XXVIII. Adventures in Healing, Part Three

Back in Dharamsala, at the Tibetan Medicine Clinic, I sat in a large, bare room along with two dozen sick Indians and exiled Tibetans, lined up on long wooden benches. I felt deathly ill, yet I was still compelled to try an exotic cure. After a reasonable wait, for India, I saw who I assumed to be the doctor. I saw no reason to ask for his credentials, I wouldn’t have been able to read them if he had them. Like the wizened Chinese healer before him, he examined my tongue, my eyes, and my pulse. He opened a drawer and pulled out a small manila envelope. It better not be Contac again, I thought. The envelope contained greenish-black spheres resembling rabbit pellets of varying sizes. I was told, through an elaborate series of hand to mouth gestures, that I was to take five of the small pills in the morning, three of the large in the afternoon, and again five small ones in the evening. I was reasonably certain that the doctor wanted me to chew them up thoroughly rather swallow them whole.

As I left, I noticed several patients examining the contents of their envelopes. We all had the same medicine. Western, left-brained suspicion raised its ugly head. We couldn’t all have the same disease. Just what were these pills? But I quickly brushed my doubts aside – I wanted to believe. It was an Eastern disease. Surely, the best treatment would be Eastern. Besides, the clinic was only charging me a dollar. I had nothing to lose.

I began my treatment that evening, dutifully chewing up five small orbs. They had a dry, pungent flavor, stirringly redolent of match heads and feces. This is the taste of you getting better, I told myself. I would say they finished well, but they wouldn’t finish. They stuck to my teeth, coating them with greenish-black slime. I spent the better part of the night trying to lick all the slime off. Of course, I could have just brushed my teeth and gotten rid of that horrible, lingering flavor, but that was not the way I was brought up. I always did what the doctor told me (whether I was certain he was a doctor or not, apparently).

After too many days of chewing and licking, the medicine was finished, but my affliction persisted. I felt it best to leave Dharamsala and return to the medicine of my people. I took the VIP bus to the big city. I usually traveled third class, convincing myself that I was a “live like the locals” kind of traveler (read: cheap), but I was sick. The inch of padding in the seats was worth the two extra dollars.

As soon as I stepped into the clean, air-conditioned lobby of the hospital, I felt a bit better. The kindly, English-fluent doctor, with his reassuring diplomas on the wall, gave me a thorough, and thoroughly modern, examination (He had a stethoscope! He took my blood pressure! He asked me my symptoms!). He gave me an injection and prescribed a course of antibiotics. Within a day, maybe two, the vomiting, diarrhea and sulfurous belching had ceased and my appetite returned. I felt alive again, energized. I celebrated with a luxurious and satisfying Indian Thali, at the end of which, I toasted the marvels of modern Western medicine with a cup of Marsala Chai.

I never found out exactly what my illness was or what was in those Tibetan rabbit shit pellets. But to be completely honest, I didn’t know what was in the injection the doctor gave me. Or what antibiotics really are. Or Contac, for that matter. When it comes to my health, my precious, precious health, I take an awful lot on faith.

XXVII. Adventures in Healing, Part Two

My incursions into the world of holistic health maintenance were not restricted to merely visiting apothecaries and clinics. While living in Malaysia, I got heavily into Tai Chi and, to my surprise, became a vegetarian. Living meatlessly came relatively easy. In fact it was basically forced upon me, being that I was staying at the Penang temple/headquarters of The International Society for Krishna Consciousness. No, I hadn’t gone that far. I was there strictly for the free room and board, and for the local Tai Chi master who came to give lessons. There were, however, certain daily obligations I had to fulfill in return: waking up at 4:30 for morning services, working for a couple of hours, usually gardening or chopping vegetables, then joining in evening services. I had no qualms about singing and dancing, I quite enjoyed it, but the sermons – literalist interpretations of the Bhagavad-Gita – proved a tad difficult, particularly when they sought my participation in the inevitable discussion that followed. I was diplomatic; I didn’t want to lose a free bed or the surprisingly tasty meals.

Given the free room and board, a large number of hippie travelers passed through the temple, and virtually every one of them had some kind of advice on Living Clean and Karmically: raw foods, food combining, fruitarianism, fasting, colon cleansing, and on and on and on. Given how skinny and listless they generally were, it was a wonder anyone in their right mind would listen to them. But I did… I was on A Path.

When I got my first boil, the hippies assured me that it was just my body ridding itself of toxins. When a boil on my arm grew large enough to turn heads, a doctor from the local clinic, an Indian woman who occasionally visited the temple for the free feasts, ordered me immediately to her office, where she lanced the beast. The massive crater it left turned even more heads and occasionally elicited gasps. I was prepared to tell anyone who asked that it was a bullet wound.

It had been suggested by one of the travelers that perhaps I needed to go even further with my purification. He shared with me his method for fast, cheap and easy colon cleansing: drink a half-gallon of prune juice all at once. That was all there was to it, he instructed, just do it on a day when I had nowhere I had to be, and to make sure I had quick, all-day access to a toilet. The next morning, after services, instead of eating breakfast, I chugged down the juice. I sat down, not knowing what to expect, and certainly not expecting what was to come.

First, there was a light gurgling, followed by sounds I can only describe as hundreds of tiny souls shrieking, yearning to be set free from my digestive tract. While this persisted for several minutes, I amused myself by imagining a reworking of Horton Hears a Who. Then a low rumble and a pressing sensation began to build deep in my intestines. I felt it best to repair to my designated stall – a seldom used squat toilet in a corrugated tin shack behind the temple. I bolted the door, dropped my shorts, squat down and waited. But not for long.

It came out. I mean it all came out, as if every meal I ever ate in my life gushed out of me, with such speed and force that I was halfway lifted out of my squat. When the surge ebbed, I caught my breath and, once certain it was over, washed myself out with the small water bucket by the side of the toilet. I turned to examine my excretions. It was literally the largest load of crap I had ever produced (save the comments). It was as big as any of the elephant turds I used to pass (by) in the jungle. Upon closer inspection, I spied what I believed to be an undigested bean sprout. That’s odd, I thought, undigested bean sprouts usually don’t wiggle. I poured some water over it to get a better look. It was pale, semi-translucent white and long, maybe eight to ten inches. I fished it out and rinsed it off, along with my fingers. I was rather proud of it. I had to show it to all my hippie advisors. (Look what came out of me!) They were less than interested, one might say a bit squeamish, in fact. They don’t make hippies like they used to, I lamented.

I spent the rest of the day in and out of the toilet. None of the subsequent visits held the same impact, but I was continually surprised that there was still anything left inside of me. The next day, I returned to the doctor and showed her the worm, now safely stored in a baggie. (Naturally, I felt it necessary to bring it for an accurate diagnosis.) She donned a pair of surgical gloves, seized the baggie from my hand and tossed it in with some medical waste. She gave me a shot and enough pills to kill off any eggs that I might be harboring. As I thanked her and left, she merely shook her head in a manner which suggested that I confirmed everything she had long suspected of Westerners. I never saw her at the temple again.

To be continued…

XXVI. Adventures in Healing, Part One

I don’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t thinking. I was hiking in the foothills of the Himalaya and I passed a stream. I knew I shouldn’t. I was usually very careful about this sort of thing, but it looked so cool and clear and clean and I was thirsty. This flowing stream that trickled off the glistening snowcaps of a holy and legendary mountain range, how could it possibly be unclean?

Two days later, I was curled up and moaning on the bathroom floor of my hotel in Dharamsala. My bowel movements had, shall we say, tremendous gusto, and I was vomiting at fairly frequent intervals. My belly felt bloated and I continuously belched sulfur. When I was strong enough to get up off the floor, and eventually out the door, I went searching for medical help. The first place I found was the Tibetan Medicine Clinic. I didn’t want to walk too much farther, and I felt it might be a good idea to try something holistic. After two years in Asia, I was rapidly becoming one of those travelers, the kind who embraced everything and anything Eastern and rejected harmful, left-brained, Western ways.

I had gone native once before, while wandering through China. My nose had become congested. It was really nothing at all, really, but when I passed the weathered, wooden doors of a Traditional Chinese Apothecary, I thought it would be an interesting opportunity. An old man welcomed me from behind a huge, ornately carved desk. He came straight from central casting. He wore an ankle-length black robe with a Mandarin collar and had a mole on his face sprouting two long and wiry hairs. He didn’t speak any English, but it didn’t matter. I merely pointed to my nose and tried to inhale. He came from behind the desk, examined my eyes and my tongue, and then took my pulse, TCM style – three long, bony fingers on my wrist. He wrote something in Chinese with a small calligraphy brush, then rummaged through the hundreds of tiny drawers behind the desk, muttering and humming to himself while I waited, hoping for something cool and exotic like Deer Antler fuzz or dried Tiger Penis.

He found what he was looking for. With a small flourish, he handed me a box of Contac cold capsules.

To be continued…