I didn’t start out knowing I wanted to pursue Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). I didn’t really know it even existed until 2002. In the spring of 2002, my doctors at SF General/ UCSF presented me with a very unusual opportunity as a last ditch chance to help with the full organ failure that I was in. It was an absolute miracle that I had even survived as long as I had through the stream of severe infections, multiple bouts of septicemia,  and surgeries over the previous two years. They asked me if I wanted to try acupuncture and chinese medicine. I was not interested in dying yet I knew my body was done. I was more swollen than a stay push marshmallow, grey and cold, with barely enough energy to get up. I knew my body was shutting down but my spirit was not. I hated needles, especially after the two years in the hospital. But I believed in hope and the power of Spirit. Therefore I said yes to acupuncture.

After a year and a half of treatments two to three times a week at the little clinic in the Mission district, doing what my TCM doctor and SF general doctors said, I was no longer in organ failure, off of the 20+ prescriptions I had been on, and lost the swollen puffy weight as my organs had improved. The joint eastern-meets-western care was a life saver for me. I was able to safely get off of medications, and improve my life through tough lifestyle choices I needed to make including diet, exercise relative to the moment, and rest.  I actually got my life back. Something I think I had lost even before I got sick. I moved from The City to the foothills of Arizona to continue healing and begin my quest to understand what an antibody was and how some teapills made from flowers, bark, and twigs could help so much.

Undergrad studies in Northern AZ

A story to be told…coming soon

some silly Latin place holder was here…

What I am learning now

I may tell you a some of the cool things about my microsystems class here. Like how those ears can really reach so much healing in your body… or some insight into the mysteries of scalp acupuncture. maybe I will share some favorite aspect from my western clinical med or OM internal med classes… time will tell. 

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Favorite TCM topics

I think I would love to look into favorite foundational TCM topics here and how they connect to the moment.

So often TCM uses words and concepts that seem so familiar and foreign all at the same time. Beginning the discussion of what damp, or heat in the lower jiao, excess or deficient mean to a world that did not grow up hearing these terms. What do you mean by spleen qi deficiency or kidney yin deficiency?  “My blood work was fine, are my kidneys in trouble?” We use some of the same words within a very different context I would love to share with you here…in time.