My third hospital visit to treat my patient

This continues on from my blog of 20 January.

I never know whether what I am doing helps my patients until they themselves provide me with evidence of improvement.  Assessing the result of a previous treatment in the case of a very ill patient therefore becomes all the more crucial.  This week I was blessed with hearing my patient say as I approached her hospital bed, “Nora, they are amazed at how well I am.”  And I was amazed, too.  She is continuing with her weekly chemotherapy, and is tolerating the side-effects surprisingly well.  She is still on painkillers, but no longer needs morphine, and her lungs are now functioning without distressing her so that she has no need of additional oxygen.

Her eyes were bright, and she was surprisingly cheerful, considering that she is suffering from painful bedsores.  They are thinking of allowing her home in a few weeks once she has completed the chemotherapy sessions.  The hospital can’t believe that she is tolerating the chemotherapy so well, but I know that III (Bl) 38 (43), that miracle point for helping the blood, can indeed produce miracles and help her body cope as well as it is with the poisons being pumped into it.

My treatment this time was III 38 again (one of the few points in five element acupuncture which can be used repeatedly), IV (Ki) 16, which JR Worsley told us is like a III 38 of the Kidney, finishing with III (Bl) 67 and IV (Ki) 7, the tonification points.

I will see her again in a week and hope that the improvement continues.  As I left, she called out to me, “I love you” which sent me on my way with tears in my eyes. 

I wish, though, that I could have used the moxa stick to help her bedsores, but the smoke would not be allowed because it might set off the fire alarms.  One of my patients managed to persuade the doctors to let her sister use it on her bedsores in hospital, and told me that they cleared up miraculously quickly.  If I were younger, I would like to have looked at doing some research on the moxa stick and its ability to help all kinds of skin problems.  Often bedsores for the bedridden are the most painful thing  they have to suffer, and could so easily be helped with this little magical stick of mugwort, the support of the medical staff and a little bit of inventiveness at finding a place with some suitable outside ventilation.