Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Update & School - Long Post (Part 2)

Last Thursday was an interesting at Clinic Day. I received an Aromatherapy treatment from a fellow student and also gave one. After lunch we were to repeat the process by giving and receiving a treatment. The only hitch was I didn’t feel like receiving another one. Yesterday’s blending and this morning’s treatment had left me feeling like I’ve had way too many essential oils and I really didn’t want another dose. So we agreed that I would give a treatment and receive a reflexology treatment instead of aromatherapy. Wooo Hooo… I get to find out what a reflexology treatment on my feet will feel like as I’ve never had one before.

What surprised me was that part of what we had learned for the feet portion of an aromatherapy treatment contained many of the same techniques as reflexology. But of course this is much more in depth. I enjoyed every moment of it. If you think a good foot massage feels great… by all means check out Reflexology.

It’s amazing what you can tell about a person by their feet. Upon placing pressure on one area, I had pain. I asked what area does this represent and found out it was the lower back. What a coincidence as I was having lower back pain at that very moment. Through our studies in Oriental Analysis, we can find out whether a person smokes, has allergies, has a type “A” personality, kidney problems, gall bladder problems, neck or back issues, etc. all by examining the feet. It’s pretty amazing stuff.

I was a little skeptical when we first learned this Oriental Analysis, so I took my notes in to my Chinese Acupuncturist and she verified that this is true. They have been using this and other techniques for diagnosis for thousands of years. This is just so fascinating.

But I digress. I had finished receiving and it was my turn to give. I decided at this point that I was going to go through the entire one hour treatment and not use my notes. I guess you could say I was testing myself to see if I could remember all the steps without the notes. I didn’t know that my teacher was paying such close attention. When I finished the treatment, she ran over to me, put her arms around me and gave me a huge hug and congratulations. Trish came running out of her office to see what the commotion was all about and Carla (my teacher) gave her the news.

Trish was actually speechless. When she finally spoke, all she could say was that this has not happened her in a very long time. Usually students have to be practicing much longer than a week before they go solo without notes. Then I got the bad news. Carla looks at me and says, “Of course you know what this means don’t you?” I answered no and she proceeded to tell me that seeing as I was so good at not using my notes, I’m not allowed to rely on notes for any future treatments I give. I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I guess time will tell.

I don’t particularly care for these 4 days a week school weeks. I’m not used to them and trying to keep all of my appointments for massage therapy, chiropractor, acupuncture, osteopathy, homeopath, and workouts at the gym with my personal trainer during the week as well as school leaves me pretty wiped out and with little time to do other things, such as cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, laundry, etc. How do other people do it?

Friday was no school and boy was I grateful as all I wanted to do was go back to bed because I was exhausted and hurt all over. I did however have to meet my personal trainer at the gym for 9:30 am. I get to the gym and remembered that I forgot to weigh in for my July 1st weigh in on the fibro weight support group. So I head off to the scales at the gym and I lost 13 pounds since my last weigh in on June 1st. I almost fell off the scales. 13 pounds in 5 weeks… not bad… not bad at all.

I start my workout with evil Amy the personal trainer from hell. I kid about her, she pushes me hard but knows when to back off if I'm hurting. She put me on the treadmill for 3 minutes forwards, 7 minutes backwards, and then another 3 minutes forwards. By the time I was finished this, I was ready to call it a day... but NOOOOOOO... we head off to the machines and free weights. I did rounds of stuff for my shoulders and arms and without my knowledge, lovable, sweet Amy had increased all my weights from last week. I think I may kill her yet (just kidding). Then we move on to back and leg strengthening stuff which I need really, really badly if I want to continue giving aromatherapy treatments.

Ok... just when I think we're done... she pulls out the exercise ball, makes me sit down and we proceed with crunches (situps). OMG... I did 50 of them. 30 forwards and 10 sideways to the right, and 10 sideways to the left (alternating). OMG I thought I was going to die. I had to stop a couple of times because I felt like my stomach muscles were going to go into full spam... but I did it!!!!!

Ok.. so I head down to my truck like a drunk stumbling from a bar. My legs are weak and shaky, sweat spewing from every pour in my body, hair looks like I just pulled myself out of the tumble dryer. I drag myself to the truck, turn the engine over and sit in front of the air conditioning blowing my tangles mass of hair into a sweaty frenzy. Yes... I was just such a lovely sight indeed.

Ok... my 5 minute break is now over... off to massage therapy I go as I'll be late if I don't boogie. I arrive a cold and damp, sweaty mess... "Here I am Kim... fix me" I yell to my massage therapist. She took one look at me and blurts out... "What the heck happened to you?" I told her that I saw Amy, and she asked me to say no more. I undress, hop on the table and Kim was going to be nice to me... BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA... her version of nice isn't in MY dictionary. But compared to her normal torture routine, I guess you could call her nice today. She actually didn't kill my entire body... just my shoulders... they are still hurting and will for a few days. Every time she touches my shoulders, it hurts for 3 days for the shower to even touch them. But it pays off in the end and headaches are virtually eliminated.

Kim finishes working on my lower back, works a bit on my gluts... and gets to the hip area and my "IT Band" which usually hurts to touch (the seeing stars and screaming for my life kind've hurt). NO PAIN!!!! She said what did you do to make that all go away... we've been working on those for months with no real results. TADA... I don't know what happened, but my IT Bands are back to normal... WOOOOOO HOOOOO. Ok.. massage over, go to the desk to pay and get ready to leave to buy a few things at the drug store and head to my doctor's appointment.

Steve (the owner of the Massage Clinic) comes in (an hour early) just to catch me as he needed to talk to me. He wanted an update on my school stuff and how I was doing. He tells me that he's cleared some space on his shelves and would like me to make him some of my massage oils that have been a big hit at the clinic, some bath salts, soaps, or whatever I'd like so he can sell them for me. His patients are all requesting my massage oil for their own personal use... WOOO HOOOO!!!!! I told him I'd have to look into the legalities of doing this and get the license, insurance and all that fun stuff before I can actually sell this to the public. So, I say my good-byes, get to the drug store for some things, head out to the doctors.. made it home... and fell in front of the computer to do some research on where to buy empty glass bottle wholesale to put my bath salts into. Do you think I can find anything in Canada... NO WAY!!! I can find anything on google but this. Tons in the U.S.... but none in Canada... uggggh. Oh well... I'll come up with something.

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