March 3, 2019 – Cupping and Award for Dr. Tricia

Spring is happening in Jinan, China!

Monday started early with David leaving for the Qianfoshan Campus at 6:45 a.m. He thought he knew which building he was supposed to be in, but found out that it was a different building.  Last semester, there were two students assigned to make sure that our classrooms were unlocked and the computers turned on, Ray and Jay.  Lynn, another foreign teacher walking with David, saw Ray who was able to help them find the building and the classrooms.  Fortunately he had arrived on the campus plenty early, so that he had time to find the classroom and get set up.

On Monday, a photographer popped into his classroom, took a couple of pictures and then popped out.  The next day, he several people sent him this picture that was on the SDU website.  The caption on it was "Feeling the charm of exotic culture."  A happy surprise!

My classes went well, and we had lunch as soon as David arrived back from his campus.  We had a new maid come and clean for us that afternoon.

After our classes and lunch on Tuesday, David and I went to our massage.  I had mentioned to Carol last Friday that I was thinking about getting a cane, because going up and down stairs is very painful with my knee when.  Carol met us there, and she had brought a hiking pole with her that she was going to let me use.  She started talking to the head lady about my knees, and how tender they were even for the massage person to work on them.  The head lady suggested a treatment that she thought would work to reduce my pain. It involved a deeper massage than I was getting, cupping, and Chinese herbs being “baked” into my knees.  Frankly, I am in so much pain, that I decided it wouldn’t hurt to try this.

First, the head lady started digging into the nodes (I’m not sure if that is the right word for it, but it was the best we could come up to that sounded right) along my lower legs.  This was PAINFUL!!!  She said that the lines of the nodes had several “clots” in them (not really clots, but with our different languages and all, they didn’t know what to call them), and that it was causing a lot of the swelling.  I endured the pain, but not quietly, and then the next part of the treatment started.

 

Starting to put on the cups..  Notice the flame in the background.

Most of the cups are in place on that leg.  Then she did the other leg.

The cupping cups were used with what looked like a stick with a flammable cotton ball on the end.  She would light the “cotton ball” and quickly put it into the cup and out again.  Very quickly she would then run the cup up and down my leg where she had just finished trying to loosen the “node lines” along my leg.  It was as painful as the first part where she was trying to loosen the lines with her hands.  As the cup cooled, it would suck up skin and all into it.  After a while, she started attaching, by suction, the cups to my knee and down my leg.  I was actually glad that she started doing this, because I knew that the most painful part was finished.  I can handle that cupping part.

 

This is what my leg looks like after they take the cups off.  

The purpose of the cupping was to increase blood-flow around my knees so that the rest of the treatment would be more effective.  The head lady (I need to get a name for her, because it just feels weird to keep calling her that), then smeared a hot paste of Chinese herbs all over my knees.  Then they placed a box, with some sticks of herbs that are lit, over my knees in a box.  The box is left over my knees for about 25 minutes.  They kept checking the sticks to make sure that they aren’t too hot and burning me.

 

Chinese herbs are now it place.  Ready to bake.

This is the combustion box.

A look at the inside of the box.

After “baking” my knees (we started joking that we were going to have BBQ knees for dinner) another herb that smelled like it had some peppermint among other things in it, was rubbed on my knees and then wrapped with cellophane.   I was supposed to keep them wrapped until I got home, and then take it off.  It gets really warm with that oil on it and almost starts to feel like it is burning after a while.

When we went back on Thursday for our next massage, the same treatment was repeated.  I feel that it has done some good.  I can climb stairs without tears, and I have more relief from pain at night.

 

David was having some back pain, so he decided to try the cupping also.  He said it didn't really hurt. They didn't use the flame to attach them like they did with mine.  There was a pump that they used to suction some air out of the cups.

What his back looked like after the cups were removed.  Then they rubbed the peppermint oil on him also.

David had to go back to the Qianfoshan campus to teach on Wednesday.  We wanted to have lunch with Eva, so Eva and I met after my classes and walked to a nearby restaurant to wait for David to get there.  The university canteen only serves food until one p.m., so if you aren’t there right away, you miss out on lunch or have little to choose from.  That’s why we chose a restaurant.  We had a nice meal and talked for some time about our courtship and marriage relationships.

Wednesday evening, Jay and Tresa Wilkins came over and brought us some cream puffs.  They have a new bakery near them that just opened, and they have fallen in love with their cream puffs.  The brought a large bag of them and split them with us.  It was a nice treat.

The Foreign Affairs Office of SDU gave us coupons worth 2300 RMB to use at a grocery store called, InZone, as a gift for Spring Festival (Chinese New Year).  We needed some groceries, so we decided to go there instead of our usual Carrefour to use those coupons.  It was a very generous gift!  We went there Friday afternoon to pick up some things we needed and then went back over again on Saturday for some more.  We can only pack so much in our little cart and drag home!  We so take that for granted at home, where we just pile many bags in the car and drive home!

Friday morning, we made a trip to the hospital to see Dr. Tricia.  She wanted the orthopedic surgeon to look at my knees, after I had mentioned to her about maybe needing a cane.  He looked at them and really didn’t say much except that losing weight would help me.  (Sigh, I know.)  They saw the marks from the cupping and seemed a little concerned about it, but said if it seemed to help go ahead and do it.  After the surgeon left, we stayed and had lunch with Dr. Tricia.

We had brought back to China with us a certificate of appreciation to Dr. Tricia from the BYU China Teachers Program.  She has been a great help to so many BYU teachers over the years, that we introduced her to the Malan’s last fall, when they were here, and they got the certificates ready. They gave David and I some nice covers from BYU (like the covers for graduation certificates), to bring back with us.  We took it with us that morning and showed it to her.  She was so surprised and pleased to get it.  It is hard to describe her reaction, but she couldn’t believe it!  We walked down the hall with her, and she was showing it to her head nurse and telling them about it, when one of the deputy directors of the hospital came around the corner, and she was able to show it to him.  That was a very happy coincidence!  Now the hospital will have knowledge of the show of appreciation for Dr. Tricia.  We went into the hall and had pictures taken.    

 

This is the picture we got of Dr. Tricia and the head nurse with the certificate of appreciation.  Her face does not show how excited and pleased she was.  If we would have known there were going to be pictures, I think we would have dressed up a little more.  Oh well.

Dr Tricia had wanted to have us bring some books for her two sons that they would be able to put coins in.  Bill has been a collector of coins for a long time and her six-year-old son, Baobao, is starting to get interested.  We had brought over two bags of quarters that the two boys could share to fill the collecting books, one for states and one for national parks on the backs of the quarters.  Dr. Tricia was so excited.  She had noticed that the American quarters had different pictures on the back, so we had to explain about how to put the quarters in the books and how to find where they were from.  She took them home and explained to the boys how to do it, and by the time Baobao had to go to bed, the coins were all in the books in the correct places!

 

Baobao "hammering" the coins in place.  

Saturday morning, David and I were invited to visit a small startup “school/library” where they are trying to encourage the parents to read with their children.  We had met the guy who wanted to start this school at the Christmas party last December put on by SDU.  He has a three year-old son and another on the way, and he wanted us to come check out his school.  Right now it is more of a program for afterschool and on Saturday where parents can come do that.  Most Chinese children are not exposed to books until they start primary school at about age six or seven.  Those books are all textbooks.  This man feels that they should be exposed much earlier to all kinds of books, books that spark their imaginations and help build a bond between parents and child.  Nearly all of the books are in English and some in Chinese also.  I recognized a lot of the books as popular children’s book in the US.  It is a new and exciting concept for China.  I hope he succeeds.

Because we were in the area of the Wilkin’s apartment, they invited us for lunch.  It was good food and fun company.  Then we went shopping and headed home.

Our Church’s District Conference was this weekend.  David and I both needed to listen to the Leadership Session at three.  It is all by phone because of the far distances between all of us in China.  We had to eat our supper while that was going on and then leave as soon as it was finished to go to the Hanlin Hotel and join the others for the Adult Evening Session.

Sunday morning, we were back to the Hanlin for the General Session and then lunch afterward.  We enjoyed the meal and the company afterward.  Then it was home to try and get the internet back up.  China has decided to mess with the VPN’s this weekend, and so all the VPN’s were not working.  Frustrating!