There were no knives

I have noticed, since following my appendectomy, that there is a general conception that surgery entails traditional cutting devices such as knives. Many people have talked about them "cutting into me" and a few friends have mentioned the knives. In the moment it didn't even occur to me to clarify what was actually done to my body to remove my appendix (and a small section of my colon). While some "cutting" instruments were used, my abdominal surgery was performed laparoscopically In laparoscopic surgery they puff up the body cavity and make microincisions using special microscopes and lasers to conduct the operation. In my instance, the surgery was, what my father described (my dad is a retired physician), as the best laparoscopic surgeon in the Northwest if not the nation. That, was dumb luck, considering I had let the infection go for 4 days before ending up in the emergency room after working all day. When my surgeon told me about the operation he said there would be one small incision on my lower right side (very near my only tattoo). It ended up that when he went in things were a lot worse than he had thought. It took him a long time to clean up the infection which had spread throughout my body cavity. My dad said most surgeons would have switched at this point and made a large cut vertically up my abdomen. My guy didn't. He stayed laproscopic and made another small incision above my belly button (directly below what was previously my only abdominal scar from a hernia repair when I was 18). He then used this technique to remove a section of my colon and then stitched my colon back together. Because the infection was so bad, he had to insert a drainage tube that went into my abdomen from an additional circular incision on the left side of my lower abdomen, and then stretched across my abdomen internally to the are aon the right side where my appendix had been (removing that thing, btw, was not the most pleasant experience I have had). So "knives" traditionally defined, were not at play here. Nevertheless, the broader thing I want to write about, using this bit of Western medicine technology as a bridge to the miracles of Eastern medicine is the way in which any surgery, whether traditional or more modern, does in fact sever more than the physicality of embodied flesh. Immediately after my surgery I called my Chinese medicine caregiver. I have seen him, and him only with my family fr the past three and a half years. He explained that he had to wait till 1 week after my surgery to administer any care, but that he would be able to help reduce the severity of any scar tissue I experienced internally, namely on my colon (anyone familiar with nutritional health and digestion would appreciate how scar tissue on your colon could really mess you up). I was eager to see him, because I am really into proper passage of, well, fecal matter. My Chinese med guy does acupuncture on me, but on my visit to his clinic shortly after getting out of the hospital, I did not think he would do acupuncture. I don't know why, I just didn't. But he did and while doing it explained to me that in surgery one of the main issues, from an Eastern med perspective is that the body's energetic meridians are severed. In abdominal surgery this severing creates energetic blockages in all direction. He explained that many people heal physically fine from surgery, but because they don't heal energetically, they get a lot of scar tissue build up and never really feel the same. The way he practices is to find the mirror of the injured area in a different location. So, the needles he inserted were placed in my angle, leg, wrist and shoulder. After my treatment, even right as i got off the table, I noticed a big difference in what had previously been soreness in every part of my abdomen. The rest of the day the whole area tingled as blood flow was restored, by the next day I was at least 50% better. I was also lucky to have a friend who is training in Ama body work give me a treatment in my home and another dear friend purchase me an Ama treatment fro the owner of one of the best school in Boise. Both of these treatments focused on energetic repair as well. I just had my second acupuncture treatment today and will have 2 more. Last night I was reading from a really good book called, "Shaman, Healer, Sage" by Alberto Villoldo. I bought this book this summer, for mostly addressing emotional trauma. It has sat by my bed, virtually unread, until I returned form the hospital. When I had tried to read it before, I was very overwhlemed by the ways it pointed out so much unhealth in my life. Now, confronted undeniably with that unhealth, I am making a point of reading it daily. In a section where the author describes the body as a magnet which can be energetically shifted through attracting elements to move (like that cool think with iron nails and glass we all played with as children), rather than forcing them to do so he writes, " ...I understood that Western medicine, in an effort to change the physical body, was merely moving the iron filings around the glass. Surgery and medication often brought about violent, traumatic change on the body. This approach struck me as crude and invasive, like scattering the iron filings with my hand, rather than moving them by shifting the magnet underneath the glass." The author, argues that this approach takes little regard for the effect on the body's energetic field, and I would have to agree. Later on, Villaldo talks about acupuncture meridians , known also to the Inca in a different form. These embodied meridians are also present in the earth. he writes, " Along the surface of the planet run flux lines or cekes, similar to the acupuncture meridiancs, connecting the major chakras of the Earth. The meridians of the Earth traverse the globe, transporting energy and information from one part of the planet to another." We have all heard of the earth's electro-magnetic field right? Well, that is the same thing. And apparently we are currently living through a time where that field's potency is significantly declined. Villaldo continues, "Many people in our technological society are disconnected from the matrix of the Universe." Amen to that, I say. And it all makes sense really, disconnect from the earth, leads to disconnect from ourselves, leads to dis-ease. I feel incredibly lucky and to have experienced my illness within the frame of both these styles of medicine. I am so totally intrigued by the many lessons I am learning form this trial. And I am so grateful to have access to energetic healing as well as physical healing. if these two forms of medicine were more integrated culturally I believe we would be a much happier people on a much healthier planet.