Massage message
posted in Arizona, Family, Illnesses, OmegaGranny |Ages ago, while living in Small Mountain University Town, I noticed a little massage school next to the pet store we liked to frequent. I poked my head in, and discovered that they had students doing massages every weekend, and that you could get an hour massage for very small amounts of money.
Later on, Small Mountain University’s classified employee council made an arrangement with that massage school to get an additional percentage off the price for university employees.
I was in heaven. Maybe once a month, once every six weeks, I’d traipse off to SMUT Massage College and get myself an hour-long massage, emerging limp and noodly and relaxed.
Since moving to Alaska, however, I have been unable to indulge. Oh, we have massage schools off in Big City, but, hey, it’s an hour-long drive there, and the benefits of the massage would be outweighed by the drive back, in my experience.
When I landed in Arizona again to take care of my mom—which included watching her like a hawk while we were snowbound, preparing small meals and trying not to cry as she barely ate anything, then getting her off to the hospital and being ready to fight anyone who claimed it wasn’t “medically necessary” for her to be admitted to the hospital, then keeping an eye on the staff at the nursing home until it became obvious that they were caring, gentle people who really wanted to help, then spending hours making appointments and visiting and touring assisted living facilities in the area—
Well. It was, to put it mildly, making me uptight. Really uptight. I was finding myself unable to sleep because my shoulders were in knots, and my brain was in overdrive, producing item after item after item to worry about or to remember to take care of the next day. Something had to be done.
So I called one of the local massage colleges, to see if they had any student clinics going on. Lo and behold, though they didn’t have beginning students, they had an “advanced” clinic running for the month. I signed up.
O what a blessing is a good massage. What a release of tension. What a lovely hour or so of mindless bliss, melting into the massage table, feeling the horde of knots loosen—even those that I hadn’t realized were there. It helped so much that I threw monetary caution to the winds and signed up for one a week while I was there. I loved every minute of those three hours.
Some specifics: This was through ASIS, in downtown Prescott. The masseuse was named Jill H., and she was awesome. She was gentle, asked questions, sent me a note via mail after the first massage (!!), remembered what I had told her and where all the knots had been on the second and third visits, and was, all around, a boon to me during a tough time. I highly recommend their services, and especially highly recommend Jill. (She is also working with a local chiropractor…I have, unfortunately, lost the card she gave me, otherwise I would say which chiropractor.)
