This happened before Fuda Cancer Hospital was set up.
On 21st July 1998, a group of medical specialists led by Professor Wei Bei Hai, Chairman of Digestive Disease Committee of the Association of Integrative Medicine, went to the People’s Hospital in Lianjiang City in Guangdong, to give free medical consultations. In the morning, the lobby of the outpatient department was full of patients. A thin middle-aged man squeezed through the crowd and came to the consultation desk and gave me a pack of CT films. I studied the films and found that he had two intrahepatic lesions. He told me emotionlessly that he had advanced liver cancer and was given interventional therapy four times previously but there was the cancer recurrence again. He said he was waiting for his death, and just to come and asked whether I had any idea. His attitude showed that he was frustrated and there was considerable mistrust. I thought for a while and replied him that we could use radiofrequency therapy to get rid of the tumours. He asked whether he had to pay for the treatment and I nodded my head. Upon hearing that he took his CT films and walked away without saying a word.
Throughout the morning, vivid pictures of the man kept flashing back in my mind. During lunch, I asked the local doctors whether anyone of them knew him. A hospital’s driver told me that the man, surnamed Mo, was a secondary teacher in a nearby farm. He had been sick for half a year. His colleagues in school and students had donated money and he himself had also borrowed some money to seek treatment. Now Mo was heavily in debt and everybody tried to avoid him fearing that he would borrow money from them. When we heard that there was a sudden silence. I felt sad and offered to provide medical treatment to Mo at a reduced rate. The driver at once rushed to inform Mo about this. However, Mo did not turn up in the afternoon.
That night, the thought of Mo still occupied my mind. I asked the driver to look for Mo again. The driver was less enthusiastic than he was this afternoon. He said. “You only agreed to reduce the treatment costs but he still cannot afford that.” I grasped it and decided to offer him free treatment. I asked Xiao Fang, the reporter of the Liangjian Newspaper, for help. Xiao Fang looked for the publicity chief of the municipal council who, in turn, approached the Education Director. The Education director contacted the secretary of the farm who then told the school principal. The next day afternoon the principal brought Mo to the People’s Hospital for CT and ultrasound B examinations. Professor Wei gathered all of us to examine Mo. Now Mo began to realize our sincerity.
A week later, Mo was admitted into the hospital in Shenzhen where I served. Professor Yuan Aili and I performed percutaneous radiofrequency therapy on Mo. On 13th September 2001 soon after the Teachers’ Day was over, the Nanfang Daily published news on Mok’s return to teaching; Jade TV of Hong Kong also broadcasted a special programme on Mok entitled “New Lease of Life for a Village Teacher”. In 2002, another three tumours were detected in Mo’s liver. I asked him to come to Guangzhou and gave him percutaneous intratumor ethanal injection and cryosurgical ablation.
Mok and I become good friends. I gave him my old clothes which he accepted happily. He also asked me to help his son, a freah graduate, to find a job. Before the Spring Festival in 2003, he came for medical review and showed us photos of him teaching in his school and riding a bicycle. We were very happy to see all was well with him. It has been five years since the time of treatment in 1998, or nearly seven years since the time he was first diagnosed with liver cancer, the king of cancer as it was known more than ten years ago. Seeing that Mok, an advanced liver cancer patient, has returned to teaching gave me a great sense of accomplishment during that year’s Spring Festival.