Pin Cushion

In the past, I've on one occasion joked about people who would willingly subject themselves to becoming pin cushions under the hands of acupuncturists.

Today, I am about to become the butt of my own joke!

I am seriously contemplating making a visit to the TCM/Acupuncturist clinic either at Woodlands or Toa Payoh where the Chung Hwa Medical Institution stands to beckon the weak and infirmed.

I seek to learn if the acupuncturist can help me manage pain effectively without my having to consume pain-killers which risk making me wheeze.

I wonder if acupuncture can even do something for my liver - to improve the state of its health - which no western medicine practitioner has thus far ever ventured or proposed to do for me.

With regards to my Hep B condition, I feel very much like a sitting duck...waiting to see if anything will really happen, but at the same time, wishing that nothing would! So, I sit and wait...and hope...and pray against the worst from happening.

I've had enough of "playing" this waiting game, keeping my finger crossed in the hope that nothing would ever flare up in my lifetime to rob me and my family of our sense of peace and well-being.

When the TCM physician at Toa Payoh (whom I had consulted last year for my wheezing and asthmatic condition) found out about my Hep B condition, he said this to me : "Your condition is much like that of a sleeping lion in a cave...as long as he is dormant and asleep, you are safe; but once he rouses himself to take a swipe at you, you will be swiftly overpowered. Why wait until he wakes before you do something about it?"

Has TCM something to offer me which western-research-based medicine could (so far) not?

I am going to find out.

I will swallow my pride, eat my words and face up to my secret unspoken fears... I will allow myself to become a pin-cushion for a day...for the sake of my liver...for my own sake, and that of my loved ones!

Now which do I fear more - the remote but ever possible reality of having "contaminated" needles accidentally poked into me, the discomfort and possibly, pain, from having needles sitting pretty on who-knows-which-part(s) of my body, or to eventually find out that having subjected myself to it, nothing much has changed for the better - which, indeed, should I worry about?

Mmm....there's only one way to find out!

Woodlands, here I come!