“About five years ago I had a stroke that numbed my left side. After about three years of different treatments, I figured I was pretty much stuck and that I had everything back I was going to get.

“I still had a strong numbness on my left side and had difficulty doing things with my left hand. I’m a runner, and I had a lot of spasticity. Anytime I got out of rhythm, my body would go haywire. If I was running along the beach, I’d be fine, but then if I’d try to jump over a log, my body would seize up.

“Then I met a friend about a year-and-a-half ago who it turned out was a student at Bastyr. When I told her about my symptoms, she recommended I come to Bastyr Center for Natural Health for acupuncture and mentioned Kathleen Lumiere, DAOM, LAc, who’s been doing great research on acupuncture and electricity.

“When I started coming to Bastyr, it was like a magic stick. All of a sudden, things started coming back, and every time I come, I get something new back. It’s almost freaky how well it works.

“One of the most astonishing things I’ve learned in this process is how much we take for granted. I used to have to look at my left hand to see if my keys were in it, or if I was reading a magazine and turning the page with my left hand, I couldn’t tell if there were two pages.

“It’s not much, the thickness of a page, but going from not being able to tell to feeling the thickness of one page, it’s all because of the work here at Bastyr Center.

“There’s a lot about medicine that has to do with the people practicing. With the clinicians I’ve worked with at Bastyr Center, you have the sense that you’re in the presence of a healer, not just a technician. That’s really important.”