It was in 2003, the third day of the Chinese New Year. A Mercedes Benz came and stopped at our hospital. A group of people alighted from the car. At that time Dr. Niu was attending to a patient in a consultation room. He noticed that among them, there was the son-in-law of one old lady, Mdm. Cheng, who died in our hospital few days ago. “Are they coming to create trouble in the hospital?” Dr. Niu asked himself. Before he could think any further, the men were in front of him. The son-in-law of the old lady took out a bannerette and presented it to Dr. Niu solemnly. In the bannerette were these words: “Dedicated and Honorable Profession, People-Centred Service, Skillful and of high Morality and Exemplary Standards”. “Thank you Doctor, thanks to all of you for helping to prolong the life of my mother-in-law for another one and a half years; this had enabled her to live her remaining life happily and allowed us to show her our love and care as expected of us!” Dr. Niu was greatly touched; Family members of a dead patient presented a bannerette to the doctor? This was never heard of!
It was sometime either in June or July, 2003. Our hospital had just been newly established. A young couple from Shenzhen came to see me. They were introduced by a relative of mine from Shanghai who was residing in Shenzhen. They told me that the girl’s mother, Mdm. Chang from Shanghai, 71 years old, was diagnosed with lung cancer and metastasis of the brain and bone. I looked at her CT films and noticed her lungs were almost full of tumors. MRI films showed that there were multiple brain metastases. She had undergone courses of chemotherapy and radiotherapy but without any improvement. Due to the brain metastases, she had acute headache; the bone metastases made her unable to walk. To her, days seemed like years. They had brought her to consult many doctors and all of them said that the old lady had only a few more months to live. The wife, the daughter of the old lady, told me that her mother, Mdm Chang, became a widow at a very early age. Mdm Chang worked very hard and single-handedly raised all her and her younger sister up. She and her husband were operating a factory in Shenzhen and her younger sister was working in Singapore; life was getting better and better each day for them. Now, before they could fully repay the old lady for all her sacrifices to raise them up, themother was coming to the end of her life. The young couple begged me earnestly to help to prolong the old lady’s life; even half a year would be very good, as they would like her to see the birth of her grandson.
We gave the old lady a comprehensive treatment of Chinese medicine and Western medicine. Her condition improved and she recovered. The cancer seemed to have fully retreated. After knowing that her sickness had gone into remission, the old lady and her daughter treasured the valuable remaining time that they had together. They went back to their hometown in Shanghai, visited the old lady’s daughter in Singapore, travelled to countries in South-East Asia, visited friends and relatives in Shenzhen, played mahjong, chic chatted with friends and tasted all types of Chinese food and delicacies. Everything was going well until a few days before the Chinese New Year 2003 when the old lady suddenly experienced breathing difficulty and her brain tumor ruptured.