Jacky at the Whitehouse/Massage stories

1. This is my cousin Jacky, who I've blogged about before. She's a Senior Intelligence Officer working in Washington D.C. and she posted these pictures recently on her Facebook page when she and her peers got to go the White house a week or so ago.



2. Yes, this is Barney Bush, who Jacky says is the only Bush she would greet kindly. I'm sure Barney could tell she was a dog owner Mommy. She never said but I figured if Barney is there President Bush or the First lady must have been also. I want that picture though. I'll ping her on that one.



3. Jacky and her peers in front of the Oval office. Can you imagine getting to stand there? I told her I would love to volunteer to be her personal assistant next time she needs to visit the White house. Wouldn't that be cool?

4. Massage stories- Sometimes things happen in my profession that are either very funny or I just have to tell you about. And I know there is a lot of you out there who will read this and wonder, "Does she tell stories about me to others?" If I have, I NEVER use names so no one would know. Anyway here's the first one-

So there is a girl who comes into the spa once a month and gets a massage. She takes medication for schizophrenia and when I first massaged her I was warned that she says and does things during her massage that you normally wouldn't experience with others. One of the things she does is when she's lying on her stomach her arms are out front of her and she constantly rubs her hands as if she's putting lotion on. She also has a breathing pattern that you could mistaken for sobbing at times, yet when I've asked her is she's ok she snaps out of it and answers, "yes." Once she turns over, instead of keeping her eyes closed, she stares at you. She'll also talk to herself after I've turned her over and you'd think you were looking at someone who was in the middle of a disturbing dream and her mouth moves like she's talking to someone very troubled. So all of this kind of freaks most of the therapists out and we take turns working on her because it's just to disburbing sometimes. So that is the background of this client. So a week ago, my therapist friend, Michelle was working on her in the room next to me. Often we can hear things even through the walls but I was aware that Michelle had already left the room. So, just another piece of information- sometimes the door locks leaving the client to either knock so we can hear they're stuck or they call our front desk from their cell phones.
So back to Michelle's client- I can hear her struggling with opening the door. Pulling and pulling and I thought, she is going to really FREAK if she can't get out. So there are very few things that make me excuse myself from a massage with a client but I thought I had better go next door and try to help her out so she didn't have this nervous breakdown. And just as I get there, she finally got the door opened and her face was all red and her blonde hair was really tousled. So anyway, she got out just in time but we were very nervous what her reaction would have been had she not gotten the door open.

5. There are some health situations that a therapist must know about since some diagnoses do NOT advise any massage therapy while they are being cared for. So my client was a 70 year old woman who was a return client. If someone is a new client they have them fill out a health questionaire form so the therapist can determind if they are in good enough health for massage. But this woman had already been there. So we have a quick conversation about what areas she needs massage and I leave the room for her to dress down and get on the table. So when I come back in, she has this bandage kind of thing wrapped around her breast area all around her back. And I said, have you hurt yourself or what's going on? She then volunteered that she had a biopsy done earlier in the week. So I pressed further. "So what is your diagnosis because I need to know." She says, "I have Breast CANCER."

Now, friends/family you are NEVER supposed to get massage when you have cancer unless you have a written note from your doctor saying that you can. So I then asked, "Do you have your doctor's permission to be getting a massage?" And she tells me that she didn't even think about that. So I explain the situation and tell her that we really shouldn't be doing a massage but she chooses to proceed anyway and so I told her that we would NOT be doing anything deep but rather just a relaxing kind of massage. So basically I just rubbed her down lightly with lotion. So never get massage if you have cancer, k.