In 2022, I Did Not Waste a Single Day
At noon on the 29th day of the twelfth lunar month, I finally returned to my long-absent rural hometown. Seeing me, my old father's joy was beyond words.After lunch, my father, my son, and I—three generations—took incense, paper spirit money, firecrackers, and offerings to the family graves on the burial hill. My son can now take on many responsibilities and is brave in shouldering them; he gets along well with his elders. This makes me very gratified; I can finally fully enjoy the happiness of family life.My little nephew is only a few months old and is the family's focus of protection; he has probably not yet caught COVID, so my elder brother's family of three stayed in Shenzhen for the New Year.Although we were not all together as a whole family, we already felt very happy. Under the shock of this wave of epidemic, my father and my mother-in-law came through almost unscathed; that is already our greatest comfort.A few more new graves have appeared on the burial hill. In our village, from last December to this January, five elderly people died of COVID. Three of them had long been bedridden by illness; one was a lymphoma patient approaching eighty.Another, who was both my teacher's wife and my wife's second aunt, had previously been very healthy and could still work the fields at home. While caring for my cancer-stricken first teacher (also my second uncle) in the hospital, she tried to carry him from the corridor into a ward to shelter him from the wind, accidentally fell, and lost consciousness. Examination showed stroke plus myocardial infarction; there was no chance to rescue her, and she passed away.My father pointed to a new grave on the burial hill and told me it was hers. I felt quite sad and silently mourned her at her grave. Ten years ago, after my mother died, one evening I wept alone at my mother's grave. My second aunt's house was not far from my mother's grave; she heard me crying, came over to comfort me, urged me to restrain my grief, and practically dragged me home. Rural elders consider graveyards "unclean" at night, and she was afraid something might happen to me.Our two families' fields were also adjacent; she had watched me grow up and watched me work in the fields since I was small. The feelings among country folk are simple and honest; many old memories are full of human warmth. Recalling these memories, it is hard not to grieve and shed tears.I grew up in a very loving environment. Not only did my parents and teachers love me dearly, but the villagers also gave me simple, honest affection. So for the rest of my life I will feel that the human world is a warm place, and I love this warm human world.As a child I was very naughty and my studies were a complete mess. My father once asked my first teacher (also my second uncle; by family generation he is actually of my grandfather's generation, and my wife would technically be my female cousin once removed, but we are already outside the five degrees of mourning and are not close kin). My father said to him: "Is my youngest son perhaps not cut out for study?"My first teacher at the time told my father very firmly: "Your youngest son's intelligence is rare; his thinking is quick and outstanding. He is just too naughty right now; he will have a very bright future."These words set my father's mind at ease. Our clan also has a tradition of compiling genealogy; when I was in primary school our clan compiled a genealogy. On the genealogy, besides a given name we also had a courtesy name; mine was Qingmin ("clear and quick"). I was of the Qing generation, so the courtesy name had to contain Qing; my father used Min in my genealogy name, probably hoping I would truly be quick-witted all my life.In the blink of an eye, these elders have all grown old, and some have already passed away. Time flies; the boat of life keeps moving forward. They grow old in the years, and we mature into middle age.The middle-aged are the mainstay of family and society. When the wind is high and the waves are rough, we middle-aged must step forward to protect our family, young and old. If we can extend this to others—honor the elders of others as we honor our own, and care for the young of others as we care for our own—and contribute to society as a whole, protecting all living beings, then we can say we have lived this life without shame!So when a person reaches middle age, he should treasure his time and strive forward. At the year's end, taking stock of the past year, what makes me most gratified is that I did not waste a single day. Every day I spent reading, studying, working, and writing; of the 365 days of the year, I did not stop writing for a single day. This requires great self-discipline, and it also comes from the example my parents set for me—because they themselves were hardworking people, I am so diligent.In the first wave of the national epidemic, I did my duty to protect my relatives and friends, my long-term old patients, and their families. I also worked tirelessly to write and promptly publish my treatment experience, helping hundreds of thousands of readers.The epidemic peak has passed, and the severe-illness peak has passed too. Although there are still some severe patients, their daily number is decreasing rather than increasing. I have treated dying critically ill patients who have now basically recovered and gone home for the New Year. The remaining patients with viral pneumonia and various complications also have far more mature solutions than at the start of the epidemic; we can now markedly improve a patient's symptoms in just a few days.One of the sickest patients I treated this time was an 81-year-old with multiple underlying diseases. After COVID infection he had a fever above 39°C for more than a week, was unconscious for days, and was dying; in the hospital he was on critical warning status, and Western medicine had no way to solve his problem.I treated him with Chinese medicine: after one packet his temperature fell, and after several days of treatment he had basically escaped danger, was discharged home for the New Year, and only age-related constipation remained to be resolved.Among long-COVID patients not yet fully recovered, few are as sick as this elderly man. Among cancer patients, even leukemia patients—the most severely affected by COVID—have now turned the corner under my treatment. So there is no need for fear.At first we truly did not understand this disease and feared it, but with care and patience and my usual reservoir of knowledge, the elderly relatives I cared for at home and my cancer patients—as long as I was given the chance to rescue them—were all saved.Those who truly died were unexpected sudden deaths, and I now have a clear understanding of the causes of those sudden deaths and can prevent them. So I hope fellow patients who are recovering will put down their fear, celebrate the New Year well, and know that you will all pull through.I also hope you will understand my unkind behavior during this period. Every day I was thinking only about how to solve the problems of these dying patients; I had no time for anything else, and my energy could not be wasted.The vitality of TCM lies in clinical efficacy. If TCM treatment can bring back to life a patient at death's door, then it will not die. That is why for years I have rarely been drawn into the TCM-versus-Western-medicine debate, and have only buried myself in reading the literature and in clinical practice.I can now say without false modesty that I am one of the TCM practitioners capable of rescuing critically ill patients. This body no longer belongs completely to me and my family; in difficult times, a physician who can rescue the critically ill belongs to the dying. It is my responsibility and obligation to spend my time where it is most valuable.To prevent patients who are not seriously ill from over-occupying my time and crowding out medical resources that can now save lives, I have taken many measures—including quickly deleting contacts and setting a fee threshold, refusing all kinds of mild cases, and reducing all distractions. As for the truly critically ill patients with whom I share mutual trust, I think every hour about how to solve their problems, and the fees for those in difficulty are entirely waived.Our country does not yet have enough doctors capable of rescuing the critically ill. If at a time like this even people like us—who can rescue the critically ill—shirk our duty, take the easy way out, and dare not bear the responsibility of treating severe cases, then no one will be there to hold the bottom line for this society. A society that lacks people to hold the bottom line for life puts ourselves and our families in danger.The next wave of epidemic will not be frightening, because the rescue experience we accumulated in this wave can markedly reduce future mortality and disability. Many doctors are becoming more and more adept at treating COVID patients, with highly accurate medication. Patients infected later are lucky, because doctors now have the ability to make them suffer less.After the New Year I will return to my original direction and continue focusing on cancer research. In rescuing COVID patients this time, I have gained a lot. By applying the various medical knowledge I had previously learned to COVID, I have gained many new insights into medicine, especially a possible major breakthrough in understanding the cancers of the immune system. Next year I will build on this to improve my approach to treating cancer, hoping to let more patients live longer.Finally, I wish everyone a Happy New Year! I also hope that in the new year everyone will strive forward, succeed in their work, and be happy with their families. But I believe that everything requires personal effort, so I also hope everyone will work tirelessly. There is no happiness handed to one on a platter; a good life must be created by oneself.