I am a lifelong skeptic, nay, cynic, when it comes to Eastern medicine and healing practices. I plead my upbringing; I was birthed and raised by a pair of rigidly positivist western science practitioners. Neither was a 'traditional' science doer; my father was a science journalist, and my mother was a psychiatrist (and yes, before you ask, that's the one with the M.D.). I spent the vast majority of my life to date comfortable with the set of options that Western, U.S.-culture-centric offered me. I was and am so stubborn that the biggest threat to my life and well-being over many decades was eventually remediated by a very hard science Western medical remedy - but one I had been too stubborn to try for over a decade by the time I did it, because I thought it meant admitting to a character failure.
Yeah.
So anyway, I got better. I found my life. I moved forward. I got married. Things were great.
Then
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