Mochi rice, hijiki with garbanzo beans, lightly steamed snow peas, miso soup, and a whole mackerel. I sat down to this meal and felt for the first time, in almost two years, that I was well. My friend from school was there and, looking at this spread, all he said was, “you have a good woman.” And I did – not in some pejorative sense – but a person who was taking care of me and I of her. She had taught me so much about my health – how to live a more moderate life, how to enjoy this food from her home country of Japan, and how to eat according to my body’s needs.

6 months earlier

I was at the end of my second semester of chinese Medicine school, everything was collapsing, and I was going to have to transfer. The school was losing its accreditation, mostly because it looked like a forgotten outpost of Cultural Revolution – yellowed walls, weeds filling the parking lot, and crumbling stucco. Some classrooms could not be entered without crossing through other classrooms. Some classrooms were tiny boxes. The bureaucrats were throwing up their hands, but they missed that this was actually an incredible college. They didn’t notice that every teacher there had been a top teacher or researcher, coming from various prestigious medical schools in China. At those schools, competition for a slot didn’t number in the thousands, it numbered in the millions. These doctors were willing to put down their career in China for a teaching visa in the US. So within that falling down college, I met some of the brightest people I have ever known.

I volunteered to be assessed, as a Guinea Pig, for one of our classes. The teacher – Dr. Liu – did the whole workup in front of everyone, and I felt quite embarrassed. At that point my 6’3” frame was holding barely 120 lbs. How could someone so unhealthy be pursuing a career in this field? Then Dr. Liu wrote the herbal formula that would change my life. 

6 months earlier

I walked in late to my first semester class on “Chinese Medicine and Psychology.” Sitting along one wall, distant from the rest of the group, was a young Japanese woman who I had never met before. To this day, I have no idea why I did or said this. It wasn’t in my character to be rude – plus I had even walked into class late – but I said to her, “If you’re going to visit this classroom you’re going to have to come and sit here with the rest of us.” Then I pulled out a chair and put it next to mine. She thought I was a skinny punk, and she liked one of my friends much better. He also pulled out a chair, and that’s the one she took.

Thinking about it now, I was feeling so unwell. There was a constant feeling of fullness that I couldn’t escape. There were still very few foods that I could reliably eat. I was tense, unfocused, and pressuring myself to memorize every bone and muscle in the body (among other things). As classmates, we were learning to palpate, but my hands were the temperature of ice – always. Entering that school and taking on the four year commitment had been decided in only two months, and I wasn’t ready.

2 months earlier

Some things just shouldn’t be shared. Turning one’s life into a commodity or category, well, it isn’t for me. It was summer 2002. I had been up late reading a forum for IBS sufferers, and I could relate to them so much. I remember I was reading the emotional writing of a mother who could not put her children on her lap because of her severe bloating. Suddenly, something occurred inside of me that I’ll never forget. It was visceral. The end result is what matters. I instantly saw the world in a completely different way, and I knew that I had to start studying medicine. For about five minutes I wanted to go to standard medical school, but then I remembered that standard medicine had not helped me at all. Clearly, it wasn’t helping people on the IBS forum either.

My neighbor was attending a chinese Medicine school on the outskirts of town. The next morning I knocked on her door. For the most part, we assume that successful people try to lead their lives. However, when things are out of control, sometimes it is better to let your life lead you. 

2 months earlier

The doctor came to tell me that my tests were negative. She was the third doctor I had been to, and I was reaching a tipping point. I blurted out about my life to her and how unlivable it had become – how my basic functions were uncontrollable – how I had lost so much weight. I was exasperated, desperate even. We made eye contact, and she grinned for a moment, just a little, but it said everything to me. I perceived that she smiled at my pain. It was her defense. She found me cute and outside of her responsibility, since all the tests had been negative after all. 

I’ve often wondered at the difference between people in this same situation. Many people have experienced something similar. Some people double or triple or quadruple down on standard medicine. They go to other doctors, even the Mayo clinic, looking for that answer. I didn’t. For me, the illusion had been cracked. It was like Humpty-Dumpty. For the first time, I opened a little wider to let something broader come into my life. Despite misgivings and doubt, I called an acupuncturist.

My acupuncturist was experienced. This was my luck. He had started his training and practice in the late 70’s, when doing so was still illegal. Today, I have a mixed-feeling about practitioners like this. They were pioneers, but they learned at a time when information was limited and poorly translated. However, my acupuncturist had learned from an actual Japanese sensei. He was – and not everyone is – a real healer. Similar to the dilapidated school I would later attend, his office was old wood panel with documents and licenses carelessly thrown into cheap frames. He wrote on a government desk from the 1950’s.  

I lay down and when I left forty-minutes later, I felt like I was on another planet – completely spaced out. Sleep was the only option. The next day, my bloating had reduced by fifty-percent, and my bowels were moving. I was so happy that I went out and pounded a hamburger – big mistake.

6 months earlier

I worked at a shop restoring antique furniture from Europe. It would come in by the truckload, in all sorts of condition. One day, I was waxing a piece when the most horrendously smelling gas came from my body. It filled the two-thousand square foot building in seconds. My boss came from the back with an intense look of anger on his face, as if I had violated some sacred code among men. From that day forward, I worked only outside, and it was winter. 

My coworker was a retiree, who had been independently wealthy since leaving the stock market game when he was only thirty-five. He told me about his golfing buddy, the gastroenterologist. “Bo will fix you,” he smiled at me broadly, and so I scheduled that day.

Well, Bo didn’t fix me. Instead he gave me Flagyl. This powerful antibiotic, meant for bacteria and even parasites turned my world upside down. It’s for this reason that I suspect that I developed SIBO, even though no one was testing for it back then. What I can say with certainty is that everything became worse. This was when I developed bloating, nausea, intolerance to most foods, highly variable stools, and later, depression. 

3 months earlier

My small, underground publication failed. The artist’s cooperative along with it had dispersed. 9/11 was going to be the topic of our next issue, and we felt passionate about it, but funds had been depleted, and I was broke. People stopped coming around. I took the last bit of money I had and recklessly paid off the rest of my undergraduate student loan. Determined not to reach out to my parents, I worked as a bell ringer for the Salvation Army that holiday season. They paid me $7.15 an hour and gave me a baloney sandwich every day. Standing outside while ringing a tiny bell, for forty-hours a week, drove me insane, but when I was picked up by the van, the other guys would talk about how it was the best job they had ever had: “Man, all you have to do is stand there!” Most of these guys were homeless. Financially, I barely made it through.

Today

At this point, I’ve pushed to have a career in chinese Medicine, and it hasn’t been easy. As a profession (and society), we haven’t come as far as we could have, since the late 1970’s. By treating those who came for help and sharing as often as I could, I’ve treated thousands of people. My estimate, from a few years ago, is that I’ve designed and assembled more than ten thousand custom herbal formulas for patients. For me, the opportunity to do this work is the meaning behind my illness.

A number of people have asked me to explain how I “got better” using TCM or even asked “what did you take?” Really, those sorts of questions have prompted this post. The formula by Dr. Liu, all those years ago, was a starting point, but it wasn’t a final answer. We aren’t static, and what we need changes, even from week to week. You don’t set a boat on the river and then just let go, do you, with no one steering? We’re also all unique in our health problems, and TCM follows the precept of “same disease, different treatment.” So, from these points of view, sharing the details of Dr. Liu’s formula doesn’t matter to helping others, not one little bit.

In hindsight, if I had known what I know now, I could have healed myself in a week or two, at least before I took the Flagyl. My digestive problem was actually stress-induced, incurred through the loss of my project, my friends, and my savings. However, Flagyl took my issues to another level, causing a real organic imbalance. Today, I would have treatment for this circumstance too, but back then, I was a rat in a maze. I lost trust in gastroenterology – because of this experience – but also because of the experiences of many of my patients, over the years. Except in acute cases, the profession of gastroenterology is far less substantial than it seems to be.

The Japanese young woman from class miraculously became my girlfriend and then my wife, and we have a daughter together. Dr. Liu moved on, and the last I heard of him, he was practicing somewhere in the US. Neither of the friends that I mentioned became successful practitioners, although they both had intelligence and talent. 

If you’re lost, try following something deeper inside of yourself. It isn’t easy. Actually, it can be quite terrifying to take control away from your conscious mind. However, we are not just our consciousness. The path may meander, but as studies with robots have shown, programming them to directly go towards an exit does not get them through a complex maze. Other computer research has shown that – in most cases – the right stepping stone does not reveal itself as a logical choice until after we are standing upon it. 

Best regards to all of those who are suffering from a chronic illness right now. I have some understanding and wish you the best.