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Marisa Fanelli, M.Ac.: Posted on Saturday, December 31, 2011 8:15 AM
Lately I've been hearing a lot of friends and family bemoan the fact that their loved ones are too stubborn to come in and see me. The irony is, these people usually need me more than the people they are trying to convince! It's kind of funny to talk to a friend who is hobbling around with hip pain and complaining that her husband has back pain but keeps putting off making an appointment at my clinic. "I think you need me, too," I say...and she just shrugs. |
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Marisa Fanelli, M.Ac.: Posted on Friday, December 30, 2011 6:59 AM
Reading this article renewed my appreciation for all the options available out there for those with health issues. Too often, we focus on the negative. We read countless stories in the paper about the evils of pharmaceutical companies, and about people who suffer due to a lack of healthcare, and about a million other wrongs and abuses taking place in the healthcare industry. |
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Marisa Fanelli, M.Ac.: Posted on Friday, December 23, 2011 7:06 AM
Once upon a time, I had no health insurance. That being the case, I suffered through many an injury and illness without medical care, and while I did (obviously) live, in retrospect, I made some bad choices for financial reasons. I remember cutting my finger at work, and bleeding for two weeks straight because I couldn't afford stitches. I also remember accidentally stabbing myself through the palm with a knife, and waking up to a blood-soaked bed because I bled enough to soak an entire beach towel (again, no stitches). |
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Marisa Fanelli, M.Ac.: Posted on Wednesday, December 21, 2011 9:28 AM
Have you ever wondered why opposites attract? Well, I've been giving it some thought lately, and I've come to realize that it's a simple equation. When one person has an excess of what another person lacks, they are drawn toward that person like a magnet. Everyone is looking for someone to make them a cohesive whole, whether they know it or not. And, when you meet that person who is so very different from you, you may not know it consciously, but you need something that they have. |
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Marisa Fanelli, M.Ac.: Posted on Tuesday, December 20, 2011 2:21 PM
I still remember the first time I cupped someone outside of the classroom. We had been fire-cupping all week long in school, and I was dying to try it on a willing victim. The perfect opportunity arose later that month: a first date! As usual, I had my entire life in my car...including my shiny new acupuncture cups. I can't quite remember how it came up, but this guy started asking me about acupuncture, and somehow the topic of cupping came up. |
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Marisa Fanelli, M.Ac.: Posted on Friday, December 16, 2011 7:53 AM
Today started out with a phone call from a patient at 8 AM, telling me that she had received an email from me asking for money to get back into the country after having my passport stolen. Que? Bleary eyed and only one-quarter awake, I stumbled into my living room to find a barrage of emails from confused friends and acquaintances. Yes, my email had been hacked. My first though was, "No big deal, I'll just change my passwords." Oh, but that was just the start. |
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Marisa Fanelli, M.Ac.: Posted on Thursday, December 15, 2011 7:43 AM
Several years ago, I walked into a tiny little trattoria, application in hand. I sat down with the owner, who asked me a series of questions (mostly about my Italian heritage.) Then he got down to business: "Do you have any fine dining experience?" "No, not really..." I replied. "Well, have you ever worked in a privately owned restaurant?" "No, not exactly..." |
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Marisa Fanelli, M.Ac.: Posted on Tuesday, December 13, 2011 9:22 AM
Before I became the acupuncturist that you all know and love, I had a LOT of various jobs. I found customer service to be the most soul-crushing, especially around the holidays. I have always been the type of person who can let things slide off my back, but I still have PTSD-like flashbacks of my days working behind a register around Christmastime. I have witnessed all types of disgusting human behavior during the month of Christmas. Back in the day, I was verbally (and sometimes almost physically) abused, degraded and threatened so often that I took it as a given. |
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Marisa Fanelli, M.Ac.: Posted on Sunday, December 11, 2011 8:03 AM
'Tis the season...to start blaming the dryer for your shrinking pants. If you are like most people, you probably tend to put on a few pounds between Christmas and New Year's. Part of it is the food, but most of it is the mindset. Yes, there are a lot more cookies and cakes around at this time of year, but don't we always have access to these types of foods? It's easier to indulge in these types of foods now, though, because of the all-or-nothing mentality (and tendency to procrastinate) that most of us seem to have. |
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Marisa Fanelli, M.Ac.: Posted on Saturday, December 10, 2011 11:40 AM
A few years ago, I decided that I would spend the entire week before Christmas doing random acts of kindness for strangers. I saved up some funds and headed out into the streets of New Haven, Connecticut, (my hometown) to dish out some holiday love. It was harder than you would think. I'm usually up for tossing a few bucks to people who are down on their luck, but the Connecticut homeless than I ran into that week were just so very...entitled. First of all, their starting bids were higher than I was used to. |
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