Illness Strikes Like a Sudden Gale

At high noon last Friday, my father called to tell me he’d had diarrhea for several days and that treatment at the township clinic hadn’t worked. I dug up an old prescription that had helped him before and told him to take a triple-viable Bifidobacterium capsule plus montmorillonite powder. He started it on Saturday, and his condition improved markedly.

On Friday, I took a day off and headed home from school. I’d had a cold for over a week and had been reluctant to take any medicine. Thinking I could still try to beat it with my own immune system, I jogged every morning from Monday through Thursday until I broke a light sweat. As it turned out, my immunity wasn’t as reliable as I’d hoped; the fatigue from running only made my cold worse.

Fortunately, after I got home on Friday, I promptly took my own homemade Chai-Gui Detox Pill and sipped some Gou-Teng mint tea. In just over a day, my cold symptoms eased significantly, and by Saturday I was basically better.

Saturday evening, my wife, our son, and I were chatting and laughing. Our son had bought a group-purchase voucher for a Mid-Autumn Festival dinner, and we were planning a family reunion meal. After breakfast on Sunday, I was video-calling a friend in Wuhan. Our son went to the bathroom and suddenly broke into a sweat from the pain. Since I was on the call, he quickly messaged his mom to let her know. She called me, but I couldn’t hear clearly at the time.

A moment later, the commotion from our son alarmed me. I hung up and rushed to the bathroom to check on him and ask what had happened. He told me that at a get-together with classmates a few days earlier, he’d had a glass of prune juice and had been having diarrhea ever since. At first, he thought it was just his usual bowel habit—three generations in our family share this issue, so he didn’t think much of it. Two days ago, he’d felt a faint anal pain, but it wasn’t severe, so he ignored it. Today, the pain had become excruciating, and he simply couldn’t bear it.

My initial thought was that it might be rectal prolapse or an anal fissure, and I planned to take him to a nearby tertiary hospital for imaging to confirm. After a digital rectal exam, the attending anorectal doctor suspected a perianal abscess. It was the first time anyone in our family had been diagnosed with this, and I found it hard to believe.

Judging from his clinical symptoms, he didn’t quite fit the typical profile of a perianal abscess. His pain wasn’t constant; it only occurred after bowel movements and could be relieved by washing and resting afterward. Moreover, the pain was burning rather than throbbing or cramping. I ran the details through DeepSeek, which leaned more toward inflammation than an abscess—or, if it was an abscess, a very early-stage one.

During the day on Sunday, I gave him a combined TCM formula: Huanglian Jiedu Tang, Baijiangcao–Yiyiren San, Dahuang Mudanpi Tang, and Shaoyao Gancao Tang, along with a cephalosporin antibiotic. His pain eased quickly. We were back to chatting and laughing, mistakenly believing everything would be fine.

Still, I didn’t dare let my guard down. Sunday night, I barely slept, poring over the medical books at home, hoping these references would help me gauge his condition.

I read up extensively on perianal abscesses and learned that if it truly is one, the first-line treatment is radical surgery, followed by comprehensive postoperative therapy to prevent recurrence. Honestly, I couldn’t bear to take risks with my own son; I had to carefully weigh every possible risk. So that night, I had my wife book an appointment online with the Gastroenterology Department at the People’s Hospital, planning to take him on Monday.

Monday morning, after getting up, our son had another bowel movement, and the pain afterward was much milder. Seeing that the treatment was working, I was relieved. Still, out of caution, I decided to take him to the hospital for further evaluation. After a digital rectal exam, the attending doctor also suspected a perianal abscess and ordered a colonoscopy for confirmation. But tertiary hospitals in Beijing are overwhelmed; the exam required a queue and couldn’t be done the same day.

The attending physician told me that perianal abscess cases had been unusually high lately, especially among students and faculty at nearby universities and research institutes, largely due to their sedentary lifestyles. Those with concurrent chronic enteritis face an even higher risk of sudden perianal abscesses.

The attending performed several radical surgeries for perianal abscesses each day, yet his schedule was already booked through October 9; the earliest slot we could get was the afternoon of October 9. Hearing that my son’s symptoms had eased that day, he suggested we continue with oral medication and observation for now; if things worsened, we could return for an incision and drainage to relieve symptoms, with definitive surgery scheduled later. I thought this was a sound plan and followed his advice.

But the two trips to the hospital were rough; both taxi drivers drove over bumpy roads, and the jolting caused our son’s pain to flare dramatically. The burning pain shifted to throbbing. There was no longer any doubt: it was a perianal abscess, and the infected area was likely suppurating.

At home around noon, our son went to the bathroom again and broke into a sweat from the pain; even painkillers didn’t help. We decided not to delay any longer and took him to the hospital for immediate drainage, with definitive surgery to be scheduled later.

Outside the procedure room for incision and drainage, a long line of patients waited for the same operation. Just as the attending had said, at a glance they looked very much like students and researchers from the universities near Beijing’s Xueyuan Road. They’re experts at sitting through long hours on cold benches, unaware that prolonged sitting easily leads to the five classic signs of suppurative inflammation in the anal region: redness, swelling, heat, pain, and functional impairment.

The drainage procedure is straightforward; each one takes only a few minutes. If one were bold enough, one could sterilize a sewing needle at home and puncture the abscess directly to achieve drainage. “Perianal abscess” may sound unfamiliar, but it’s essentially just a suppurative infection around the anus—no different from a boil on the skin.

Almost every patient who finishes the drainage emerges from the procedure room with one hand pressed to the anus and the other braced against the wall, wearing an expression that’s half grimace, half grim smile. Men and women, old and young, tall and short, plump and slender—they all move and look remarkably alike. The family members waiting outside find it both amusing and heartbreaking; they comfort their loved ones while struggling to hold back laughter.

When my son came out, he told me that once the pus was drained, the unbearable pain vanished instantly. The wound pain was nothing to him; he’s always had a high pain tolerance, and the procedure included some local anesthesia. Even so, he could only rest both hands on my shoulders, letting me bear most of his weight to ease his burden as he shuffled forward, step by tiny step.

Relieved of the pain, our son was in good spirits and started cracking jokes as soon as he got out. Although there were partitions in the procedure room, he could still hear the conversations between other patients and the doctor. He said the patient in the next bay was howling in pain, and the doctor reassured him, “That’s nothing. The guy in the next bay will hurt way more in a bit.” My son thought, “Wait, isn’t that me?” He nearly laughed himself into stitches.

A moment later, he asked his doctor, “When will you start cutting my wound?” The doctor replied, “It’s already done! Didn’t you feel it?” And just like that, both patients’ drainages ended amid the doctor’s cheerful banter, the whole thing taking less than five minutes. I understand these joke-loving surgeons; they use humor to distract patients and keep them from getting too tense. If I were the one performing the procedure, I’d probably do the same.

On the way home from the hospital, I told our son, “Son, let’s stop grinding so hard in research. Centuries ago, where did titles like master’s and doctorate come from? We can live perfectly well without them, right? Why sit on cold benches until we get a painfully severe perianal abscess?” But he still couldn’t let go of his dream of earning those degrees, so all I could do was urge him to balance mental and physical work and try to move more.

In truth, I can’t even talk myself out of it; when it comes to sitting on cold benches, I’ve rarely met my match. I started spending my days in the National Library at nineteen and have been at it for more than half my life; most of my free time is spent reading and writing there. On top of that, our family has a history of enteritis; diarrhea is commonplace for us. The slightest hint of unclean food sends me running to the bathroom, so I never eat out casually. These are precisely the high-risk factors for perianal abscess; the only reason I haven’t developed one is sheer luck.

My son’s illness made me realize that our lifestyle is also unhealthy and urgently needs correction. Perhaps because I still enjoy farming—combining mental and physical work—I’ve managed to avoid this condition. In the Xueyuan Road area of Beijing, a hub of senior intellectuals, there are countless sedentary researchers, and far too many of them suffer from this disease. Most of them are male college students in their early twenties; driven by the need to sit for long hours preparing for graduate entrance and civil service exams, and with high sex hormone levels, their incidence of perianal abscess is more than ten times that of the general population. You could say they’ve literally inflamed their way into trouble.

After the drainage, our son could resume normal daily life. I could also temporarily return to school. On Monday afternoon, after my wife and I brought our son home, we agreed that I would go back to campus while my wife took care of him. My heart was heavy with worry for them, but I had no choice but to buy a high-speed rail ticket and head back to class. I’d already taken two and a half days of leave, and I’d need more after the holiday for his definitive surgery. Now, while he was relatively stable, I had to return to make up the missed coursework and finish my studies smoothly.

When I first decided to return to campus to study medicine, my biggest worry was that a family member might fall ill midway, pulling me away and preventing me from completing my degree. Back then, I was most concerned about my father developing a complicated condition; I never imagined my son would suddenly face something like this. But since it has happened, I must accept it and deal with each problem as it comes, carrying these burdens while continuing my studies. I can’t let a small setback make me quit halfway.

A person plays many social roles. To my father, I am a son; to my son, a father; to my wife, a husband; to patients, someone who helps them recover; to relatives and friends, a reliable helper when needed; at school, a student; and to some colleagues who study medicine with me, a teacher.

It’s not easy to play so many roles well, but no matter how hard it gets, we must keep moving forward. Life goes on, and this teamwork must continue. Every time a family member falls ill, I can’t help but sigh: we really must study medicine well. Only by doing so can we safeguard the health of ourselves, our loved ones, and others.

What comforts me is that, throughout this journey, my wife has always helped me resolve so many worries, allowing me to keep going. Without her understanding and support, it would be very hard to see this dream through to the end.

At 8:30 p.m. on Monday, I arrived at school. Evening study hall was still in session; I went to the classroom to finish a lab report, then returned to my dorm for a good night’s sleep. Tuesday morning, I ran 1,500 meters around the track to complete the university’s mandatory “Sunshine Run” for students. After breakfast, I headed back to the classroom to start another round of the cycle.

Life will always have its share of setbacks. What matters most isn’t the unexpected itself, but our ability to put life back in order after it happens.