The STRANGE edition...

Hi All,
Well, I thought it would be interesting to post some of the strange things we have tried over the past couple of years. As I've mentioned, we tend to come across strange and interesting methods of alternative medicine that people believe in quite frequently. With really nothing to lose, we tend to do some research and try these things if they seem at all reasonable for our situation.

Natural radioactive rocks: So, there are two things we tried here. The theory is that if your body is exposed to super low doses of radiation that it will train itself to quickly heal cells that are damaged. (or something like that.) Early on, H heard about some stones that you put in water to add some level of radiation to the water as it soaks. She was supposed to drink a few pints of this water every day (after soaking the rocks in it for some period of time) and magically she would get better. Crock o doodle doo.

The next one was a "Medicine Man" that doubles as a helicopter repairman that was called by God to mine stones from the earth that have a low level of radiation naturally embedded in them. These stones when worn on a necklace or kept in your pocket or whatever cause those natural healing powers within your body to snap into action. He wasn't too sure about ALS, but said curing cancer was "easy stuff." He said he never had anyone ever come back to him with stories of how it didn't work. He offered some level of guarantee that it would work (like maybe our $300 back if we returned the stones) and that he wasn't doing it for the money as it was some sort of "calling" for him to provide these stones. People find out about him via word of mouth, and if they do, then he has to provide these things for them. If someone finds this and attributes some miraculous recovery to these cure all stones, please post a comment to the blog.

By all accounts the Medicine Man was a super nice guy and believes in what he's doing (at least appears to be genuine in his discussion about his stones.) The way he explains it seems logical too, I suppose. I wish it worked for us. I wonder if he'd really give us our money back? In any case, I know one of the stones was lost on our Hawaii trip last year, but we still have the necklace he made. Ah, found the link to his website. Radiation Hormesis is what it's called.
http://www.nighthawkminerals.com/home.htm Maybe it will work for you!

Let's see, what else...Oh yea, Reiki. This is also known as "energy work." By any measure, this is a fairly well known alternative medicine practice that originated in Japan around 1920 or so. There's even courses that you can take to learn how to practice this "healing art." Heidi had a couple of Reiki sessions when we were in Hawaii by a friend of a friend. The story of how we found this "healer" is as interesting as the actual practice, one of those too weird to be a coincidence kind of stories.

As we were planning our Hawaii trip, I was trolling various places on the web to find a suitable accommodation for us all. I found a house on Kauai that looked wonderful, and might be available for rent. I reached out to the owner who was trying to sell it, and wanted to see if he'd rent it to us during our stay. He wasn't interested in a short term rental, but seemed like a nice guy via our email conversations. In any case, we didn't have a good match in our needs, so that was that. I figured I'd never hear from the guy again. Boy was I wrong... this is where it gets really strange. I was standing on the edge of our beach watching the girls play in the surf one late afternoon and this dude walking by saw a look in my eye of a proud and loving dad and made some off-handed comment about it. I can't remember what he said, but I acknowledged him and we struck up a conversation.

As we stood there talking, watching the girls play, we introduced ourselves and I found out he was a real estate agent so I was asking him about the market, etc. As he learned more about me, he said out of the blue "Wait...I think we already know each other..." It turns out that this completely random meeting was with the very person that I had reached out to that owned the place for sale on Kauai. He was staying a couple blocks away in a condo he was selling and just happened to be walking down the beach that evening. We talked some more and I invited him over for a margarita and we eventually became friends. He came over and had dinner a time or two and we have stayed in touch loosely over the past year. He was also selling a beach hose he owned on the North Shore over by Alligator Rock, but I don't know if he ever sold it. It was a little out of my price range.

Anyways, back to the Reiki story...He knows someone that is a "healer" and connected us with her. We got in touch with her, flew her in from Kauai for the day and this very nice person came to our cottage spent two "sessions" with H doing her energy thing. It was very interesting. Did it help? Who knows. I don't think this type of thing necessarily "cures" diseases, but is meant to help in more spiritual ways and maybe if you believe in it you can awaken your internal healing powers to help you get better. Wikipedia has a good bit of information on this phenomenon here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reiki

I can do another whole post on some of the weird "supplements" that we have tried, so I guess I'll close this one and tackle that topic later. Peace,
B