Welcome to our blog! We are excited to finally be at this stage in the process of going live with our website and business.
I have been thinking about this first post for a few months now and I instinctively wanted to write about how much we love what we do, but I think I covered that enough in my story in the About Us section. Instead, we’ve decided to create a series of posts called Client Matters where we will let the stories of our experiences speak for themselves. Even if you’ve experienced or have read about the many benefits of massage therapy, keep coming back here to see that it’s about more than the typical image of massage. I’ll start right off with an example.
Client Matters, No. 001
I choose first to tell you of my client Emma (names will always be changed) whom I treated at UCMT clinic. Emma was in her 60’s and had Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Much of her left side was fairly useless. She cradled her left arm in front of her abdomen while her right arm steadied her gait with the assistance of a cane. She had an implant in her hip that triggered an impulse to the nerves in her left leg telling it to lift a half of an inch off of the floor so she didn’t have to drag her foot. This is what MS does. The electrical impulses from the brain to other areas of the body are firing incorrectly or not at all. I was amazed by the miracles of science as I walked the 30 yards down the hall with Emma.
What impressed me the most about Emma was the spirit of this woman. She was so sweet and positive during the entire session. While working with her, it became clear that she would not be able to turn over on the table from her back (supine) to her front (prone) and so I carefully assisted her in this. And yet she showed no sign of embarrassment in needing my help. I’m sure she had become used to people helping her over time (she had been diagnosed in her 30’s), but I thought about how a person could let an disease like that canker their soul. Emma told me that she relied on frequent massages for her MS as a way to help her function. Although she only felt a very little on her left side during the massage, she said there was always a noticeable difference in the usage of her leg and arm after the therapy.
I tell you of Emma because she left a lasting impression and I felt honored to work with her. A huge part of being a massage therapist is being present for the client, or as one of our instructors stated, “taking our backpack off” which holds all of our personal baggage–worries of the day, life, emotions–and setting it aside to focus on the needs of our client. To experience the spirit of Emma in that way was a blessing and because of this, and many other experiences like it, I look forward to the challenge of that step in the process with each client.
What Else We’ll Be Jabbering About
In addition to sharing our experiences with clients here, we’ll also be writing about health and wellness topics that we think are great ideas or things we’ve tried for ourselves. If you’ll notice, our home page doesn’t say we believe in the importance of living a balanced life, but working toward a balanced life. That’s because achieving balance can lead to feeling discouragement when we make mistakes, as we all do. But the goal is to keep a positive attitude and don’t give up on ourselves. There are so many wonderful ways to encourage balance and contentment. We hope you will come back frequently, make comments and share your ideas with us as we share ours.