ACUPUNCTURE>>>>

                                     Dr. Nianzu Li and his wife Peggy Li

I have been having this problem " A tennis elbow" for quite sometime now. I remember I started to have  this painful stuff back when we had Chin Tennis tournament in Frederick on Sep 2010. Two days before the tournament I was so frustrated with my serve. I totally forgotten how to serve, no matter what I did, I could not make it in. Then there I was, desperately trying to re-discover myself to have a sure way of serving,  then I got this. What I did was; I would toss the ball low and hit it down right above the net without swaying my full body like I always did. It looked good to me and I then could serve well ever since. So, just like Nadal did in Wimbledon 2010, I used my new serving in that tournament hoping to surprise everybody. But guess what, it didn't work out well, I lost at the first round! And my  elbow was burning, so painful that I had to take a pain killer.

Since then, until today my elbow pain is still causing me problems. When I closed my elbow long, I could hardly open it back and feel so tight that its almost unbearable. When I straightened out for too long its hard to fold  it back again. I have stopped playing tennis since that day; and I will hang my rackets until I am  completely healed. Some people have tennis elbow period, while I have what many people never heard of. It  funny to say that I have tennis elbow, tennis knees, and tennis ankles! It seems I have tennis of  pretty much everything!

I have talked to as many people as possible to advise me as to what I needed to do with my pain. Many people couldn't give me concrete suggestions. Even when they give one it always tend to contradict with others. Some recommend to continue to play while others suggested a complete rest. They really confused me!

One day I met a nice doctor whose name was Gary.  I told him everything about my pain; and he in turn directed me to go to a Chinese doctor named Nianzu Li. Dr.Gary also added that he was the only doctor he really trusted. That was how I came to know this Chinese doctor who said 'Combining western and eastern medical knowledge is like a tiger having  wings to fly'. Ideal combo huh!

So I went to the Dr.Li and he performed well trusted acupuncture on me. He had me lay down in a heated bed with soothing music all around. He cleaned the area with alcohol where the pain was. And he started to insert different sizes of needles in where the thought the pain was fervently felt. Some of them were not felt much, while some needles were so painful. He told me that he was happy when I feel more pain for those were the critical spot where relief were needed.

The art of acupuncture rests on the understanding of the human beings as a complex organization of energy that forms and sustains our physical, mental,and emotional bodies. The ancient Chinese made a link between specific hypersensitive points on the skin and specific illnesses or organs dysfunctions. When these points were stimulated, they discover that the illness or problem corresponding to the hypersensitive pattern would be relieved.

While laying down on the bed, my mind zoomed back to Peter's Street, Mission Veng; Aizawl. For there was a man named Pa Tana who had done this kind of profession before in Mizoram( was he lisensed, I doubt). He was a funny guy, loved by all the local people. But I am wondering if he had done that job as a joke or as a bootleg!  I never knew to whom did he performed the treatment nor were they got healed! However one thing was certain, it must have been very painful to have had pricked by those fat needles Pa Tana would have had been using!

Am I healed? I don't know for sure. I thought I felt better a little bit as soon as I left my doctor. Was it only a relief of pulling out the needles? Or was it a relief of having to pay the  fee less than I was worried about? Or was I  about to feel better anyway due to passes of time? I won't know really. But this thing I know for sure, getting older brought about more knowledge and experiences to me along with more pains and sufferings- thats the deal whether I liked it or not!

                                          My right arm with lots of needles