A Conversation with Dr. Li, a Western-Medicine Specialist Who Has Fought Cancer for Seven Years, Taught Me a Great Deal
The original article was written in August 2012.
Yesterday I went again to the home of Dr. Li, a former Western-medicine specialist at Chaoyang Hospital and a lymphoma patient who has been fighting cancer for seven years, to visit her and learn Western medicine from her. I stayed at her home for six hours, not leaving until one in the morning. I am truly sorry to have disturbed the elderly lady's rest; Dr. Li gave me a great deal of inspiration yesterday. I have organized it point by point below for the reference of fellow patients.
Dr. Li's condition has progressed recently, but her energy is not diminished in the least and her weight has not fallen at all. CT shows the lymphatic tumor progressing; the only symptom is constipation. I used the shaking method from TCM orthopedics and traumatology to massage her abdomen for about ten minutes, then taught her the opening posture of the Yijin Jing (Sinew-changing Classic), the opening posture of Daoist Zhang Zhishun's Jingang Changgong (Diamond Longevity Qigong), and a few simple bowel-regulating exercises I had worked out myself, such as slow squatting-and-rising. Within an hour, Dr. Li went to the toilet and had a normal bowel movement.
Thanks to Dr. Li's kindness, she has been teaching me like a closing-door disciple and has entrusted the treatment of her own cancer to me. Last night I wrote her first prescription: Yanghe Decoction added with Cistanche (Roucongrong). This is a therapeutic approach completely different from the regimens she had previously received. Her earlier treatments had mostly followed the principles of soothing the liver and resolving depression, clearing heat and resolving toxicity, activating blood and resolving stasis, and unblocking the channels and collaterals. I instead attempted to treat her with the Quansheng school's methods of warming and unblocking, and supporting toxicity to discharge pus.
Dr. Li insisted that I write her a prescription, though I was far from confident. I told her that the previous doctors had achieved quite good results, sustaining her high quality of life for over seven years, while my own grasp on treatment was slim—especially compared with the results of the specialists she had seen before, I feared I would fall far short. Dr. Li, however, encouraged me to write the prescription boldly; even if it did not work out, I could simply use her as a trial. This moved me deeply. Dr. Li has moved near my home; the two houses are a fifteen-minute walk apart. It is very convenient both to consult her and to look after her. She is probably, after my late mother, the most conveniently situated and most trusting patient I have.
Yesterday Dr. Li taught me for over four hours the diagnostic and treatment techniques for neurological diseases. A medical specialist retired for more than ten years—out of love for medicine—still reads, clips newspaper articles, and takes notes every day. Watching Dr. pull out the large pile of notes she had recently made deeply inspired me; this attitude toward scholarship is exactly what an accomplished physician should have.
Dr. Li graduated early from Peking University Health Science Center; in those days the admission cutoff for the medical school was the highest of any Peking University major, which shows her intelligence was above average. Her diligent, conscientious attitude toward study to this day is probably a habit formed in childhood. No wonder Dr. Li is China's foremost expert in her specialty field of occupational diseases; in the past, whenever a major casualty accident caused by industrial pollution occurred, Dr. Li was always a core member of the medical team assembled by the Ministry of Health to handle it.
Dr. Li's grandfather was a legendary acupuncture physician. He began studying medicine at sixty, practicing acupuncture on beef every day; thereafter he supported a family of six on his superb medical skill alone, living healthily to the age of ninety. Unfortunately, his medical skill was not passed on; Dr. Li studied Western medicine at the Peking University medical school.
We then discussed the approach of using poison to attack poison in treating cancer. Dr. Li told me that some leukemia patients she had encountered during her career, after receiving arsenic trioxide treatment, had turned black from arsenic poisoning and came to her for arsenic-detoxification treatment. But if these patients did not receive the arsenic treatment, their lives would be at risk, so they kept taking arsenic and kept undergoing arsenic-detoxification treatment.
Dr. Li told me that in the past, TCM anti-cancer treatment using poison to attack poison did not understand the need to expel the poison afterward, and the means of detoxification were undeveloped, so sometimes the side effects left patients with many sequelae. If one could draw on some modern medical techniques to perform detoxification treatment after using poison to attack poison, patients' quality of life and survival would both be greatly improved. This was something I had never thought of before; it is probably also a direction that not many people are currently researching.
As early as two thousand years ago, the eight-ingredient Shenqi Pill developed by Chinese medicine already embodied this therapeutic idea of tonification and purgation in one formula: while tonifying the kidney, it did not forget to drain turbidity from the kidney and conveniently expel the toxicity of the tonifying herb Aconite through the urine. Is this not precisely the embodiment of this idea? Yet this therapeutic idea has not been refined in the field of cancer treatment. Dr. Li, with her actual clinical experience, deeply appreciates this. She encouraged me to put some thought into researching this direction; who knows, it might open up a brand-new path for cancer treatment and bring hope to cancer patients. For me, this was truly an ear-splitting, awakening inspiration.
I now habitually use exercise therapy to relieve some of patients' symptoms instead of medication. Drawing on her rich clinical experience, Dr. Li told me about several injurious conditions caused by over-exercising and by backward TCM massage techniques, listing the damage exercise therapy can inflict on patients with cervical spondylosis, lumbar spine disease, and osteoporosis, and telling me that when using this therapy one must attend to its drawbacks. This has greatly compensated for the shortcomings in my clinical experience.
Every treatment method has its beneficial side and its harmful side. If one is determined to climb the heights of medicine, one must carefully study the pros and cons of each; only thus can one reduce the probability of mistreatment, improve efficacy, and truly relieve the patient's suffering without leaving behind future trouble.
Dr. Li has already become a true teacher to me. In the past, many medical graduate students hoped to enter Dr. Li's circle but had no opportunity; through a fortunate turn of events, I was able, with a single Buddhist scripture, to form such a deep bond with a fine teacher like Dr. Li. This too is my good fortune. I only hope Dr. Li can enjoy health and longevity, and that I may have the opportunity to learn more clinical insights from her.