[acupuncture&herbs]

this afternoon was our first real clinical day. as i said yesterday we had a lecture on traditional chinese medicine [TCM], today was a clinical day of TCM. this stuff is SO interesting! it's pretty complicated but has a lot to do with the concept of qi (the energy flow in you, kind of blood but not quite). first, we went to the pharmacy. here they had over 500 herbs, minerals, and animal parts. they had everything: snake skins, rosebuds, wheat, citrus, iron sulfate, turtle shell, berries, chicken stomach, tree bark, just to name a few. 

i even got these little white berry looking herbs to help my cough that our host has been concerned about. i've been coughing for about a month and a half; i've tried decongestants, dayquil, rest, allergy pills, flo-nase, and even a z-pack, but i'm still coughing. they weighed out how much i would need and told me to boil it with a special type of pear and drink it for four days. i'll keep you posted.

after, we wandered upstairs to this floor of the outpatient building of the hospital.

here we watched, got to experience, and i even practiced TCM. first we learned about cupping. this is the art of lighting a drenched alcohol cotton ball on fire and putting it in the bamboo cups and quickly putting it on the back. it creates a suction. jordan & richie volunteered to have it done. they both have hickey-like circles on their backs now... but they said it felt good.

next, we learned about massage. lesly got a nice back massage & i got a nice shoulder/ neck massage. the doctor showed us where pressure points are and different techniques that they use.

and last we learned about acupuncture. lesly even let me try it on her, but no one else wanted to try. when i had it done, after we pulled the needle out the doctor made a comment about my blood. he said i needed to have more flow in my qi. guess that's short for loosen up and stop sweating the small stuff. definitely has been my problem lately. i get all stressed out and upset over the littlest things, which is quite frustrating now that i realize it. the hardest part is going to be the attitude change. i will say i have been consciously waking up and deciding that today will be a good day if i choose to seek God's joy in the day. it works for the first part of the day. but i need a cheerleader by afternoon. i'm still not quite settled about being here so i am hoping that in settling i will be able to make it through the whole day and feel good about where i am.
before prayer requests pictures of acupuncture.

prayer requests
-keep on choosing to seek the joy ALL day.
-that we can be vessels of the light of Christ here in Hangzhou
-we start clinical next week, so that we would do the best we can!