Someone Has to Push Medicine Forward

Less than a month before my mother’s death, knowing her time was short, she had a conversation with me that deeply moved me. She said: “Son, your father and I owe you an apology. The money and effort we spent raising you are far less than what you have run yourself ragged doing for me and our family over these years. The university you got into was not the one you wanted; we were short-sighted, thought the school looked all right, ignored your interests and ambitions, and refused to let you repeat the year, leaving you chronically frustrated. You have always wanted to study medicine, and I can see medicine truly benefits others and yourself, and that you are suited to it. After I’m gone, you’ll have one less burden; if you want to study medicine, go and study it well.”

In the early hours of May 3, 2012, my mother breathed her last in my arms. The pain of that parting tore at me so badly that I fainted twice. My mother loved me deeply; when I was little she always called me by a nickname that roughly means “my tiny, adorable little clingy one.” The love in that name was immense—a close, unconditional love that accepts a child’s naughtiness, however mischievous or worrisome, without reservation. That nickname also shows how attached I was to my mother and how much affection I received.

I really did give my parents a hard time. At two years old I set our home on fire, leaving the whole family homeless at year’s end. In childhood I was always playing daring games—jumping from tall trees or sliding down steep slopes—and got injured repeatedly, several times needing emergency stitches and tetanus shots; even now I carry several scars on my head and face. My mother told me more than once: “You have no idea how lucky you are to be alive—fire didn’t kill you, drowning didn’t kill you, you weren’t crushed or smashed to death; you frightened people half to death so many times.”

My mother must have worried over me endlessly. I remember once my older brother and I returned by boat from the county town; because the wind was strong, a boat from the neighboring village sank in the middle of the lake. By the time the news reached our village it had become “our village’s boat sank.” My mother scrambled to the lakeside, weeping all the way—both of her beloved sons were on that boat. The moment she saw us safe and sound, tears of joy welled up.

In the eyes of others my life may have been absurd and reckless, but in my mother’s eyes I was always her beloved little son. There was a period when my father, to force me—having dropped out of university—to return and finish, called all our relatives and forbade them to support me financially or let me come home unless I agreed to go back. I stood against my father, refusing to obey; I would rather starve and sleep on the streets than yield.

I suffered many setbacks for this and could not go home for years; at my lowest I had to beg. Only my mother relented. She accepted my rebellious self; though she could not understand why I would not bow to reality, she still loved me. Because of her, when I was on the edge of collapse and suicidal thoughts flashed through me, I stopped myself in time. I told myself: if I died or gave up, my mother’s remaining years would be spent in endless pain; however hard, I had to endure.

Sustained by my ideals and my mother’s love, I actually survived those hardest years. Having endured those setbacks and hardships, many of life’s later difficulties felt trivial. I do not blame my parents for not letting me repeat the year; our family was very poor, and putting two children through university had already pushed the household to the breaking point. But this did not change my life’s calling. After all these years, what I still love most is the life sciences. Where does life come from? Where does it go? How can we lessen the physical and mental suffering of all beings? These are the questions I have always loved to ponder.

The root of this ideal, in fact, lies in my mother’s love; her love was so deep that I love her deeply in return. My mother was a survivor of the great famine, during which she had eaten tree bark and “Guanyin soil” to stay alive; this left her a stomach illness that never healed. From girlhood she suffered from stomach pain and acid reflux, which eventually progressed to stomach cancer. In my childhood, my most painful memory was of my mother vomiting acid water at our doorstep.

My father took my mother to many hospitals, and she took all kinds of Chinese and Western stomach medicines, yet she still suffered recurrent stomach pain and acid reflux. Whenever her pain flared up she would vomit acid at the door and could not eat. Even so, she often cooked for the whole family while ill. When I ate her dinner and saw her vomiting acid outside, I could not swallow. As children, my brother and I would bring food to her bedside and urge her to eat a little; she would lovingly tell us, “You eat, don’t mind me, don’t worry.” Even then I quietly resolved to study medicine well one day and cure my mother’s illness.

Her stomach cancer developed from this long-troubled stomach disease. Only after I grew up did I learn that many of the medicines she took were likely the culprit—the doctors treating her prescribed proton-pump inhibitors most often (rabeprazole, omeprazole, or lansoprazole); after studying medicine I learned that long-term use causes stomach cancer.

My mother lived her whole life with one ailment or another, yet remained an optimist, which is truly remarkable. My maternal grandparents had strong genes: their five children, however hard life was, remained open, cheerful, warm, and generous, always caring for others; being with them was always easy and pleasant.

I inherited my mother’s optimism. After major setbacks I have briefly sunk into pain, but each time I recover quickly on my own and emerge stronger than before. In this my mother and I are alike. Near her end, she arranged her affairs calmly; no one knows a son like his mother. She knew no one could change my calling, so she sat with me and spoke her final hopes and support. In her last days she arranged her own funeral, personally checking her burial clothes and coffin, and spoke of death with a smile. Now I understand her intention: she did not want her passing to bring too much suffering to the family.

Her composure let me make the most rational decision at her final moment. She could still have been resuscitated, but I decided against it. I knew that reviving her would mean months of torment ending in death anyway. In her last months, whenever I stayed to care for her at home for long, she would urge me to leave; she did not want her illness to burden my life. My sister said that after I left, my mother was actually very sad and sometimes missed me with tears.

Three months after my mother’s death, my teacher and I signed a traditional-medicine mentorship agreement under the relevant health regulations and notarized it, shifting from studying medicine to save myself to formal study and certification, planning to devote my later years to clinical practice. Twelve years have passed; having seen much human suffering, my heart has gradually been smoothed by the long river of time.

Over my 45 years, most of my life has been spent witnessing disease torment people, which has bound me to the life sciences. Beginning by sympathizing with my mother, I gradually came to sympathize with all patients—anyone with an ailment of body or mind that cannot easily be cured is so unfortunate. Medicine, this imperfect discipline, is the last straw humans grasp when disease torments them, however weak that straw may be.

Since beginning clinical practice, I have also seen the shortcomings of both traditional and modern medicine, often watching helplessly as one life after another slips away before my eyes, watching the bereaved walk the very roads I once walked. The greatest pain in the world is losing someone we love deeply; only those who have known this can feel it.

Having followed my teacher in clinics for over a decade, I have known so many disappointments, and every death and suicide I have witnessed has touched me deeply: Why must all beings suffer such profound pain? Can we possibly push medicine forward to rescue more suffering creatures? I am an atheist who firmly believes in science; I always believe science and medicine will progress, and that only progress can reduce the physical and mental suffering we all bear.

Compared with the vast universe, our lives are brief and tiny; yet for each being, the joys and sorrows, partings and reunions of a lifetime are utterly real and deep. There are so many diseases in the world, and disease is one of the chief sources of human suffering. Someone has to study medicine, and someone has to push medicine’s progress.

At 45 I am still young, with infinite possibilities ahead. My greatest hope for the future is to take part in advancing human medicine, bringing forth the new from the old and achieving something on this road—to contribute to improving the quality of life of those I love and of others’ loved ones. A person who has been deeply loved is fated to love this world deeply in return.

I have now decided to leave work to study medicine full-time and return to university for a few more years, because the “right time, right place, and right people” have all come together. I once went through mentorship procedures to get a certificate; now I want to study seriously for a few years because clinical practice has shown me how far my knowledge falls short, and I need to settle down and read. Life is still long; barring accident, I can work until at least 70, and I will meet more patients. I must keep improving to solve more problems.

Lacking ambition is a great waste of life. In anything one does, perseverance and continuous progress are needed. The life sciences require the lifelong effort of many people to advance. I once felt my life had more twists than others, but now I am grateful for fate’s arrangement. Precisely because my experiences have been richer and more winding, when I now set out to do something, my mind is far less cluttered. All the worldly splendor has passed like a cloud; this old monk can finally enter meditation, living only for that one simple goal, no longer looking left and right.