I Got Angry Because There was No Result For My Patient

An 80-year old patient came to see me. He had fallen off a roof sometime ago and still experienced pain.  I tried very hard to help him, but without result.  I consulted many medical books but none of them provided information that could help me treat him.  I am always able to break difficult cases so when  my patients do not get better I really feel it, and that is why I have chosen the word ‘angry.’  The Chinese character for ‘anger’ depicts a flower blossom fully extended, and this is how I felt, really – my frustration was extended to the extreme.

I kept trying to understand why I could not help my patient get better.  If there was a bone fracture, modern science could identify it, and if there was a bruise from the fall, my herb could disperse it. If poor circulation, acupuncture could improve it, if a tightened muscle, massage could release it.  There are many problems resulting from life in the modern world that I can help but in this case, how come my patient did not feel better?  (Of course, there are some patients who even though their pulse gets better and their face looks better, they can’t admit they are getting better; these patients need to see a psychologist.)

One morning I was in my back yard thinking about this difficult case.  I discovered a piece of water pipe that had already oxidized.  It looked like a piece of soil, and when I stepped on it and pressed it, it almost merged into the soil.  Suddenly I realized how come I was not able to help my senior patient.  Probably due to his old age, his muscles and blood vessels and tissues were already disintegrating.  They could not take the help from the acupuncture treatment and the herbs. In TCM, some herbs can make your energy better, some herbs can make your blood circulation better, some herbs can bring relief from pain, some herbs can even make even your tiny blood vessels better, and even if you have injured or bruised your bone, there are herbs which can help heal.

In ancient times, when the doctors use the words “difficult to treat” it meant that curing the patient’s condition was unlikely, and perhaps it was even beyond repair.  I believe that my patient’s body was not able to respond to the treatment due to old age, but I kept questioning myself.  Perhaps my skill was not deep enough to know what caused the pain, or perhaps my patient did not allow me enough time to improve his body and his circulation.  If his blood vessels gradually became better, who knows, maybe he could have become better, but as things stand, a high percentage of my patients do not allow me enough time to improve their condition; sometimes they live far away or are unable to afford prolonged treatment.

The old patient’s wife also had pain and had been unable to receive help from many different kinds of treatment.  A government agent gave special permission for her to take a certain kind of medicine which stopped her pain.  I remember that the liquid medicine came from a brown colored bottle which indicated it was for animal use only.  Through successive treatments I was able to make her body better, so she gave me the bottle of medicine to remember her by, and I kept if for many years.