Chronic Diseases Are Hard to Cure: Learn to Live with Your Imperfections

My leg pain keeps recurring: after treatment it eases for a while and then flares up again; after another round of treatment it eases again for a while, going around and around in this cycle.

These past few days it has been especially painful, and when I walk there is a tearing pain in the sole of my foot. Yesterday I took the child to buy shoes; when I flipped over the soles of my own shoes, I saw that the right sole was obviously worn far more badly than the left. So I bought myself a new pair of shoes and threw away the old ones. Actually, the so-called old shoes had only been worn for a few months. After changing to the new shoes, the tearing pain in my sole immediately eased a lot.

My father came with us to the shoe store. He said I have always worn out shoes fast since I was a child; a pair of shoes would not last long, and always the sole of the right shoe wore through first and became unwearable, so I had to change shoes frequently or repair the soles. Because of this, my father also recalled that when I was in swaddling clothes, my parents, following local custom, had tied my legs together while I slept, to prevent me from developing an outward-turned gait. My father said that perhaps the problem with my feet appeared back then; it was just that they did not realize it.

Moreover, from childhood until now I have had another symptom: whenever I hold my urine even slightly, my legs ache faintly, and when my legs hurt I cannot help going to the toilet. So my habitual urinary frequency also started at that time. These two problems still have not been properly solved to this day.

Put this way, this little ailment of mine has a medical history of nearly forty years; it has simply grown worse as I have aged.

After all these years of struggle, I no longer hold any illusion about curing these two little ailments of mine. Life is like this; there will always be imperfections. The only thing I can do is try not to worsen the condition, reduce activities that injure my waist and legs, add exercise suited to me, swim more, and run less.

After my father was tormented for five years by age-old habitual constipation, he has now finally accepted the reality that his constipation cannot be solved easily. Every day I supplement him with vitamin C and vitamins B1, B2, and B12, along with 4 different probiotic and prebiotic supplements, accompanied by Dendrobium (Shihu) and dandelion (Pugongying) tea. By urging him to change his living and eating habits, his condition has improved greatly.

At first he could not accept the reality that he could not live without these supplements, always wanting to solve the problem once and for all. Besides me, he tried medicines prescribed by many doctors; each time, after brief relief, it became even worse.

After several twists and turns, his state of mind finally adjusted; he no longer pursues a "cure" but has learned to live with his imperfections.

I recently read the Biography of Einstein, and saw that even a genius like Einstein had to bow before illness. We have to admit that human ability is very limited; many chronic diseases are still far from being conquered, and being able to suffer as little as possible is already no easy thing. Most of the time, overly high and unrealistic expectations only bring worse results.