David Crow’s “In Search of the Medicine Buddha” is one of my favorite books.  It’s about an acupuncturist, David Crow, who leaves his acupuncture practice in San Francisco to study Tibetan healing practices in Nepal.

When my mom first had her stroke, I knew acupuncture could help her.  The problem was finding an acupuncturist who made house calls.  When I found one who did–the next problem was convincing the nursing home/ rehab facility of the value of such a service. Long story short, they were not convinced.  The medical staff would not even allow our mother to leave the facility for acupuncture treatment. My sisters and I had to wait (3 months) until our mom was home before she could be treated by the acupuncturist.

When the acupuncturist, Matt Brookman (http://www.brookmanacupuncture.com), first came to our house, he asked our mom about her concerns.  Our mom said she was “miserable” and wanted to feel better.  She was in a lot of physical pain and was mentally drained. The main concerns my sisters and I had centered around our mother’s emotional state–plus her insomnia, excessive night time urination and anxiety. The acupuncturist  evaluated our mom by looking at her tongue and checking her various pulses.  The acupuncturist then explained that the meridians of the body he would be working on for stroke recovery are the same meridian points  that affect emotional balance.  A win-win for us!

According to The Academy of Classical Oriental Sciences (www.acos.org):

• A meridian is an ‘energy highway’ in the human body. Qi (chee) energy flows through this meridian or energy highway, accessing all party of the body. Meridians can be mapped throughout the body; they flow within the body and not on the surface, meridians exist in corresponding pairs and each meridian has many acupuncture points along its path.
• The term ‘meridian’ describes the overall energy distribution system of Chinese Medicine and helps us to understand how basic substances of the body (Qi, blood and body fluids) permeate the whole body. The individual meridians themselves are often described as ‘channels’ or even ‘vessels’ which reflects the notion of carrying, holding, or transporting qi, blood and body fluids around the body.
• Practitioners of Chinese Medicine must be as knowledgeable about these meridian channels as the Western Doctor is about anatomy and physiology of the physical body. Without this thorough understanding, successful acupuncture treatments would be difficult. A practitioner of Chinese Medicine must know how and where to access the qi energy of the body to facilitate the healing process.

Matt, the acupuncturist, also prescribed  Chinese Herbal Medicine for our mother. Matt ordered the herbs for us.

Our job was to cook the herbs in water and give them to our mother in the form of a tea twice a day.

Matt’s acupuncture treatments along with his prescribed medicinal tea have proven to be crucial components in our mother’s recovery.   And Kookaburra is happy because she finally has a new boyfriend!