Shophouse for Shoulder Pain

Jip does not generally complain about her body. Of course, she can find other things to whinge about—caregivers, lousy cooking, the perfume of a visitor. But about aches and pains and other limitations, her calm amazes me. If the tables were turned I’m sure I would be the bitterest of patients, constantly grousing and wondering “why me?”

On the rare days when she mentions something that hurts, I don’t wait too long to see if she brings it up again, as I do when she tells me her oatmeal is too mushy. For one thing, she is numb more places than she isn’t. So if something’s bugging her, probably it means that a normal body would be really throbbing.

Last year she began to complain about her left shoulder. It made popping sounds when she raised her arms above her head. She asked the caregivers to start every day by massaging it. I figured that would do the trick. But when she continued to seem annoyed, moving her arms in circles at all hours of the day, we added arnica cream into the mix, remembering that it had relieved other troubles in the past. Finally Jip wondered if we could try acupressure to make it feel better. She was drawn to this Chinese treatment because she felt acupuncture gave her good results when we lived in Seattle.

I asked around. Somebody recommended a clinic not far from my office. I’d been hoping for a place closer to our apartment, because I knew that if Jip liked this healer, we’d need to go there often. In Bangkok we always have to figure traffic into the cost-benefit analysis of any activity.

Also, if I’m to be really honest, I confess to a certain degree of “treatment fatigue.” Jip shares this tendency. We both warm up slowly to any new therapeutic idea. Over the years we have tried lots of cures for lots of conditions. Few of them could be said to have had lasting effects for Jip. Even acupuncture lost some of its appeal after the first practitioner we tried here failed to meet Jip’s standards (in other words, he didn’t do things exactly the same way she remembered from her favorite guy in the States).

However, acupressure had been her suggestion, not some trumped-up offer from a well-meaning acquaintance. So last month we headed out the door on Christmas Day, when I didn’t have to work but the rest of Thailand was business as usual.

Alas, the roads were also business as usual. It took our taxi nearly an hour to crawl its way to what turned out to be a yellow-painted shophouse, open to the busy street. I could see seven or eight massage tables inside, about half of them occupied. I had called for directions, but we hadn’t made an appointment.

A few people came out to investigate (we often attract a crowd when we re-assemble Jip’s wheelchair), and then pointed us to a corner where I assumed we should wait for the doctor. It wasn’t clear to me who was in charge. A man wearing hospital scrubs moved among the tables, talking to the people lying on them. Two women sat at desks, but neither of them looked like receptionists. They could just as easily have been patients, or perhaps the doctor’s cousins. On the walls were posters showing the human musculoskeletal system.

Eventually one of the women came over with a collection of scratch paper that had been stapled together into what I guessed passed for a patient information form. I wrote down Jip’s name, our address, and the word “shoulder” before handing it back. The woman nodded. We waited. Although the day was warm, and the large floor fans weren’t quite up to the task, Jip seemed happy to be there. “Merry Christmas,” I said to her.

The man in the scrubs approached after about half an hour. He addressed Jip by name, and asked what seemed to be the problem. She asked who he was. He looked at me, not understanding Jip’s speech. I explained that not only is Jip’s vision quite poor, and her speech somewhat impaired, but she likes to know a little about her doctors’ backgrounds before she begins. He told her his name.

The name was the same one I had been given when the clinic was first recommended, so at least I knew we were in the right place. Jip then spoke again, and this time he seemed to catch the words for “shoulder” and “stiffness.” He placed his hand on Jip’s wrist and closed his eyes.

Two or three minutes later, having apparently taken a reading of some kind from Jip’s pulse, the doctor opened his eyes again and confirmed that indeed she had shoulder stiffness. He asked us to come back the next day so he could begin to treat her. It might take many sessions before we saw any change, he said.

My face probably fell slightly at the idea that for each hour spent in a taxi that day, we would have spent only one minute with a doctor, and that we could look forward to repeating the trip the next day. Also, Jip, not quite sure how he knew that she had shoulder stiffness when he yet to move her arm, seemed confused.

Hoping to learn a bit more about what we might expect in the long term, and trying to sustain the conversation a bit longer, I asked if there was anything we should do in the meantime. The doctor asked if we had a spirit house where we lived.

I was pretty sure that there was no spirit house at our apartment building. The question hadn’t occurred to me before—other factors were much more important when we decided to move there. But I told the doctor I would check. He said it was important that we have a spirit house. I could tell from Jip’s expression that she wanted to hear more about her shoulder.

I tried asking about how the acupressure would actually work, knowing ahead of time that I might not understand the answer. The doctor stood up and began to squeeze Jip’s shoulder between his thumb and forefingers. Instantly her eyes widened, and her mouth formed a circle shape that seemed to say, “My goodness! This guy knows what he is doing.” He stopped shortly after he began, and told us he would see us tomorrow.

Wondering if we had missed something in translation, I called Jip’s brother when we got home. I told him that Jip was excited about our morning. He volunteered to meet us there the next day. I started to give him directions, but he said it might be quicker if he called the office himself. I gave him the phone number, and as an afterthought I asked if he remembered seeing a spirit house anywhere on the apartment grounds. He said he didn’t think so.

A few minutes later he called me back. He said there was no need for any of us to return that doctor. Really? I said, trying to sound neutral. I knew Jip was looking forward to it. Chao explained that he had asked a few questions in addition to directions. He was convinced that the doctor’s methods were based more on superstition than science.

Such methods have a wide following here. Just a few weeks ago I heard a lecture at the Siam Society about how many prominent politicians participate in rituals connected to what’s called “sai ya saat,” or black magic. When I told Jip that Chao felt the accupressurist believed in sai ya saat, she instantly changed her opinion of him. We’ll try Plan B.