More massage-themed fun. One thing that was a point in that recent workshop for those interested in getting more into it was that it was a good idea to partner up with someone in a different, but similar field. For example, a chiropractor, a naturopath, or any number of fields like that, basically. I’d actually spent some time on thoughts almost exactly like that in the past, but they had quietly laid down at some point.

But then I’m thinking, wait, when I worked at the hospital, massages were incredibly helpful. I spent several hours one day, one of the best days I had working there, giving foot massages to a cancer patient, and was perfectly happy doing it because I knew it was distracting her from her immense pain. When family members or I just rubbed the back of patients who had been stuck on their backs or sides in bed for weeks on end, their relief was almost palpable sometimes. And even just holding someone’s hand or resting it on their forearm or shoulder was one of the best things I could do.

I remember one poor woman who had MRSA infecting her skin, and was so morbidly obese that we couldn’t even shift her off the especially sore lesions. All I could do was hold her hand and murmur nothing but, “It’s okay, we’re here,” over and over and over for the whole day, and felt like an ass doing it because I’m sure I looked and felt alien in gloves and gown and mask, and repeatedly had to move her grasping away from any exposed skin I had, but at the end of the day she almost had me crying as she did as well in thanking us for doing nothing but holding her hand and talking to her.

So. As much as I’m looking into getting trained as a bodyworker, that’s my idea of the moment – working something out with a hospital to rove like occupational therapy or physical therapy people or chaplains and give massage or shoulder rubs or even little hand massages or anything really, as anything like that helps so much. If I really want to be out there in my daydreaming, if I could get training in physical therapy and maybe even start a program of some sort, maybe if I found anyone like-minded.