Acupuncture
SIX ACUPUNCTURE SESSIONS
DIARY 13261
8/7/78
DR. HSU ACUPUNCTURE #1
242 E. 28th is more decrepit than I'd imagined, step across the street to see waves, he opens door, we climb to third floor, handsome blond JJ greets me with his beautiful friend Mel, Mrs. Hsu sticks out hand and demands name, and I fill in sheet saying "health good, no physical complaints, mental complaints of irritability and worry," the last part added as I found myself saying I was often irritable, as well as occasionally leg-cramped, hay-fevered, headached, fevered, colded, energyless. He directs me to small room and says to take down pants and lie on stomach. JJ comes in and chats (see DIARY 13262) and Hsu rattles a case, asking Mel to come in and watch, and he grasps forearm and sort of scratches, and I'm amazed, since I know needle is going in somewhere fairly deep, and repeats with other forearm, then he grabs down my shorts and jabs me in the coccyx, in, pause, I jerk a bit with only the start of surprise at a middle-jab of pain, but not nearly as heavy as arm- or finger-jab for blood sample, then he seats it and I can feel it heavily on my tail. Then he says "Calm, calm!" over my calves, and jams in two at the bottom edges, then reaches into my crown and sticks one in there, too, and I feel myself tense, then perceptively relax. "Fiffy minutes," he slurs and I ask JJ, "Was that one-five or five-oh minutes?" and he says "15." I relax, listening to them talk outside, surprised at sun coming out momentarily, stray tingles up my left thigh-front, discomfort for a bit in my tail, a touch that's as much a tickle as a scratch at the backs of my thighs, the ones in the arms almost unfelt, and gradually they sank away until I barely knew they were there, fantasized falling asleep and rolling over on them and getting a pain THEN. Then he was back, removed them without a falter, with about 1/3 the feeling of inserting, which was, as close as I could tell, the scratch of a very weak kitten that wouldn't even break the skin. But the IDEA of a needle in my coccyx and in my skull was more tense-making than anything, and as I left he said "Calm, calm," as if demanding, and asked for $20, preferring cash, and said "When tomorrow?" and I said "Same time, 2:30" and left about 3:30, feeling QUITE spaced, which lasted through the subway ride and the talk with Don M. who called as I entered, and my old shoulder-pain is back as I type now! He's trusted and loved by Merrill Ashley ("put me back to dancing") and Christine Sarry and Patrician McBride and Sean Lavery! He likes ballet.
DIARY 13272
8/9/78
ACUPUNCTURE #2
On the back this time, with Mr. Carsten from Ballet Repertory Company making the wait pleasant. Enjoyed her letting Mr. Hsu see my name and not try to pronounce it, agreeing with her that I'm "Mr. Z, which sounds like a code-name," and he pronounces his name for me with an aspiration followed by a pinched SUE that I'm sure I've heard Madge use often. Mrs. Hsu gives me a cold towel scented with orange water and a drink of spring water, and Mr. Hsu comes out in shorts ordered by his wife, who insisted that I should wear shorts and sandals "to let the Chi move through." She chats about using wet tissues when she gathered berries in Kent, where she sat under Caesar's tree and drank from Caesar's well and went down Roman roads to school, and knew where Seven Oaks was, but then she said I should relax, better for the needles, by lying on the sofa, which I did, and then I heard the bell and knew someone was inside so I didn't make him late. Susan came in, saying I looked so blissed out on the sofa that she didn't know whether I'd been in or not, and Mr. Carsten came in with shapely legs in short white shorts and a T-shirt. Then a podgy woman came out and he ushered me in, removed the pillow, and said I should lay on my back, and then entered rattling and inserted two needles on the outside of each wrist, one in the back of each calf, and with much rolling down of socks, one in the top of the foot and the other near the top of the rolled-down socks, then another in the top of the head and then shut the lights out and exited. I lay, feeling tense in the slightly out-turned legs, feeling that I was bending one needle into the bed-top, and the bell went after 15 minutes and I was relieved, and then he came in and took them out, and I felt AGAIN like I had blood pooling on the bed from the left calf, told him I'd felt the calves last night, and the fronts of my thighs ("Energy channels," said Mrs. Hsu), and then she gave me a sheet that said what I should and shouldn't eat, and I saw "not on an empty stomach" and she said "If he'd put needles into your upper body, you just would have passed out." Oh. Carsten went in next, for which Hsu berated Mrs. for taking people out of order, and he said "tomorrow or next day" and I said tomorrow, only to have it changed to the next day when Winston said too much on Wednesday.
DIARY 13285
8/11/78
ACUPUNCTURE #3
Mrs. Hsu is talking about the police outside, and then Hsu comes in from downtown. She said that I made a mistake not coming in three days running, since the meridians would have closed and he'd have to start from scratch. So why didn't he tell me? I later asked him the "no fish" was for always or just acupuncture days, and he said it was only the latter. I go in and lie on my back, since he didn't say anything, and he comes in and asks if I had blood in my stool, I told him (as I'd told her as she'd told him) that I felt SO tranquilized the Tuesday evening I almost didn't like it. He asked how my sinuses were and I said they were slightly stuffed, so then he let me on my back and put in one needle in the back of the head, one just over the forehead, two in each wrist-side, as he'd done before, one in each calf-back, like before, but then he came up, felt around the bridge of the nose, and inserted two needles just below where the eyeglass supports go. These were felt for the first instant, just about as painful as the one in the coccyx, like something happening that shouldn't be, rather than just a playful cat-scratch. But the feeling quickly went away, so that later I tried opening my eyes to see if I could see them, but I couldn't. The ones in the legs seemed to hurt more or less and I felt more or less comfortable, and he calm-calmed me so much that at one point I felt myself jerk as I'd just been falling asleep, so that the needles in the calves gave a slight twinge as I might have rolled over on them. When he came in to take the needles out, after the second dong on the bell, did he have someone else somewhere else?---he rubbed around on the top of the nose, but when I looked into the mirror there were two little dots of blood where the needles had been inserted and I asked if there was anything wrong about wearing glasses, and he said no. Mrs. Hsu then said that SHE felt the needles' presence for a couple of hours afterward. I left feeling somewhat angry with myself for STILL not knowing how often I could come back, knowing only, again, it was tomorrow, and no chance of returning on Saturday in case he needed THIS three days in succession. There just doesn't seem to be any end in sight, and I don't care for that.
DIARY 13290
8/14/78
ACUPUNCTURE #4
No one's there and he asks me to go right in, asking about sinuses, and I said that the last one didn't do much to it, legs about the same, so he puts 2 in my head, 2 in my feet, then 2 in the top of the fleshy part of my hand between thumb and index finger which seem to hit nerves and jolt my system for inches around, and then he comes back up to the face and puts the two into the glass-support area, which don't hurt as much as they did the first time, but then he puts one beside the nostril, sort of at the top of the laugh-line to the lips, and THAT hurts, so I wince, causing the others to twinge a bit, and I say "sorry," more out of a feeling of having been violated than of causing him problems in insertion, and then he puts the RIGHT side in and that hurts even more, and he grabs the tip of my nose and shoves one in THERE, then quickly shuts out the lights and leaves, and I try to settle down from a sense of having been violated, but when I DO relax it feels better, and I can sort of feel my sinuses start to drain right away, and the 15 minutes goes fast and he returns right after the bell to take them all out, rubbing more than usual where they'd been, and when he rubs the ones around the HANDS, there's QUITE a burning, electrical sensation, and Mrs. Hsu SAYS "Oh, he's gone into the electrical system," and when I move my thumbs up against my hands I feel as if there's a small hot ball of inclusion material injected into the flesh, making me feel quite palsied, and I exclaim about it and DON'T feel very pleased about having to come in for TWO MORE sessions like this. He says it's OK if I don't come in tomorrow, and never on Wednesday is OK, too, so I should come in Monday at (GOD, I just remembered it was 3:30, so I quickly phone and Mrs. Hsu says "It's the burned out house, but we're OK, saw patients on Saturday," and she's sure I can move it up to 2:30!) on 3:30 and then Thursday, or Friday, and I rather think I'll try to make THAT it! The "ball in the joint" lasts beyond calling Art at 8:10 pm, but then it goes so that I can just see the pin-point red spot where the needles were inserted, but the marks on the face have vanished into the general marks of the enlarged pores over the area. But I didn't have NEARLY Dana's problems on a warm, muggy Saturday with sinus-stuffing!
DIARY 13299
8/15/78
ACUPUNCTURE #5
Ms. Oliver's apartment is stacked with packing cases, one addressed to Dr. Hsu, so maybe he's moving in. Introduced to "Miss Orlando, big-big person," and she explains with a laugh that he connects her with Orlando, Florida! Ms. Oliver talks to herself, tells someone no one knows how the fire starts, and bustles out for stamps. Mr. Carsten comes out and says he's got an offer as a soloist "out West," but doesn't say which company. Miss Orlando talks shrilly about the needles. Dr. Hsu comes out and says I should lie on the sofa, and since I think he means relax, I don't take off my pants, but when he looms over me with needles, I ask if I should and he says no need. Asks about sinuses, then starts putting needles in my skull, saying "VERY strong, very strong," and I'm not sure he's talking about me or the technique, and then he pushes them into slightly different places in 4 areas around the nose, saying "Very painful, yes; very strong, yes, yes," so I get the idea there's a connection between the intensity of pain with which they go in and the strength of the cure being invoked. He again pricks the sides of my thumb-index web, but it doesn't hurt so much this time, and then he rolls up my pant legs and puts the same old calf-needles in, and maybe 4 this time in the feet. Bruce said that Clait goes in the CHANNELS, not directly to the place, and I suggest that maybe Hsu DID this, but with my lack of response is NOW going directly to the place. Lie fairly comfortably, the 15 minutes seeming to pass faster and faster, and when he takes them out the RIGHT hand seems to hurt more than the left, opposite from yesterday, the sinuses seem rather clear when he instructs me to sniff, and I get transient feelings of something like a cramp in my left calf, but I haven't had any cramps since I started, which may BE unusually long a time. Out feeling not so much altered, but pleased that Carsten had FINISHED his series of needles, and he didn't even need to come back "just one more" as he pleaded before he went to the coast, and he paid him for Friday and today, so he DOES take credit, and he said "Wednesday," and again I said "Never on Wednesday," and then at first "Tuesday" and then finally "Thursday" at 2:30, for what I hope is the last of the second and last series, at least for now, since my curiosity is totally assuaged, and that's the main reason I went.
DIARY 13313
8/17/78
ACUPUNCTURE #6
He comes down, greeting the guy who almost let me in, and up to remove shoes and lay down on the sofa, and he asks how I am, and I tell him that I've since gotten a cramp in the crook of my foot, but that the sinus is all better except for some post-nasal drip, which I hope I got across by snuffling and gulping and pointing to the back of my throat. So he lay me down and came up with the needles and stuck one into the top of my head without even touching with the other hand, then jammed the same four: two at the glass supports, two at the nose-lip wrinkle, and THIS time when I opened my eyes I could SEE them. Then he stuck the same two into the meat of the thumb-flesh, jabbing to the electrical circuits in both of them, and then two around the other side of the wrist, as he did the first few times. He'd asked me if I were calm, and I said I was, which was good, since I've had some busy days. Then he put the regular two in the backs of my calves, and then had me flex my feet and put two right at the top of the arches, so I counted 13 in all. I lay there with the same feeling that blood was coming out of some of them, and in the right calf so determinedly that I almost called him to see if I wasn't lying on it. Then for a moment I felt like sneezing, but decided that I REALLY didn't need to do that. Tried the SOY [springtime of youth] energy, but that didn't seem to help, even hurt more, so I just kept trying to relax, determined that this would be the last for awhile. So when he came to extract the needles, I asked for a mirror. "Mirrol," he inquired. "To see myself," I explained. "Your friend?" he inquired, and I repeated, "I'd like a mirror, to see myself, and the needles," and he refused to understand. When he was taking out the ones in my wrists, I raised my head to look at the ones in my feet, and the one in my right calf WAS right against the paper on the sofa, and the tiny heads stuck out of thick-pin bodies, but then toward the bottom they jogged in to THIN needles, and the ones in the wrist were stuck in only about 1/3 inch, to my closest guess, but he was wiping DOWN my wrinkle with one removal, so maybe I DID bleed and he didn't want me to see it, and he took them out and rubbed all the spots with some sort of alcohol, and it was probably my excessive moving around that caused most of the blood, and I was relieved when he said "Phone me on 28th," and I might be able to stall him off for another month or so at that time, OR I may WANT more.