Blind Faith Healing

I was standing at the counter of the Chinese medical centre after having been pin-cushioned and had one of those conversations with the ‘health care professional’, otherwise known as an acupuncturist, that always give me pause with this end of the industry.

He started the exchange with,

“Look at me. I am trying to remember your face.” Not three minutes before, he’d been driving pins into it for an hour. What had he forgotten?

So I looked at him. He then said,

“Ok. Now, this bottle of anti-inflammatory herb pills would normally last two weeks but I want you to take four of these four times a day. So it’s not going to last two weeks, it’s only going to last one week.”

I looked down at the bottle and saw that it contained 78 pills.

“It’s not going to even last that long, if you want me to take 16 a day. I’d need a bottle with 112 in it.”

He paused, assessing either my maths or his diagnostic skills.

“Ok. You take three pills, four times a day if you like.”

If I like? It can’t be that exact a science if it can be based on how many are in the bottle, divided by a week, rather than my overwhelming medical needs, but in the spirit of getting into the new modality, I relented.

“Ok. I’ll take three pills four times a day.”

“No. You take four pills, three times a day.”

“But… ok. Fine. Oh, and do you want this back?” I said, and pulled a needle he’d missed removing, out from behind my ear and handed it to him.

He laughed and said, “Oh yes. Sometimes I miss them. Especially in the scalp of ladies with the long hair. Sometimes they don’t find them until they are at home, washing their hair. I didn’t see that one because it was behind your ear.”

So at least I now had a reason for him to try and remember my face.

Eyes – check. Haven’t left any needles in them.

Nose – check. Does he have any needles in it? No, I don’t think so.

Yep. That’s it. Oh damn. He has ears. I always forget about the ears.

But here’s the thing that really gives the game away. If he can’t remember that he’s put a needle somewhere because he can’t see it, that implies there is no system to start with - that there is no end-goal in his actions, as he would be able to work backwards through the cause and effect to count off the needles he’d placed. The pretence that there is a carefully mapped out response to various ailments is kind of undone if he leaves needles in you. Either it’s a fairly random set of perforations, or he’s forgotten why I’m there and is just doing pin-placement-set-piece-number-28-with-fried-rice.