Free clinic

If you have read my very first blog story in August, you'd know that I was born a premature kid. For a very long time, my mom thought I had hernia. Sure, my bollocks were not balanced (a condition I put down to development, not affliction). In time, I would be proven right. Nevertheless, my mom took this one symptom of hernia and named it upon me. So growing up, I was constantly advised not to exert or strain myself too much. I sometimes believed erroneously that my good testicle would overwork and burst like a shower, leaving me an eunuch with a woman-like voice. Ah doi! Fortunately, I was an active kid and proved many times that I could run, jump and roll around as well as any non-hernia boy. The affliction thus became non-physical, more like a mysterious rash that needed to be gotten rid of. I did what every filial son would do: oblige my goodhearted mom and consume her various medical concoctions without complaint. It was the same with the many trips to the Chinese "yee sung" or doctors, and to the TCM shops to buy Lo Fu Nai, or Tiger's Milk (see first blog entry, A Premature Baby). I liked getting out of the house so it was not an issue for me to run about here and there. Plus, going out with my mom, there would always be something new to eat. In Geylang, there was a popular free Chinese clinic somewhere along Lor 20 or thereabouts. It was not exactly free but a visit with prescribed medicine cost only 10 cents. It was only 5 cents if you had brought back an empty medicine bottle to recycle. Because it was so cheap, my mum would bring us many siblings there whenever we were sick. The medicines we got back from that dispensary were often in solution form and dark brown. That colour itself set alarm bells going. It meant that the meds would be face-scrunchingly bitter to swallow. They always were. However, my mom would afterwards mollify us with a bit of preserved fruit to help chase that bitter taste away. Or it would a small packet of stringy stuff that my sister YF liked. But that's TCM. If it wasn't bitter, it wouldn't be Chinese medicine. (Today, they add fruit peel extract to make it palatable, especially for young children) Sometimes we kids would go back to the clinic ourselves to take home additional medicines. On several occasions, I remember being chased by geese that wandered about the area. It wasn't in Lor 20 but a couple of streets away along a path that ran parallel to a block of apartments some four to five storeys high. It was painted in light blue. Always there's this one aggressive gander that did the posturing, chasing and pecking. The rest of the flock just followed his lead. If we were sick and needed a Western doctor, my mom would bring us to Phang Clinic. This clinic was situated along Geylang Road somewhere between Lor 27A and Lor 28 and run by a GP and his kind and elegant wife. We became their regular patients and they became good friends with my mom. We stayed in touch even after we had moved away from Geylang. Whenever my mom visited her medium friend in Marine Parade, she would also drop by to see Dr Phang and his wife. They were a nice, patient couple with no airs about them. Like my mom, Dr Phang's wife was also interested in jade. Despite the many changes in Geylang over the years, Phang Clinic remained in its location for a long long time. I think it closed only quite recently or had moved away from its present location. I don't see the clinic these days when I drive along Geylang Rd. However, I can still locate it on Google Map. Visiting Dr Phang's clinic, I did not just get better educated on health and hygiene matters. The good doctor liked to read National Geographic and would put issues he had read out in his clinic's waiting area. NG was not a common magazine then. It was expensive whether new or old. As a kid, I've seen old copies being sold at Sungei Road Market. The pictures of exotic animals and tribes would fascinate me, not to mention the well- illustrated infographics. There were the odd pull-out and extra posters. Having been an oft-patient of these two schools of medicine, I've developed an open mind towards their methods and cures. Of late, I liked TCM better because it has improved a lot. It could cure the many general illnesses that plague us as quickly as 'targeted' Western medicine could. In other words, TCM too have their 'Panadol' quick cures. As a Chinese, I think TCM works better with my body's constitution. In any case, I'm used to it, whether it is to swallow a bunch of small round pills or to consume a concoction brewed out of herbs. A recent bout of illness convinced me that TCM deserves better respect. In many crucial areas like eczema, high fever, internal injuries and spinal nerve rebuilding, TCM triumphs over Western med. But because TCM is still seen as a non-targeted remedy, some folks consider it more 'feel' than science. But in truth TCM do have many targeted cures. If you are sick, it can send you right back to work after a couple of days of MC. You need not lie in bed to wait for that bowl of medicine - a scene commonly played out in Chinese stories and movies. Few people die or have allergies to TCM. Some years ago, I mysteriously came down with a cough after eating some chilli. I was very surprised as I am a frequent chilli and curry eater. I seldom also if ever come down with cough or sore throat before. As a matter of fact, I consider myself as someone with a rather strong and resilient throat. I don't smoke or drink and lead a rather healthy lifestyle. So for this to happen it was extremely puzzling and distressing. In any case, the cough got very bad, especially at night. It became phlegmy and gave me a headache too, not to mention chest pains from some very bone-wracking coughs. I could not eat anything that was oily, chilli, curry, coffee or chocolate. Each time I did, my throat would irritate and produce phlegm. It went on for two long years. During this time I researched on the web a lot and learnt to make various nourishment soups. But while they seemed to work for other people with chronic coughs, they had no effect on me. In between soups, I went to see my GP. As expected, he gave me all kinds of cough syrup and antibiotics but none worked. In the end, he was so desperate he asked if I would try asthma medicine. I told him no. I might have had hernia but I definitely knew that I did not have asthma. So I stopped seeing him. It was about then that I decided to see my Chinese doctor, someone I knew since my teens. But good as he was, I did not agree with his diagnosis. He kept insisting that I was 'heaty' because of the type of phlegm. I'm no young punk; I ought to know if I was heaty or not. I also do not consume fried foods very much. In the end, I ate half the medicines he gave me and found them quite useless. I threw the rest away. One day, while travelling past a block of flats, I saw a Chung Hwa Free Clinic sign. It made me smile as I remembered the free clinic of my youth. (I think that old clinic was run by Red Swastika or some "man zhi wooi" society) And then it occurred to me to go see them about my cough. I knew they were a big chain with many clinics so maybe within that population of doctors, one might know a cure to my condition! It turned out to be quite the perceptive idea. I visited a Chung Hwa free-clinic near my home. I am not sure if it was serendipity or pure luck, but the first doctor I saw actually solved my problem. He prescribed me some Western-looking capsules (read: C-A-P-S-U-L-E-S, not brown pellets) and a bottle of greenish brown solution. After four days, the pills worked. My cough and phlegm were both gone. That night, I slept like I've never slept before. I was so happy I could just hug that Chinese doctor who treated me. Kiss him even. If I had known of these pills earlier, I wouldn't have had to suffer so much the last two years. However, happy as I was, my condition did not go away completely. It came back some months later after eating those oily and hot stuff. So I had to take those capsules again. They worked each time. Eventually I met a sensible doctor who suggested that I might be lacking in complex B vitamins. So I took a course of it and was soon back to my old curry self again. The throat was no longer sensitive and I was for once completely free to eat and drink anything under the sun. But not coffee. I had completely given up coffee in the previous two years. It now tasted offensive and weird, except for expresso, my old-time favorite. So my question at the time was: How could these TCM capsules work so well whilst the rest can't? I checked the container label at the Chung Hwa dispensary and found that the pill itself had only three ingredients. The first two were common herbs found in over-the-counter cough syrups and in cough sweets such as Hacks. The third was a surprise: it was pig's gall. It's not a misprint. If you break open the capsule and smell the brown powder inside, it is pig's gall. So how did it work? I don't know. I doubt the doctor who prescribed it to me knew. He was actually an expert in cupping and acupuncture. But I guess if one were to dig deeper, there must have been a concoction in the past that used pig's gall to treat sensitive throats. TCM is not hocus-pocus. It's an art and science that has a long established history. Just as pig gall worked, maybe that stuff called Tiger's Milk my mom spent good money on when I was a kid was no fantasy herb. It might not have cured my so-called hernia but it gave me back a testicle. I am now as endowed and balanced as Nature intended. Roarrrrrr! Amen to that. Note: Those TCM capsules that I was prescribed were prescription only; they cannot be bought from the local TCM shop. (Trust me, I tried - in the whole of Yishun). Because they were so effective, Chung Hwa clinics would always run out of them. When I was coughing again, I would actually call the clinic first to check on stock before popping by.