Healing Hands (Part 6)

This week’s instalment is an emotional one... get your tissues at the ready!

Reiki Practioner - When Life Intervenes - by Chris Daniels Reiki Master 

So by November 2015 I had become a fully fledged reiki practitioner. By now my husband Dave was one of my biggest supporters, after having initially been sceptical, he had tried a few sessions himself and accepted that something was going on, even if he didn't understand exactly what! He had also seen some of my success stories. From then on in, whenever the opportunity arose he enthusiastically told his friends what I was now doing and as a result I gained a couple of extra clients who came to see me on a regular basis.

Initially, one of these came with a specific problem (another dodgy ankle) and when after a couple of months that was resolved, she continued to come because she loved it so much. She reasoned that her husband and sons enjoyed their hobbies and this was now 'her thing' where she felt she could treat herself to some very relaxing 'me time' and get some health benefits along the way. I recall some months later, she shared with me that she had been to see her GP for her annual MOT and was delighted to find that her blood pressure had dropped. I have to say that this is one area where there has been some specific and controlled research into reiki and it has been proved (albeit with a small sample of people) to have a measurable positive effect on blood pressure, comparable to the benefits of medication, but without any of the side effects!

The months moved on to the summer of 2016 when my next main life event revealed itself. One sunny day my youngest daughter Alex, who was at that point living with her boyfriend, had called in just at the moment that I was enjoying a cuddle with my next door neighbour's new born great grandchild. As Alex was passing through I said to her 'Aww, Alex, I want one of these' and the reply came back very quickly 'ha...well don't look at me, that's not going to happen anytime soon'. Well that's what she thought, but it seems that I had put it out the the universe and the universe had listened! Literally a month later Alex and her boyfriend called around to see us, both of them looking a little sheepish and shocked as they hesitantly shared the glorious news that our first grandchild was on its way! It seems that my wish had been granted.

Christmas 2016 came and went and the new year arrived. By now Alex was a blooming seven months pregnant when her situation changed in a flash. Two weeks into January, her relationship came to a shuddering halt and she came back home to mum and dad. I must admit that when I said 'I want one of these' I hadn't intended it to be in these circumstances and the day that I held my beautiful, seven months pregnant daughter in my arms as she broke her heart, my heart broke too. Nonetheless, even though the situation was now going to be very different to the one we had anticipated, we still had a wonderful event to look forward to.

In the days, weeks, months and years that have followed Dave and I stepped up and did whatever we needed to do to, at first to prepare for arrival of the new baby and then to help to look after our granddaughter (Luna Rose) when she had arrived. A little plug for Alex and her business partner Gab here - they had worked hard over a few years to create their own business, One Nation Clothing (onenationclothing.com available online for the ladies fashionable clothing); but the downside of owning your own business is that you cannot take a year off for maternity leave, so when Luna was eight weeks old, Dave and I became full time baby minders, five days a week! As you might imagine, for a couple now in their sixties, this was exhausting and exhilarating in equal measures, but Alex had told me many times and in no uncertain terms since Luna was born, that I could not complain (I don't by the way) and that I had single handedly manifested 'my baby'. I think that is a bit unfair ... as we all know it takes two to tango and I wasn't one of the dancers! But to other wannabe grandparents, a word of warning, be careful what you wish for and therefore put out to the universe!

The point of including this episode of my life is to highlight the fact that whilst my reiki work did continue through this period, I was not in a position to actively look for new clients as I had something far more important to do!
Life carried on over the next twelve months and then our next bombshell hit. My husband Dave had had some routine blood tests in December 2017, which highlighted that he had an iron deficiency. He was prescribed iron tablets for a month, followed by repeat blood tests. As the blood test came back unchanged he was urgently sent for more intrusive investigations, the upshot being that on Luna's first birthday in March 2018 we had it confirmed that he had duodenal cancer, apparently a very rare cancer with no proven treatments identified. Once again our world was rocked, but this time there was no pleasure attached!

At the same time, 100 miles south, my eldest daughter Caroline (creator and owner of Luna Wolf Boutique) and her husband Will were already dealing with their own major issues. Will's mum Joan, who lived with them, had been diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease three years previously and was reaching the end of her journey here on planet Earth. Joan had been born and brought up in Ireland, before moving to the north of England as a young woman, where she met and married Will's dad Bill. Ironically, on St Patrick's day 2018, just a few days after we had been told that Dave had cancer, Joan lost her battle and returned to the spirit world, where her beloved Bill (who had died in 2012) would, I am sure, have been waiting to welcome her. On multiple counts, this was a very hard time for us all. Dave and I were desperate to go to support Caroline and Will, but were unable to as we were attending numerous hospital appointments in readiness for Dave's planned surgery. I was however able to send distant reiki to them, to help them through and to assuage the guilt that I felt for not being able to visit and hug them in person!

One week later, Dave found himself in Manchester Royal Infirmary, where he had a major operation during which the surgeons removed his duodenum along with the tumour, part of his stomach, part of his pancreas and for good measure his gall bladder. As you might imagine, this was a life changing event not just for Dave and our immediate family; the effects rippled out to friends new and old. Facebook and WhatsApp in particular, came into their own at this time, making it easier to share updates with everybody who cared and at this time we discovered just how many did. The love and support that came back from our large network of family and friends really kept us going as we navigated our way through the challenges of baby minding alongside intensive care, hospital visiting, dicky drain tubes, dressings, leaky bags, infections and multiple re-admissions to hospital after his initial discharge! To those who were there for us during that period thank you, words cannot convey how much this helped us to keep getting up every day!

So once again the prospect of taking on any new reiki clients was put to one side. I had been busy before, but now I had a whole lot of new demands requiring my time and attention; I also had a live in client who had a real need for my reiki skills! Whilst Dave did have formal sessions in my reiki room from time to time, every night I would lay by his side and send him distant reiki whilst he rested and slept. I also gave reiki to myself, to ensure that I kept strong and well, if ever I had needed to, it was now! I contemplated during these dark nights that maybe this was why reiki had found me back in 2015 and felt grateful that I was in possession of a skill that could help my husband of more than 40 years to bounce back after a brush with the big 'C'.

When you are faced with these episodes there really is nothing to do other than get on with what has to be done and make the most of what you have got, so we endured a difficult six months whilst another new normal established itself as Dave regained his strength, mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. He got his first routine scan results back in September 2018 and they were all clear! We were so happy and relieved that we immediately went to the travel agents and booked a celebratory week in Majorca leaving twelve hours later! It really was just what we both needed!

We are now two and a bit years on and Dave does routinely still have digestive problems (not surprising with all that re-plumbing) but he is to date still cancer free; but we are not naïve enough to think that the episode is over yet, reiki or no reiki. As with all cancer patients, he has regular scans to check that all is OK and with each of these scans comes the scanxiety before the results are in!

Next week I will share how I finally managed to find time and energy to achieve the title of reiki master!