Two-Year Review

It will be two years this months since I decided to become an acupuncturist. At the time I felt afraid, confused, like I was abandoning my life dream to write fiction, and very insecure about my ability to succeed in a scientific field. In retrospect, I'm so glad I took the unexplored path.

I went to the Five Branches orientation on Monday. I really enjoyed meeting my new classmates and being on campus. The rooms are light and airy. For what ever biochemical reason, that architectural and latitudinal combination makes me feel physically and emotionally energized.

I've registered for 9 classes. I already feel overwhelmed but really excited too. I'll be taking herbs, needling, tongue and pulse diagnosis, and most exciting of all, I'll begin my rounds in the clinic. I'm finally getting to the good stuff!

Most of my OCOM credits have transferred, so by next semester, I'll officially be in my second year of school. I might just see graduation by the time I'm 49.

Coinciding with all these happy, excited feelings about getting back to school, was an e-mail from a friend from my writing days. She is one of the organizers of the Willamette Writing Conference. I attended this conference twice--once as an attendant taking seminars and the following year as an instructor and to pitch agents.

My friend pitched her screenplay this past conference and got picked up! I'm so excited for her. Things are churning their slow, painful pace in Hollywood, but at least they're churning and her work may get produced.

As I was driving my scooter back from school I realized I had more energy than I'd had in months. I knew it was because I'm returning school and doing what I love. I compared that to my time as a writer.

I spent 20 years writing in all its various forms--ad copy writing, text book editing, writing software user manuals, string and free-lance newspaper reporting, screenwriting, teaching, and finally, the most tedious and soul-squashing of all, writing quasi military and government documents.

Those 20 years of odd writing jobs were really about me doing everything possible under the sun to get my fiction published. I had little success and lots of heartbreak. In the end, I walked away from fiction because I couldn't take the rejection anymore.

So here I am, much happier and not really missing the writing habit. When I walked away, I felt like a failure. I had bought into the idea of the noble writer, punching the keyboard all day in isolation, trying to translate the fantasies in my head into something readable, enjoyable, and most important to the industry, saleable! I wasted years nursing the fantasy of having bound pieces of paper, with my name on the cover, prominently displayed on those cleverly placed tables at the entrance of Barnes & Nobles everywhere!

When you're a fiction writer, it's a sort of madness. The characters become alive in your head, bothering you with their emotional baggage and convoluted life crises every waking moment. I never truly relaxed when I was writing fiction. I even, proudly, wrote for hours while on vacation. Not healthy at all.

The desire to publish crippled my happiness. Now that I've let it go, it's been a wonderful surprise to discover there are other things that I'm good at doing, and I actually enjoy doing them!

I'm still not so good at taking breaks, but I no longer have voices in my head demanding that I commit their every action to paper. I've told those characters, "Sorry, the market doesn't see the relevance of your story. Time to go into the trunk."

Now I enjoy reading fiction without comparing myself to the writer, or worse, critiquing their work! So much easier to just enjoy a story instead of analyzing it. Best of all, it's rare for someone to ask me to read their work-in-progress. Such relief.

Chinese medicine, though truly an art form when it comes to diagnosis and treatment, seems so much more straight forward and it's way more satisfying to help a patient feel better than receiving a rejection letter.

Writing hasn't left me. There are a few more books scratching to be written, but for now, it's good to put the obsession aside for something that feeds me, too. School starts Monday!

Maybe it was worth it, afterall...

Okay, I'm gonna brag a little. I apologize at the outset. Think of this as encouragement to other first year medical students out there.

If you've followed this blog, you know that my first year of med school was frickin' hard, both academically and personally. I can't believe I survived it, really.

I didn't do well winter quarter. In fact, I failed the very important points location class.  As much as I love the medicine, I very much doubted that I had what it takes to complete four years. I was feeling pretty awful about myself.


Now, I'm on break, unpacking my new house and looking forward to, with a little anxiety, starting at Five Branches University next month. I'm 46 years old, but I still get "new girl" anxiety.

In the nick of time, I just discovered that I got honors in A&P, got a B on my TCM final, and my Classics professor just sent me an e-mail about my final papers. He wrote, "...the first paragraph of your reflective paper was sheer genius...You will be a great success in Chinese medicine, but keep writing too."

It means so much to me to have finally succeeded. I feel myself open to the possibility that I might actually make it through the program, pass the boards, and become a practitioner. There were some very dark moments of doubt this past year. These little things, the grades and positive comments from teachers, are beams of light shining into the darkness. I could weep with relief.

Yesterday, I met my friend Linda at the Cantor Art Museum on the Stanford University Campus. I love Rodin and it was nice to get up close and personal to The Gates of Hell. You can't do that at the Musee d'Orsey in Paris. Tsk-tsk, non!

Linda is a biologist, so it was fun to marvel over the exaggerated muscles and impossible poses. I never thought about how much learning anatomy would enhance my love of art.

Before Linda arrived, I watched a group of elderly photographers set up their crane-legged tripods and lens-heavy cameras. A Chinese woman, big black camera slung around her neck, approached me and asked where the toilets were. I pointed into the museum. When she returned she sat next to me and we talked. Her name was Wai and she is 71 years old.

She told me that she had come from China 30 years ago to practice dentistry. She told me of the discrimination that prevented her from opening a practice here. I was shocked. Growing up in the South, seeing up close and personal how badly the white culture could treat African Americans, I believed that it was different in the rest of the country--especially California. As she talked, I again felt that same burning shame about the color of my skin and my fellow white's sick inclination to keep things pure--what ever the hell that means.

She rubbed my arm and said, "You'll do well in Chinese medicine because of this."

I asked her why. She told me that the Chinese love Americans, that I would never experience the same racism there that she had here. She also told me that I would have a wonderful and prosperous practice. Wai said she could tell because of the way I looked at her and listened.

That made me feel warm and fuzzy all over. Then she warned, "If you don't have a husband by the time you go to China, you will be courted there. The Chinese doctors will fall in love with you."

My friend Linda confirmed much of what Wai said about the culture. Linda's parents are from Japan. After Wai left, Linda and I giggled about the prediction of finding a husband. We both have a huge crush on Chow Yun Fat. I wonder how he'd look in a white jacket...

Suddenly, I'm looking forward to my studies, again.

It hurts right here if I cough while Mercury conjuncts Pluto

A few weeks before school ended, I noticed a new trend in my life. Every now and then when I tell someone that I'm studying Chinese medicine, the person gives me a list of symptoms then asks if I know what the problem might be.

Once I get past the deer staring into the headlights sensation, I panic. This question brings up a lot of issues for me. I've only studied for one year, folks! I have only a vague idea, if any, of what might be wrong with you. I'm not, in anyway, in a position to be giving medical advice. And, worry of worries, what if I give you the wrong advice. Yikes!

I asked two different professors how to handle this. I got a very vague, answer-me-with-a-question from one teacher, and an impatient, not-too-helpful answer from another instructor.

Just because the universe likes to really drive issues home for me, I have a new acquaintance who always wants medical advice. I am truly at a loss with her. It makes me wonder why Anatomy and Physiology isn't required for everyone.

She's a wonderful person, but her medical knowledge is zip. Not a problem except she spends a lot of our time together talking about her latest self-diagnosis. I won't go into detail because of HIPPA, ethics, and because most of what she says doesn't make much sense.

I've only completed one year of medical school, but I can say this person's ideas of how the body works and her dependence on the latest new age cure is really disturbing. I listen patiently and try to make sense of her nonsense. I ask a few clinical questions based on what little I know to try to help. Mostly I end up feeling anxious and driven to get her to a competent practitioner and advocate for her.

I won't be her advocate because I know I'll be pulled into a co-dependent situation that I don't have the time or patience for. She isn't experiencing anything life threatening. I would definitely step up if she was.

I realize that she makes me uncomfortable in part because I use Reiki to help people. I often wonder how naive and full of nonsense I've sounded when talking to people about this practice. Going to Acupuncture school has done much to boost my confidence, but I have a long way to go.

In contrast, I spent the next day with another new friend who is a biologist and does research studies for pharmaceutical companies. It was wonderful talking shop with her. She rounded out my limited knowledge about how medical studies are conducted--the protocols, limitations, and the researcher/patient relationships.

Sometimes, I worry that I'll never know enough for my patients. After spending time with my biologist friend, the inner critic came online, "You should have taken more biomed courses! You won't know what you're doing! One semester of cellular biology isn't enough!"

I smacked that voice of guilt and hysteria down by driving by my new school, Five Branches. I began to feel excited about getting back to my studies. To boost my confidence a little more, I looked at my Anatomy and Physiology grades one more time. Those A's sure feel good.

Maybe one day, I'll not only be a great practitioner, I'll know how to interpret new age mumbo-jumbo into a diagnosis.

Qigong Final

This is my car, Kermit. In the back is a Kermit the Frog in the "Assurance and Protection" mudra from 1,000 Hands Buddha. I believe that Kermit the Frog protects me and my car while the rest of the world believes he is just waving "hello."

 

This is the painting I did for my qigong final. I wanted to depict all the ways I've used movement in my life to reach the divine. You may not believe that a child ballerina/former stripper/current bellydancer/yogini/qigong practitioner has used all these forms to connect to divinity. I can assure you, movement meditation is prayer, whether you're doing it in a temple or a club of ill repute.

Painting for me is a really tough thing. My father is an artist--a pretty talented painter in his own right. But maybe because of the divorce, or other reasons I'll never know, he never taught my brothers and I how to paint.

So every time I paint something, a series of things happen:

1. I'm afraid of screwing up.
2. I'm a bit surprised that I know what to do.
3. I feel deeply blocked emotions rise to the surface, but because painting takes me to a meditative place, it's all good.
4. I'm usually quite surprised that the painting turns out much as I'd imagined it.
5. I thank my father for my artistic genes.

As I was painting this, my hands heated up and I knew that Reiki was on and healing was happening. There was no intention for the healing, only focus on the colors and images.

Losing myself in painting is just one more thing to be thankful for in my qigong practice...

Inanna, Heart, and Pericardium Go for a Long Dark Walk…

This is a paper I'm submitting for my Bridging Classics class:

    

This paper has been writing itself in my head since we began the lecture on the heart. In one of life’s perfect ironies, we study the heart in Bridging Classics, A&P, Living Anatomy, and TCM Theory, as I mend my broken heart.

I sit on the edge of my seat while Regina details how blood moves, like the never-ending infinity symbol, through the heart and lungs. Perhaps she knows the answer. When we drew, in bright magic markers, the placement of the heart on the body of our lab partners, I thought enlightenment would shine at me from the pink and green lines on my partner’s body. When Dr. Xue wrote the formulas and acupuncture points, I thought he might be secreting to me the cure for a broken heart. I can’t decide if the pain is more like Heart Yin Deficiency or Heart Blood Deficiency.

In a way, OCOM itself has given me this heartbreak as it was a fellow student who pursued my now ex-boyfriend. This began, fittingly enough, on Valentine’s Day when she boldly announced to me that he would be hers. It has been an incredibly difficult two-quarter period as I move through grief, rage, confusion, and betrayal.

The song by Sinead O’Connor, “Thank You for Hearing Me,” has the lyrics;

Thank you for breaking my heart

Thank you for tearing me apart

Now I’ve a strong, strong heart

Thank you for breaking my heart

If the heart is broken, or actually, opened, it is strengthened to receive and give more love. The pericardium as both protector and muse, grows stronger, wiser, and more discerning for the heart with each break/opening and healing.

As I mend, the joy of qigong moves through me. I delight in my new kitten, Blue Bai Wu (apologies to Roy Orbison), connect more fully to my cranky cat, Samantha, and fall more deeply in love with my old, arthritic dog, Kieran/Kirin (how fitting that Dog is the animal of Pericardium—protector and bringer of joy).

My body feels exhilaration as I transition my spastic leg muscles and asthmatic lungs from walking a 3-mile course into running it. I love and appreciate my friends more deeply as they comfort me with laughter, dancing, and study dates. I open to the lessons my clients teach me and feel awe for them and their healing process. I cling to gratitude because some days, that’s all I have and it is enough.

As I fall more deeply in love with myself, I use this time as a way to delve more deeply into my own blocked heart. Pericardium brings me closer to self-love, which has already taught me is the cure for multiple sclerosis. What else will this new depth of discovery cure? Mortality?

I still have nightmares as my heart transforms this pain. The Shen of the Heart working while I work with my brilliant therapist. He coaches me deeper into the darker spaces of self, bringing my heart the light it craves. I think of Inanna shedding her worldly goods to go deeper underground to steal the Underworld from her sister, Ereshkigal, only to finally be killed and hung on a hook to rot. It is then up to Ereshkigal to birth the rivers and the harvest.

My heart listens, waiting for the pearl of wisdom that will tell it how to stay open and in love without being crushed by terror. I remember the flies who whispered the secret words to bring Inanna back to life. I listen and I wait.

I've decided that the first year of grad school has been about learning how to be a grad student. I made a few mistakes along the way, but with the last quarter of the year approaching midterms, I've finally learned some valuable Elyn lessons:

1. I'm 46 years old. I've had some shiny moments that I'm quite proud of. If you want me to write a short story, novel, technical document, or film script, I can pound out a pretty decent first draft, and I can teach you how to do it, too. Being a beginner at something has been very hard. Ego, take a bow.

2. Being past child bearing age implies that I don't have to keep up with those who are half my age. In the beginning I couldn't understand where my classmates found the energy to be in the accelerated classes, work, party, date, and still do well on quizzes and exams. Then, with no small amount of horror, I realized that I was old enough to have given birth to most of my fellow students. Sobering.

3. With age comes confidence (or exhaustion from sludging through a lifetime of BS). There were some difficult social situations that I quickly and firmly extracted myself from. At a younger age, I would have taken a lead role in the soap opera just because I was raised to be co-dependent that way. Thank the Gods for therapy and time.


4. Relationships. I was told repeatedly that most romantic relationships do not survive grad school. In anticipation of this, the man I was with when I applied for school broke up with me. The next guy who came along couldn't hang either.

Grad school demands that you give it your complete focus. There is no energy for doing all the work that needs to be done in a loving, mature relationship. I've come to doubt whether I'll get involved with anyone seriously until after I graduate.

If I do, it's going to have to be someone who either has done what I'm doing and doesn't mind being a doormat, or was born that way (see co-dependent issue above).

In the mean time, I'm re-evaluating my, ah, position on never engaging in the casual hook up...



5. Perhaps the most difficult lesson to learn is how to actually learn. The truth is I'm an artist/intuitive/empath/clairvoyant. Linear thinking is something I can do, but not for sustained amounts of time.

I believed that because I was going into medicine, I had to turn off my intuition and only use the left side of my brain. I tried paying attention with just my thinking brain and memorize everything by rote. Despite hours and hours of studying, I didn't do so well on exams. It made me miserable.

My therapist (I highly recommend having one if you're going to med school--he or she can talk you out of it if nothing else.) convinced me to do what I do best. Today was my first time trying.

 
Instead of leaning forward in my seat and furiously taking notes trying to grok everything coming out of the professor's mouth, I sat back. I let my mind wander now and then. I took notes, doodled, enjoyed sun when it made its fickle appearance through the window.

Then it happened. The answers to the professor's questions came quickly and easily. I was letting my mind work in the strange way that it does--just absorbing information rather than chasing it down. 

In the last few weeks of my first year, I've finally remembered how to learn. Wonder what I'll learn next year...

Battle Weary

I'm a huge fan of Jeanne d'Arc. I like to believe that I get the whole hearing voices, charging into battle, betrayal by my king, and being burned at the stake by people with a history of bad cuisine.

Besides, she was really into fleur de lis'

I also have a bit of a loud mouthed warrior in me. Kind of a super-hero wannabe gene. I see or hear injustice and I just gotta go into a tussle. Over the years, I've learned to choose my battles. So, maybe I'm a little smarter and a little less headstrong. Maybe.

My battle of choice, now? Why defending Traditional Chinese Medicine to another race of people with a history of bad cuisine (okay, I'm thinking McDonald's here).

Yesterday, I read a blog entry in the Huffpost: Alternative and Complementary Treatments for Cancer

In the article, Dr. Nowinski talks about the shifting landscape of grief--specifically the kind of grief you experience when you or a loved one is diagnosed with terminal cancer. He said that the word, "terminal" has taken on a new meaning as more and more people who receive this diagnosis may live for months, years, or even decades longer than earlier generations who had similar cancer diagnoses.

Dr. Nowinski, a clinical psychologist, touted acupuncture and gave links to studies supporting the efficacy of using acupuncture during chemotherapy treatments.

Since reading the article, I've been commenting like crazy trying to dispute, convince, and soothe the naysayers. In other words I've been going round with ignorant fools who can't bother to read a study before slamming acupuncture.

Today, I went back to the comments section of the article. I provided links for a few more CAM deniers. I tried to rally, get steamed up, pick up the sword, but then, you know, I just felt overwhelmed against the great tide of ignorance. I got tired. 

I know that my journey as an acupuncture student and later when I'm a licensed acupuncturist will have to include heavy doses of education and patience. Sometimes though, I just wish I had a tougher suit of armor...

Is there a treatment for thin skin besides age and experience? Let me know...

A Rambling Post

It's been almost three months since I last blogged. It's hard to believe that much time has gone by.

The last few weeks of my first quarter ended with a bang. Literally. After taking my written points test, I totaled my 2000 Honda Civic. It was the car that I had bought after my car in New Orleans drowned. 

I put a lot of work and money into it the summer before school started so that it would last through my years as a poor graduate student.

When the airbags blew, the driver bag hit my right hand and sprained the ring finger, little finger, palm and wrist. It made taking the rest of my finals quite a challenge. It's still stiff and swells up painfully after lots of note taking. It does get better every week.

I went to New Orleans for break and basically collapsed while I was there. The bright Caribbean sun, floral scented air, live music, and amazing food revived me. I was so grateful to be back in my beloved city.

Room with a View

The View

Preservation Hall, Christmas Eve 2010

I returned rejuvenated and ready to take on my second quarter. I was guided to teach, for free, the Reiki I and II classes to my fellow students. It's gone amazingly well. Early in the month, on Saturday afternoon, we meet to exchange Reiki. The last Saturday of the month, I teach the Reiki class. This quarter I have 13 students. I already have 8 students signed up for next quarter.

It's such a joy to share this modality. I believe it will enhance everyone's ability to feel Qi and help them survive their next three to four years as grad students. With Reiki, you first learn to practice on yourself. Brilliant.

I bought a new car because my student loan debt just wasn't high enough. But it's cute and it goes, "Zoom-zoom!"

Kermit

The irony of going to medical school is that it's very stressful, yet the number one killer is stress. I read a great article in Wired magazine that those of us who choose stress (like going to grad school, or taking a promotion) have an advantage over those who have little or no control over the stress in their lives (low paying job with no power). That's not very comforting in the midst of test taking, I gotta say.

This week has been especially hard for me. Today is the 37th anniversary of my stepfather's death. "Hmmm," you might say, "aren't you over it already?"

What I know of death is that the pain never goes away, it only gets easier to live with. Most years the anniversary comes along and I'm just mildly grumpy. But every now and then, a hard one hits. Like this year.

I find that with the stress of being in school, of studying every single day, that there are some emotional events that grow to monsterous sizes. Other stresses that would normally bother me, don't because I simply don't have time to be upset when a test is looming.

This year, I very much miss my stepdad, Don. I feel raw, am having crying jags, and am just not into much of anything. I decided that I would skip class and have a mental health day. I don't get much time to myself or any time off. Today is it.

The sun has broken through the fog. I'm taking Kieran for a very long walk. See you all on the other side...