Unexpected Healing

Two years ago, I was out running with my husband. We hadn’t exercised much at all together over the past 14 years, and I was elated to finally be doing it again, especially since that’s how we met and courted. Parenting had taken center stage over the years, and there was always one of us at home with the kids. Doing anything outdoors, just the two of us, had been set aside.

I came home that day, after only four morning runs with him, to a zapping feeling down the back of my right leg.

For the next couple of years, it never went away. For the first year, I kept living life how I wanted to – biking, doing YouTube workouts, playing Twister, you name it. Injury was new to me, and I had hope that it would vanish over time.

Eventually, I stopped ignoring the discomfort. I began avoiding bicycling and paddleboarding, then basics like sitting down, bending forward to tie my shoes, and washing my feet in the shower.

I got a kneeling chair to transfer sitting pressure from my posterior to my shins. I taught myself to sit with good posture, which took awhile to build the structural musculature after a lifetime of comfy slouching. I stopped sitting in bed to read or type. I upped my walking to sometimes three hours a day because it was the only time my body lacked pain.

I went to a massage therapist, an acupuncturist, a chiropractor, and physical therapists. I put a little too much effort into my therapy exercises, thinking that the harder I worked, the better the outcome would be. I was a novice at it, and I awakened one morning unable to move after getting out of bed. The pain was excruciating, and paramedics carried me to the hatchback of the car. My husband drove me to the hospital in Anacortes, where I was pumped full of five wonderful pain numbers. For someone who doesn’t even take Ibuprofen but once a year, it was downright blissful.

A week later, just able to walk on my own, I drove myself back to the same hospital for an MRI. It showed a collapsed disk, squishing its gel into my nerve.

Two weeks later, I was running up to Turtlehead every day. Somehow, I could run uphill even though I still couldn’t sit in a chair. But pain in daily life continued, and I began to think it would be my new normal. I finally broke down and called a neurosurgeon in Seattle. The best, I’m told. So good, I had to wait several months to see him.

We set a date for surgery. I began to feel teary-eyed every time I thought about knives and saws getting frightfully close to my spinal cord. I watched YouTube videos of the surgery – probably not the best idea. One Sunday, I stood up in church and asked for prayer – for peace and for steady surgeon hands.

After church, an acquaintance, Rob, came over and suggested that I see an acupuncturist.

“I already have. I’ve seen all kinds of people for it, but nothing has changed.”

“Okay,” he said, “Can I just suggest that you try it one more time?”

He explained that many years ago, his debilitating back pain threatened to keep him from walking altogether. After just one visit to an acupuncturist, his life changed.

I listened. I booked an appointment with Dr. Vincent Shu, a local physician who is board-certified in internal medicine, geriatrics, and cardiovascular diseases. He got his MD degree in Taiwan, completed his residency and training at UC Irvine and UC Davis, and worked at five different hospitals over the years. He specializes in the integration of Eastern and Western medicine, and aims to help people heal in the most natural ways possible.

I cannot explain it, but after one appointment, I had no pain.

Dr. Shu suggested a series of three appointments, so a month later I went to another. During that second appointment, I happened to mention that I haven’t ever been able to breathe through my nose. I eat with my mouth open, sleep with my mouth open, and dream of breathing through my nose. He added that information to his acupuncture treatment.

“Can you breathe through your nose now?” he asked afterward.

‘What? After a lifetime?’ I was thinking. “Umm, no, I can’t,” I said after trying.

“Hmm,” quiet, humble Dr. Shu replied, a bit disconcertedly. “You should be breathing through your nose now. Send me a message tonight and tell me when you’ve started breathing through your nose.”

Seriously?

Nothing changed that night.

The next morning, I awakened at 5 AM because I was breathing through my nose.

I know. This sounds too good to be true. Especially considering that a 20-minute appointment at the local medical center is billed out at almost $400 to insurance, and Dr. Shu charges between $75-$125, on a sliding scale, for an appointment that can last up to 75 or 90 minutes. And, he adds all ailments you have to his treatment for the day. At typical medical centers, you only have time to address one issue.

As I sit here typing this, I’m sitting in an ordinary chair. I tie my shoes without blinking. I do MadFit YouTubes. I just tried biking again a few days ago when our car battery died and I was forced to bike to an appointment. I had held out for a while, scared that biking might bring the pain back on. I had not one twinge. And every time I try, I can breathe through my nose.

It’s not psychosomatic. You can’t wish or will pain away; at least I can’t. My surgery date has since been cancelled. I’m still in disbelief. The neural, zapping, electric shock that ran through me every single day, over and over for two years, is completely gone. I can’t even believe this is me that I’m talking about.

In Dr. Shu’s free 45-minute informational meeting before the first treatment, he explains that acupuncture stimulates the body’s own abilities to produce anti-inflammatories and to heal. After that, he gets to work inserting needles in the appropriate places. He is not wordy, nor is ego anywhere present in his demeanor.

I feel like Dr. Shu’s expertise works around all of the Western methods. I am ever so thankful for what the other specialists did to try to help me. But for one reason or another, my body didn’t respond to those modalities.

If your body isn’t responding to the Western treatments you’re receiving, I can’t recommend seeing Dr. Shu enough. It is not magic, there’s nothing flashy about it whatsoever, and he will not chat you up. It’s not New-Age-y, nor will you walk out floating on an invisible cloud. But if your body responds like mine has, you may just wake up the next morning to an unbelievable absence of what has been plaguing you.

If you’re reading this, Dr. Shu, I am forever grateful to you – your expertise is an uncanny answer to prayer.

Again, reader, I do not dismiss the other professionals, nor do I guarantee results like mine. But it just may be possible that you aren’t forever stuck in your current situation.

To learn more about Dr. Shu, click here. To call him for an appointment: (360) 376-2564

You can also find this on the October 17th Sun Days column on The Orcasonian here.

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