The Five Minutes Before the Treatment — Why I Call Ahead

Estimated reading time ⏱: 1-2 minutes

Last updated: June 2026

She looked at me. I looked at her.
I asked: "How's the pain in your arm?"
She said: "I can walk well again."

And it all came at once. The frustration first — why isn't this landing. Then the shame, hot and fast — I should know how to do this. Then something close to panic. And underneath all of it, just empty. Because I understood, in that second, that she had no idea what I was asking.

And I had no idea what I was treating.

Parkinson's. No partner in the room. Just me, thinking I could piece it together on my own.

I'd asked for a pain score. She gave me a number. But she couldn't show me where it hurt. Nothing added up, and I kept asking anyway — louder, slower, as if the problem was the volume.

I messed up.

Not because she isn't capable

Parkinson's creates a gap between what someone means and what they can say. And the whole time, I was treating the words. Not the gap.

I was treating a guess.

So I stopped, and I called her partner

Right there. Phone in hand, patient on the table. I felt ridiculous doing it — like I should have known better, like a real practitioner wouldn't need to.

He picked up. And in two minutes he told me what I couldn't get in twenty. What had changed. Where it actually hurt. What a good day looked like for her now.

The whole session changed shape after that call. I stopped guessing. I started treating the person who was actually in the room.

Nobody says this out loud: most of us are doing this without a net

Maybe you work alone. No colleague glancing over your notes. No one in the next room to ask "did you check with the family?" Just you, your intake form, and the quiet pressure to look like you've got it under control.

So you improvise. You fill the gaps with assumptions. You tell yourself you'll figure it out as you go.

And sometimes you do.

And sometimes you walk out of the room not knowing if you helped at all. You won't say that out loud. But you'll feel it on the drive home.

So I changed one thing

If a Parkinson's patient is coming without their partner, I call ahead now. Before they ever sit down. Five minutes. What's changed since last time. Where exactly is the pain. What's realistic today.

Picking up that phone mid-session didn't make me a worse practitioner. It made me an honest one.

You're not a detective. You're a practitioner. And practitioners work with what they can trust.

If you don't have it, go get it. Call. Ask. Check. It isn't extra.

The treatment didn't start when she sat down.

It started the moment I picked up the phone.

What do you fill the gaps with, when you don't have the full picture?

Be honest — I do it too. Drop me a message, in the comments below!

About the Authors: Laurence & Olivier

Laurence and Olivier are specialized Balance Method practitioners based in Terneuzen, Netherlands. Both were trained directly by Dr. Delphine Armand — one of Dr. Tan's appointed disciples and co-founder of Si Yuan. For 8 years, they were part of Si Yuan's core team as instructor and video director — teaching, filming, and documenting every aspect of the Balance Method's global training program. Today they treat up to 75 patients weekly using exclusively the Balance Method at Acusana Acupunctuur.

• →Laurence was an instructor at Si Yuan, teaching the Balance Method alongside Dr. Delphine Armand across international trainings. She developed the illustrated clinical notes used during these trainings — notes that became the Balance Method Notebook, now the go-to clinical reference for practitioners worldwide.
• →Olivier filmed and edited every Si Yuan training for 8 years — from live clinical demonstrations to the complete Video on Demand library. He founded this independent knowledge hub to make Balance Method education freely accessible to practitioners everywhere.

Through this platform, they continue to build on Dr. Tan's core philosophy: "Share everything, keep nothing, help everyone."