A Most Memorable Day

Yesterday evening, during a practical training class in rehabilitation medicine, I suddenly received a message from the teacher at our university's innovation laboratory. He told me that the pharmacological experiment I had applied to conduct at the university could now go ahead, and asked me to come to the laboratory to discuss it.

This news made me very happy. From the moment the idea of doing a pharmacological experiment in the university laboratory first occurred to me, through my discussions with the microbiology teacher who taught the course, and then with the teacher in charge of the university laboratory, more than a month had passed. I had thought the application would not be approved, but unexpectedly the final result was satisfying.

After the practical training class, I went to the university innovation laboratory and talked with the teacher for more than an hour; we discussed the design ideas and the execution plan for the experiment. Because I had another physiology experiment to do in the evening, although our conversation ended on an unresolved note, we finally brought it to a close. To move the experiment forward as quickly as possible, I promised to bear some of its costs; because if I applied upward for funding, I did not know how long the experiment would be delayed, or even whether it would ever be carried out at all.

Afterward, on my way to the canteen, I made a congratulatory phone call to my mother-in-law, because yesterday was her birthday. I also asked how she was feeling, and she told me that the new treatment plan I had designed for her had shown immediate results.

The elderly woman is tormented by a variety of chronic diseases associated with aging, and yet finds it hard to keep taking her medicine. Inspired by the idea of the calming pillow I had tried not long before, I prepared a special medicinal pillow for her. On the very first night of using the pillow, she saw immediate results, and this improvement is continuing now.

She was very happy, and I was very happy. This is a new approach to treating disease that I began to try this year, and I will continue to explore in this direction, striving to use it to solve more disease problems.

As a person with rich business experience, I also see here a new path to generating income. I am now already carrying out trials of some of my innovative research on a small scale; once I see more definite results, I will roll it out.

I have a mature business execution team that will carry out my series of plans well. In the latter half of my life I want to support medicine through commerce, relying on commercial profits to support my medical research and become a true gentleman scientist.

As someone outside the system, I cannot obtain support from policy resources. To realize some of my medical research dreams, I must rely on generating my own income to provide financial support.

Starting next week, my pharmacological experiment will begin to move forward. During the experiment, I hope to follow the teacher who is guiding me, learn some research skills well, and at the same time explore a trial model that can operate in the future.

Because I still have many medical experiments I want to carry out; verifying and correcting my own research by experimental methods has long been a goal I dreamed of. But in the past I had no such opportunity; now that I have it, I will surely make the most of it.

I am infinitely grateful that, at this age, I have been able to return to school to study clinical medicine. This turn in my life has reignited my passion and once again kindled great inner strength in me.

Over nearly twenty years of clinical practice, I have accumulated too many questions that need answers; I hope, in the years I have left, to solve some of them and not let this life be wasted.

Last night my emotions surged and I could not sleep for a long time. I resolved to study medicine because of my mother's illness; it has been fourteen years to the day since my mother left me, and I still find it hard to put this feeling aside. In the first two months after I came to school, I dreamed of my mother several times. Once I dreamed she stood before me weeping, hoping I could take away her pain; when I woke, my tears had soaked my pillowcase.

At school many people also ask me why, at my age, I have come to study. At first, every time they asked, it pricked my heart and made me think of my mother. Later, gradually, like a callus forming, I developed a certain immunity to such questions. But deep down, that remains a pain that cannot be touched.

Not long after this semester began, an older neuroblastoma patient chose a weekend and came to Beijing to see me. She brought her daughter, who was very young—probably under ten—and did not understand that her mother was tormented by a terminal illness, hugging her mother's neck and acting coy.

Seeing this scene, I thought to myself that I must do my utmost to help this little girl keep her mother's love. When I was in my thirties and lost my mother, I could not bear the pain of losing her; how could I bear to watch such a child lose her mother's love?

Fortunately, this patient has already seen initial results. And the comprehensive medical-insurance treatment plan I have worked out for her is also within her financial means and does not unduly affect her normal life. I hope she can accompany her daughter as she grows up well, and not let her daughter experience too early the most painful “parting from the beloved” in the world.

Many life-threatening diseases remain medical challenges, but I hold the hope that they can be conquered. Just as smallpox, rabies, and tuberculosis—once incurable diseases—have now been conquered. Because of this belief, I, soon to be fifty, am willing to strive all my life on this path.

Perhaps I will not achieve very much in this life, but the attempts I make are not necessarily without meaning. On the road ahead, it is not only successful experience that future generations can learn from; the lessons of failure are just as worth learning from. Because as long as someone goes exploring, there is always hope. If no one goes exploring, no new road will ever be broken open.