Its like seeing every single muscle

[massage]

For Manny Hernandez, who lost his vision more than two decades ago from retinal detachment, his new career as a massage therapist is an opportunity to see once again, but in a new way.

“By touching you, it’s like seeing every single muscle that you have, like an X-ray,” said Hernandez, 40, of Allentown.


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Hernandez has been a professional massage therapist since early December, when he began working at Hand & Stone Massage and Facial Spa in Center Valley. He got the job after completing Northampton Community College’s massage therapy program last summer. He was the first blind student to graduate from the program — a distinction that wasn’t without its difficulties.

“That was kind of frustrating at first because the program was designed for people to see,” Hernandez said.


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“You can go in the room at NCC, and you will see a lot of posters around you with muscles,” Hernandez said, describing his classroom at the college. “If you want to target some trigger point, you can see the poster and then figure it out right away, but for me that was not an option.”

Hernandez had to advocate for himself to make sure he had the resources he needed to succeed throughout the massage therapy program (which has since been discontinued at NCC).

“If I didn’t persist to get what I want, I don’t think I would have passed the program,” he said.

Hernandez sought the help of a tutor, Bethany Towne, and obtained three-dimensional physical models from the college to memorize muscle names for his anatomy and physiology courses.

He labeled the muscles on the model leg, arm and torso using Braille as a key.

Hernandez and Towne, who is also a massage therapist, would work together over video chat. Hernandez would hold up a muscle from the 3-D model, and Towne would tell him its name. The two then would go over how to massage that particular muscle.

“It’s really overwhelming when you’re trying to learn like 90% of the muscles in the body and the actions,” Towne said. “For anybody who hasn’t taken those anatomy and physiology classes, it’s a lot to learn.”

Hernandez also relied on the help of a teaching assistant, Dawn Bothwell, who completed the NCC program herself and serves as the school librarian at Broughal Middle School in Bethlehem.


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Hernandez said Bothwell acted as his eyes in class as the instructors spoke. “If they were talking about the rhomboid muscles in the back, she would put her hand on that area,” he explained.

“I just tried to make sure that everything they were talking about, he could feel,” said Bothwell, who works part time at Hand & Stone with Hernandez.

Hernandez also worked with the Disability Services Office to make sure he could access class readings online in PDF format on his iPhone and iPad. He would run his work through VoiceOver, a program that reads the words on a screen aloud for users.

“He really took it upon himself to figure things out, and that’s what got him through this program,” Krista Trout, a disability services specialist at NCC, said of Hernandez.

Trout added that self-advocacy is important for students with a disability at the college level.

After completing the program and getting clinical hours, Hernandez passed the Massage and Bodywork Licensing Examination in October and successfully applied for licensure.


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“It’s been hard, I have to say, but it has been very exciting. I’m very happy for him,” said Sandra Garcia, Hernandez’s wife.

The couple first met as teenagers when Hernandez came from Puerto Rico to get medical treatment in an attempt to save his eyesight.

He was born with scars in his retinas, but was able to see normally up until the age of 18. Despite seven surgeries, Hernandez ultimately lost all his vision. He said coming to the U.S. for his surgeries was fated, though, because of Garcia.

“I see this like it was meant to be,” he said.

Manny Hernandez stands in one of several massage rooms Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2022, at Hand and Stone in the Promenade Shops at Saucon Valley in Upper Saucon Township. Hernandez began working at Hand & Stone in early December. (Rick Kintzel/The Morning Call)


The couple first connected with each other in Bethlehem when Hernandez was staying with his aunt. He was using a walkie talkie to chat with nearby neighbors, including Garcia’s brother.

Hernandez had brought his walkie talkie with him from Puerto Rico, where the handheld device was popular at the time for communicating and listening to the radio. Hernandez began regularly talking to Garcia’s brother through the walkie talkie, and eventually he spoke with Garcia, herself.


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The two hit it off, eventually met in person and began dating soon after. They got married in 2013 and have two sons together.

Throughout their marriage, Garcia worked, and Hernandez stayed at home to take care of their boys, who are now 15 and 6 years old. Hernandez received Supplemental Security Income for his disability and took side gigs to earn extra cash. He was a disc jockey with consistent gigs, until the pandemic hit.

Then, Hernandez lost that income and simultaneously no longer qualified for SSI because the couple collectively earned too much, according to government criteria, he said. He knew he had to find a new way to bring in money. This is what pushed him to pursue massage therapy.

Now, about six months since he finished the NCC program, Hernandez is thriving as a massage therapist at Hand & Stone and earning a living.

He feels like he’s making a difference with the work he does. Though he was initially worried some clients would be uncomfortable working with him because he’s blind, that hasn’t been the case.

Still, Hernandez makes sure clients know ahead of time that he’s blind, and he uses his walking stick as an additional indicator (despite having the building’s layout memorized).


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Sometimes clients will ask him questions about being blind, or how he got into massage therapy, out of curiosity. These question never make him uncomfortable, Hernandez said.

“I gladly tell them because that’s my story,” Hernandez said. “I like telling them.”

When it comes to his therapy offerings, Hernandez provides cupping, hot stone work and massages.

Cupping is a technique using cups to suction blood to painful areas of the body, breaking up scar tissue that causes pain, he said. Hot stones move blood under the skin and provide relaxation, while Himalayan hot stones can be used for exfoliating.

Hernandez also provides various kinds of massage to clients, such as Swedish, trigger point or deep tissue. Each one has a different purpose, he said.

Swedish massage is the most basic kind, used for relaxing; trigger point massage allows the massage therapist to work to relieve a muscle knot that can be felt through the skin; and deep tissue massage focuses on working the inside layers of muscles.


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But no matter what service he’s providing, Hernandez said his job is rewarding. He’s building a meaningful career that allows him to both share his story and help clients along the way.

“It’s awesome for me, meeting new people, being able to help people,” Hernandez said. “People come in with one attitude and come out with another attitude: relaxed, relieved. They’re really happy.”

Morning Call reporter Jenny Roberts can be reached at 484-903-1732 and [email protected].

 

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