Emily

When I think about giving an acupuncture treatment, I am reminded of the story of Emily. I am thankful for my friend Taylor letting me photograph his body to help tell this story. These sketches are of a treatment I gave to a patient who became a friend, her name was Emily. Years ago she came into my office one day with a death pulse in the lung and large-intestine position. I told her there was a serious problem with her large intestine. She replied that she was defecating blood and she was afraid to do a colonoscopy. I pleaded with her for 3 weeks to confront her fear and undergo the colonoscopy. She did blood work, which turned out to be negative for cancer, but was not prepared to confront her fear. To my surprise, the acupuncture greatly improved her pulse qualities and symptoms diminished. For weeks I was afraid she was going to die, I finally convinced her to get a medical examination. To my dismay I was correct to be afraid for her. She was diagnosed with stage 3 colorectal cancer, and so she had a surgery to save her life.

Emily was feeling good after the surgery, I sent her to the best Chinese herbalist I knew in Austin, and treated her until she stopped coming for acupuncture. She went on a vacation to Europe and came back very weak and sick. A year later her cancer had come back, and this time it was located in her liver. My ego and foolish pride had focused on being correct in my pulse diagnosis, I thought I had participated in saving her life, but in the end she needed another surgery to remove the cancer from her liver. I was humbled by the honor to work with Emily again, and during her next treatment I received a vision that became this series of sketches.

In these sketches I witnessed a beautiful moment while treating her liver cancer, I was needling liver 8, and witnessed something that completely blew my dogma of meridian therapy out the window. I was performing a harmonization technique during my root treatment, and within my meditative state I opened my eyes to see the energy field. The energy opened in the meridian and the Ja Ki begins to communicate with the acupuncture needle, but simultaneously I see stomach 26 open up and begin to shoot electrical impulses at the liver tumor. The bolts of electricity were zapping the tumor, which had now developed sacred geometric patterns over the tumor to contain it and prevent it from spreading. The aura had a wave of orange energy go up through the body, a purple energy wave went down the body, and then a green energy wave went up through the body to end the sequence. The spiritual vision ended, the moment was over, and I had to remember the image and sketch it to give a visual teaching for harmonization. The liver tumor was encapsulated and the surgery was successful, but I learned months later that the cancer cells had spread to her lungs.

I moved to Ohio and never saw Emily again, but in June of 2014 I could feel her essence during an art festival. I bought a painting of butterflies that were all individually arranged in a rainbow sequence from red to purple. I placed the painting over the door to my treatment room, and I resolved to connect with Emily and see how she was doing in Texas. The next morning her relative called me to tell me Emily had passed into spirit. I told her relative about the painting and thinking of Emily when I saw it at the art festival, her voice quivered and she asked me to repeat my story. I told her the story again and wondered why I was repeating myself. Then she told me that when Emily was on her deathbed, the last thing she said was, “Don’t worry about me, when I die I’ll come back to visit you as a butterfly.”

I will always feel grateful to Emily for allowing me to participate in this experience she was a great teacher and patient for me. My experience of picking up a death pulse, and feeling joyful about her recovery, were replaced by anxiety of the returning cancer. Later the sadness of liver cancer and hearing my patient was dead, was to be replaced by the confirmation that her spirit was a peace. The final illustration shows how the body utilized incredible healing energy on the liver tumor, which was encapsulated in a crystalline sphere at the end of needling liver 8. This moment in time was incredible to sketch and share with you. It changed the rules of treatment for me, forever.