In This Issue
Important Stuff
FitFlops
Educational Tidbit
Health Update
Ted & Alice
Need Your Help
New Stuff
Off the Table
Quotes for the Month
Special Announcements
The Greenwich office will be closed from July 24th - Aug. 3rd for a well needed vacation. I’ll be back in the office on Mon. Aug. 4th.
As of right now, the date for the Sunday in Old Saybrook has not been scheduled.
Monthly Links
Old Saybrook Office
Click above for information on when I’ll be working in my Old Saybrook office again.
Important Office Info
If you’re a new client, click above for some important information on how I run my schedule and the offices.
Open Saturday Spots
Click above to see when there are time slots available on upcoming Saturdays. This information is updated daily.
Link of the Month
Click above for more information on my wife getting the Alumni Achievement Award from Juniata College. They’ve even got a photo of all the award recipients.
Comments or Questions
Click above if you’d like to send me a comment on this newsletter or if you’d like to submit a question for the Question of the Month feature.
Unsubscribe
Just click above if you are sick and tired of hearing from me.
Contact Us
healinghands@snet.net
(203) 253-5576 |
Important Stuff
My practice has exploded in the last 2 months to the point where I am fully booked up to 2 weeks in advance. Most clients are now scheduling their next session or two before they leave the office. The days of calling for a same-day appointment are long gone. However, as I require 24 hrs notice for cancellations, I do keep a stand-by list and people on a rare occasion do have to cancel. Like the Saturday standby list, you can always leave me a message that you’d like to be added to the weekly standby list for any particular day.
As a result of 30 sessions each week for the last few months, I’m in need of a break, so I’ll be taking some time off between July 24th & Aug. 3rd. We’re headed back to Martha’s Vineyard, the land of “you can’t make this up”, after a 3 yr hiatus. Where else does a police officer shoot and kill a wild turkey for resisting arrest? And it took 4 shots! No, I’m not kidding and no, I will not be offering massages if you happen to be there at the same time...
By the way, on July 4th my wife and I will be taking a private kayaking rescue class in Old Lyme CT. I’ll let you know how that goes...
FitFlops
Many of you prefer to wear flip-flops and thong-style sandals during the summer. The problem is that most of them afford no support for your feet, so as the summer ends you experience a new list of aches and pains from treating your feet so poorly. I recently had a client come in who was wearing “FitFlops”. When I saw them I was very impressed. They’re a flip-flop that offers solid support for your feet. I went home to tell my wife, only to discover that she already owned a pair. I guess Oprah listed them as one of her “summer favorite things” and they’ve become the new hot item. Anyway, Carol says that she also feels safer wearing FitFlops since they don’t really “flop” and it’s less likely that someone will accidently step on the back edge while you’re walking. So if you must wear flip-flops, then please try FitFlops. Hey, they don’t look bad either. Forget the advertising that wearing them gives you a full work-out. Advertising is designed to work on your emotions and get you to buy the product. And no, I don’t own any stock in the company...
Educational Tidbit
Last month I promised some additional information on the Pregnancy Massage Certification course I took in May. This course was based on the physiological changes that a woman experiences throughout the term of her pregnancy and how those changes require the massage to adapt. What I found most interesting are the changes that occur during labor and post partum. What was most stunning is how little information women get before they give birth to a child. I thought I knew quite a bit before I took the program. Boy did I become enlightened.
Did you know that miscarriages are quite common, occurring almost 50% of the time? Before home pregnancy tests, women often miscarried without even knowing they had been pregnant. Or that the mother being stressed can reduce blood flow to the uterus by 65%, seriously affecting the fetus? That’s why a proper pregnancy massage can be so important. Did you know that only 5% of babies are actually born on their due date? Or that the risk of blood clots increases early in the 2nd trimester and increases even more with each successive child due to the increased fibrinogenic activity in your system? Or that blood sugar levels can drop due to gestational glucose intolerance, which is not diabetes? I now make certain to have some snacks available for my pregnant clients. Did you know that only 1/3 of expectant mothers ever take a childbirth education class? Most women get their information from Oprah or magazines. I know you’re thinking that you didn’t take a class and everything came out fine. Or that childbirth classes focus on natural births and you wanted it to be quick and easy... Well, did your doctor ever explain what was happening hormonally to you at different stages of your pregnancy, including post partum? Or the possible side effects of an epidural... like migraine headaches? Most likely not. Doctors don’t have the time to volunteer the information and you probably didn’t even think to ask the questions. Wouldn’t it have been nice to know what is within the range of normal and what is considered abnormal?
With that in mind, I’ve developed a short program for expectant moms and their partners. It is NOT a childbirth education class. I don’t have the credentials to offer that. It is a Labor Support course, focusing on women who are in the final month of their pregnancy. The class is designed to show the partner ways that they can support and massage in order to reduce labor pains. I will also be teaching a variety of acupressure points that you will be able to use to assist in the labor process. These are points we cannot touch until a woman has reached the 38th week of her term. So if you are nearing that point and have some interest, call me.
In my class there were 18 women and just 2 men, including me. Poor Tony & I took the brunt of the abuse, but we also got to hear many of the women speak of their own experiences giving birth. At the end of the program, Tony and I were each given the “Golden Uterus” award, since neither of us has one of our own.
Health Update
Ted had some further tests that showed an enlarged heart and a leaky heart valve. Though he’s not experiencing any problems we’ll have to keep a close eye on him. He also had a couple of biopsies taken from his chest. We’re still awaiting a call to find out if he’ll require any special medications.
For those who were wondering about me... Well, I’m okay. I did have another 2 biopsies taken from my back but I haven’t heard the results just yet. I have my fingers crossed and my doctor doesn’t want to see me for 4 months, which is great. My weight has continued to go down (as planned) along with my body fat composition. I’m actually ahead of my plan. I haven’t had anymore breathing episodes since February. I’ll be taking some time off this month and next month, and I happen to feel great. So that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Ted & Alice
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“Ted” the airline has gone under. For those who remember, Carol tried to get United Airlines to use our Ted as a mascot. United responded that they didn’t want to turn “Ted” into any character. Well... what can I say...
For those who don’t believe how big Allie has gotten, here they’re standing shoulder to shoulder, looking for rabbits in my back yard. They both tried to jump into the driver’s seat of my wife’s convertible today, figuring they’d take it for a drive with the top down. Was it because I was playing “Rag Top Day”? |
Need Your Help
Since I have so much extra time on my hands, I’ve decided to develop some brochures about my practice. I hope to complete brochures for “Therapeutic Massage”, “Sports Massage”, “Pregnancy Massage”, “Brimstone Island Hot Stone Therapy”, “CranioSacral Therapy & SomatoEmotional Release ” & “Lymph Drainage Therapy”. I would like to add a quote or two from my clients who have received any of those modalities. So I need your help. I’m looking for just 1-3 sentences about how a particular treatment helped you. You can submit a statement for any or all of the treatments, but please, only if you’ve had that treatment. By submitting a quote, you’ll be allowing me to reproduce that quote. Because I believe in confidentiality, I will only use your initials, not your full name. Now comes the best part. The quotes will be judged by an impartial panel, using a “Wagometer Scale”. I will read your quotes to my kids. The quotes that elicit the most tail wags will make it to the finals. The top quote, the one that really gets their behinds bouncing, will win a gift certificate for a 90-min session. Deadline is Aug. 10th. Just click the “Comments” link in the column to the left and you’re on your way.
New Stuff
If you haven’t been into the office recently, there have been a few changes. I just replaced the carpeting in my treatment room and the reception area. Gone are all the old water stains and I’ve got a new pad under my feet. By the way, my feet have grown almost a full size since I became a massage therapist. I’m also finding a few more gray hairs which are something I’d rather not see...
The Body Cushion System has arrived and I’ve used it on a few pregnant clients as well as some people in extreme back pain. The only problem is that I don’t have room to store them at the office, so I bring them in when I feel I’ll need them.
Off the Table
Greenwich Ave continues to change. Banana Republic has followed the Gap in disappearing and Bon Ton Fish Market will soon be moving to the corner of Bruce Park & Davis Aves, across from the House of Fins. If I start seeing small tropical fish on ice, I’ll be wondering if Bon Ton got a new supplier...
If you’ve got an inheritance to blow on gas, take a ride on I-78 in Pennsylvania. Where else can you pass a farm and see huge dog houses (or in this case, little cow houses) with calves, a car sitting on the front porch of a ranch house, & a graveyard for tractors (not farm tractors; the huge tractors that pull the trailers on the highways). I had to ask about the cow houses and I was dismayed to hear that place is a “free range” veal farm. My GPS system also decided to take us on a drive through Mennonite country, believing it was the quickest route. There’s nothing like zipping down an empty farm road a bit over the speed limit when you suddenly come up on a horse & buggy. Luckily it was a Sunday morning so most of them were in church while we breezed by. Oh, the main highway was less than a mile to our North, but not showing up on the screen.
Quotes for the Month
Here are two simple quotes to help you through July: “If you accept a limiting belief, then it will become a truth for you.” -- Louise Hay. “An inch of time is an inch of gold: treasure it. Appreciate its fleeting nature; misplaced gold is easily found, misspent time is lost forever.” -- Loy Ching-Yuen
Next month: My return to Martha’s Vineyard. Don’t expect the next issue before Aug. 5th.
Have a Happy and Safe Independence Day. |
