A really good acupuncture treatment

When I woke up this morning I felt awful. I was coughing so hard it made my heart pound--at one point I could literally see my chest moving, which made me feel panicky. I was very weak, but I was determined to get dressed and go to acupuncture. In addition, Marty was in a panic of his own because he had misplaced his appointment book, which is his lifeline the way my PalmPilot is mine (or at least used to be when I had a life with places to go).

I'm not observing Passover (Marty is eating only matzo), so I had a breakfast of tea and cinnamon raisin toast, struggled to get some clothes on, and made it into the car. The treatment room that Nate (my acupuncturist) uses is at the end of a long hallway and walking the length of it took all my strength. But once I was settled on the treatment table I started to relax. I'm not sure why I find acupuncture so relaxing or what the mechanism is, but after the treatment I walked back down the hallway much more easily, and the relaxed feeling has lasted the rest of the day.

We decided not to stop for lunch (because of Marty's food limitations) and instead came home and Marty heated up some leftover bean and barley soup and stuffed cabbage for my lunch. I got a really intense sinus headache, but after my experience with the last one I knew what to do, and after taking some tylenol and morphine it went away pretty quickly.

Once we were home, Marty continued searching for his appointment book, which he finally found, taking the pressure off. He put a pile of papers on my bed which I need to sort through (a lot of them are bills that need to be paid); meanwhile, he is having a meeting with some people in the dining room.

Ann arrived during the afternoon and straightened up a lot of things that were lying around so the housecleaners could have clear surfaces to work on, so for now the house is both clean and neat. I'm probably going to want only a light dinner because I had such a big lunch so late; so maybe Marty and I can have a relaxed evening watching "Jeopardy!" and "Antiques Roadshow," two of our favorite shows.

I feel better than I've felt for days, and I think acupuncture is a big part of the reason. Next Monday is the final day of the semester, and I told Nate I probably would not be signing up for the following semester because it's getting harder and harder to get out of the house. Julie asked our neighbor Anne, who lives directly across the street and is a professional acupuncturist, if she would give me treatments in my house (she usually sees clients in her apartment, which is up two flights of stairs, obviously impossible for me), and Anne said she would. I don't know what she'll charge (obviously it will be a lot more than the greatly reduced rate I get at the New England School of Acupuncture), but it will certainly be a lot easier.