on the wall beside the treatment table. The assistant asks for my preference of…what? I don’t understand what she said but I know it involved the treatment table. “I use the massage chair,” I tell her, as I take off my jacket and put it on the back of the chair where my bag is on the floor.
“Okay, I’ll go get it,” she says as she hurries out and comes back in with the massage chair. Based on her placement of the chair and the way she put the cover on the headrest, wordlessly, I get the feeling that she really did not want to do this. For the first time, the assistant did not make my next appointment. She just left, saying, “He’ll be with you in a moment.”
Paul Simon came in and we chatted, as he moved the massage chair into place and adjusted the head rest. “How have you been?” he asked, looking at my records on his monitor. “Madam Board Secretary!” he teased. Yeah, I thought, you couldn’t possibly remember that from October. You probably made a note somewhere in my record.
I laughed. “At least I don’t have to do that again until January!” Then I told him I was having more pain and I thought it might be due to the weather. He agreed. “Yeah, that can happen when we get older.”
“Are you still using the cannabis salve?” he asked.
I hesitated, because I haven’t used it at all lately, since coming back from our summer road trip. “Yes,” I lied, “whenever I need to. But…” and here I really hesitated… “the most important thing I do for a preventative is CBD tincture sublingually.” (I failed to mention that it was a 1:1 CBD/THC tincture.) He just nodded, knowingly.
When I positioned myself on the massage chair, he began to palpate my neck on both sides. This is the first time he has ever done this and it felt SO good! It reminded me that I would really like to have a 60-minute full-body massage for therapy. “Your left side is tight,” he said, confirming my experience of pain on the left side of my neck. I did not tell him about the numbness and tingling on the right side that had been spreading forward to my right ear lobe and down the right of my cheek about two inches below my ear. This has been going on for a few weeks. I wonder if I should email Dr. Prabaharan about this. But I did make sure I told him that I have started on a B-complex to hopefully counteract the bad effects of the pain medication! “And also 10,000 units of vitamin D3, because my old body doesn’t made vitamin D from sunlight like it used to.”
He placed one needle in my left hand and one on my right hand (instead of the two on my right hand). I presumed it was for the pain and tightness on the left side of my neck. “This might hurt,” he warned, one second before he put in the needle. Yes, it hurt about like pricking my finger for a blood glucose test. No biggie.
I settled in with mindful breathing, living in the moment mostly through the music, which was familiar to me but without lyrics. It seemed like only 10 minutes when Paul came back in, realized the heat lamp was not on, apologized, and turned it on. Asked if I was doing okay.
I don’t know how long it was until the next time he came in because I dozed off and was awakened by the sound of the door opening.
“Do you want to stay longer?” he asked.
“Yes, if I can,” I replied.
So when he came back the third time, it was time to go. I was thoroughly relaxed and refreshed, and I told him so. And I thanked him. He seemed pleased.
When I got back out to the waiting room, I stopped at the receptionist station and asked her if she could schedule the next appointment for me in January. She did.
Optometry/Ophthalmology
Before I left Building B, I stopped to make an eye exam appointment. The receptionist found my record and said I was also due for a diabetic retinal screening. I told her I thought I had had one year before last, and she told me they are now due every year. I wonder if that is a new Kaiser thing or if it is because of my advanced age!
