2022

Monday’s historic city council vote unanimously approving $15/hour minimum wage was meant to reduce growing income inequality in Seattle.

But one group has been particularly outspoken in opposition to the wage hike — immigrant small business owners.

“I think it is unreasonable. The cost of my restaurant is rising rapidly and I nearly do not earn money now,” said Jason Lee, the owner of the China First restaurant in the U District. “If it rises, I will definitely cut current positions and condense in all kinds of ways.”

Other small companies — from mom and pop restaurants to Subway franchises to small stores — have all voiced similar concerns and complaints about the new minimum wage, projected to be the highest in the country once implemented. They claim having to pay their few employees the increased wage will be a severe financial challenge, leading to tougher living conditions for the owners themselves, or even the closure of their businesses altogether.

“The increase may make my business close,” said Sanjay Bhadu, owner of Jucivana Smoothies and Coffee. “At least I will reduce hours of full-time employees and increase drinks’ price.”

Bhadu came to the U.S. from India 17 years ago seeking the American Dream. His drive-up juice bar in the international district now has just one full-time employee other than Bhadu. But after years of hard work, he said that he hasn’t seen that dream come true, and has even thought about moving back to India with family in the future.

Barring that, Bhadu says he plans to pass the extra cost of a higher minimum wage directly on to his customers.

(Chart courtesy Seattle.gov)

“I am not sure when it will go in force, but whatever the date I have to pay my employee $15 is when I will increase the prices on juices and coffee,” Bhadu said in a follow email.

According to the City Council bill, large companies with over 500 employees must reach $15/hour by 2017. But smaller companies with less than 500 employees have five years — until 2019 — to gradually reach that level.

Bhadu agrees that the gap between the rich and the poor in Seattle is widening, and that that’s a problem. But as a small business owner he counts himself in the latter category, and says the bill will mean working longer hours himself, taking him away from his family more.

Immigrants running other small businesses in Seattle echoed his sentiments and mentioned the rapid rise of other costs in the city, beyond just labor, as cause for concern.

Of course, cost of living is rising for employees as well — that’s the main reason the higher minimum wage was proposed in the first place.

Employees will doubtless appreciate the higher wages, but if business owners’ threats of downsizing or going out of business hold true, they may face losing their jobs altogether.

“I understand the boss’s difficulty, and I think a little increase on the minimum wage will be okay.” said Patty Zhang, an employee of the China First restaurant in the University District. “But too much increase is not good for both my boss and me.”

Patty Zhang, who’s worked as a dishwasher at China First restaurant in the University District for 30 years earning minimum wage. (Photo by Senhao Liu)

Zhang has worked there for nearly 30 years — the only job she’s held since immigrating to Seattle from China. She currently makes the state minimum wage of $9.32 per hour, bringing her monthly income to around $1100, plus some tips.

Her wage when she started the job back in 1985?

$2.25 an hour.

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"How are you," Doctor Yiqiao Wu greeted while calling Matz's name, a 60-year-old white woman who just visited Wu for the first time.

Wu's clinic resides in a 5-story building near Canal St on the north side of Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood in New York City. It provides medical services of traditional Chinese medicine to more than 10 patients a day. Wu is the only doctor rt who has worked in this profession for nearly 40 years.

"How can I help you?" Wu asked about Matz's illness. Compared to a Western doctor who receives help from nurse, Wu is the only person and does everything for patients’ need.

Matz said she had a cold that had lasted for about a month after she came back from Mexico. Matz attributed the cold to the climate change between Mexico and New York. It stayed in her head and then went down to her throat, which made her wake up at night coughing. Matz also experienced fatigue after she came back from San Francisco seven months ago.

Working as a nurse for 30 years at a hospital in New York, Matz refrained from taking antibiotics because of the side effects and the harms that she believed were brought towards immune system. In the past she usually waited for her body to recover itself, but this time the fatigue never left. Matz then ended up coming to see Doctor Wu after an American friend of hers recommended that she gave Chinese medicine a try.

Traditional Chinese medicine originates in ancient China and has evolved over thousands of years. Practitioners use herbal medicines and various mind and body practices, such as acupuncture and tai chi, to treat or prevent health problems.

Based on Matz's description of her illness, Wu quickly jotted down several bullet points.

Wu came to the United States in 1996 from a small city, Jinhua, in Zhejiang province that was located on the east coast of China, 200 miles south of Shanghai. In 1979, Wu passed Zhejiang province's Chinese Medicine test and received his certificate as a legal doctor for traditional Chinese medicine. Wu said he was one of the only a few people who received the certificate at the village he was living. In 1979, just three years after China officially ended the Cultural Revolution and two years after the resumption of China's National Higher Education Entrance Examination, not many doctors held certificates.

While listening to Matz's description, Wu nodded a couple of times and seemed confident about how to treat her illness. He also jumped in at times and told the symptoms she might have before Matz actually said them. For the very most part, Wu was right.

Wu then invited Matz to the second treatment room. Along the narrow hallway that hanged sketch chart of the foot reflective zones and acupuncture wall chart, Matz entered the room.

Wu had worked for two decades as a Chinese medicine physician in China before he came to New York. After his arrival in New York, Wu realized that his past experience with Chinese medicine practice in China was not accepted in American society. To become a certified doctor for Chinese medicine practice in this country, Wu had to go to an accredited medical school and pursue a medical degree. At the time he knew nothing about English, but Wu decided to learn from scratch and aim to get a degree. He ended up making it reality by getting a diploma for acupuncture at New York College of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

When Matz entered the room, Wu stepped out and gave her a few minutes to take off clothes on the top and wear the disposable acupuncture gown. After getting Matz's permission, Wu entered. Matz was already lying face down.

Wu's clinic was located on the second floor of a five-story building. Entering the clinic was a tiny reception space that was separate from the treatment rooms. There were only 5 chairs placed on the side, and the reception room was always fully occupied by patients who had appointments. On the front desk was a pile of books of Chinese medicine in Chinese and in English. On the wall hanged dozens of certificates that Wu had received in this country, and amid the middle of these certificates hanged a Chinese character--- kindness--- written with calligraphy.

"The left side is worse," Wu pointed out Matz's problem of lordosis, usually an arch in the back, as he pressed her neck. "Here is much worse," Wu said as he pressed the left side of her back, "that is a congenital problem."

"Ouch," Matz said, "right there, the left side is much worse.”

"But today I will focus on your fatigue and cough." Wu responded.

He cleaned Matz's back with alcohol wipes and peeled off a disposable acupuncture needle. The needle Wu used was made of stainless steel to make it flexible and to prevent it from rusting and breaking. The acupuncture needle was thinner than a sewing needle, so that patients might not feel any pain. Wu inserted the needles quickly into the left side of her neck with fingers and said, "do not worry, it is Chinese technique." Then the second needle, the third needle, and eventually the eight needles were inserted into the neck, the back, and the waist. Wu asked Matz to take a rest for a while and left the room.

"My friend who recommended me to him said he was amazing," Matz said while lying on the bed. "My friend said he had been doing this for a long time and had a lot of experience and was very knowledgeable," Matz said.

Having worked as a nurse for three decades, Matz had an instinct that Wu was experienced while she knew little about the oriental medicine. "Just going to school does not mean that you really know what you are doing. That comes from years of experience. That is what impressed me about Doctor Wu," Matz said during the process of the acupuncture after Wu stepped out.

"He looks like the real deal," Matz laughed. "He did not take money from me," Matzs said while referring to the embarrassment when they met that she did not know Doctor Wu took cash only. But Wu did not hesitate to provide medical service to her even though Matz had no cash at this time. "He is doing it because he really wants people to get better not because he is in it for the money," Matz said.

Even though Matz was impressed by Wu's motivation to keep patients' health as the priority, she did not think optimistically of the development of Chinese medicine in the American society.

"I think the AMA [American Medical Association] is very protective of its influence on the American people. I do not think it is very open to alternative medicine at all," Matz said based on her experience as a nurse. "The drug companies are so powerful and they are so intertwined with the AMA. They are very territorial around their income," Matz said.

"Nurses are more open-minded than doctors because we are more open about the failures of the Western medicine," Matz said. "If you talk to nurses, they do not always recommend chemotherapy, for example." "Western medicine is really good for accidents, like trauma and cardiac. But it is not very good at long-term chronic issues." In Matz’s view, Chinese medicine encourages patients to take responsibility on themselves and look at diets. She said this in resonating with what Doctor Wu said minutes ago about adjusting her emotions. "You would not walk into Western medicine and hear doctors saying that [emotions]," she said.

"Okay..." Wu opened the door in half of an hour. Wu then came to Matz and quickly picked up all the needles from her and put all the used needles into a red plastic pot. The pot was almost full of needles, about tens of thousand.

“The acupuncture is meant to invigorate blood, adjust heart blood, and balance yin and yang," Wu murmured while giving Matz massage on her neck and back with an ox horn, in such a way to relax the channels in her body. "This is called meridian therapy."

"I am giving pressure on a couple of acupuncture points to treat your coughing problem," Wu said. "Be patient. No pain, no gain," that is what Wu often repeated.

After massaging mildly for about 7 minutes, Wu started exerting more strength on Matz as she made a sound that suggested pain.

"Ouch, that's [my] tendor,"Matz said to Wu. "If I just scream, will it be ok?" Matz laughed.

"Why not?" Wu responded. "No pain, no gain..." Wu said again. Wu then said Matz was sensitive to small changes in the environment, which included sound, temperature, humidity, and light. Matz agreed. "I understand your personality, type A" Wu said, "Very smart."

"I think type A is overachiever, right?" Matz said. Wu then used the other side of the ox horn, the thinner tip, to do the massage. As he flipped it over and continued, Matz screamed and lifted two legs unintentionally. She seemed a little painful.

"No pain, no gain," Wu repeated. "Now I am releasing your energy. It is stored here," Wu said as he rubbed the middle part of her back with the horn. The whole massage lasted about 10 minutes, which reached the middle of the therapy on that day.

"Now it is the magnetic cupping therapy," Wu said. The cupping he used is made by two parts --- the transparent cup and the rubber ball. The rubber ball is used to squeeze out air and make the cup vacuum, and the cup can adhere to Matz's body. The way it works is to put cups on skin for minutes to create suction in order to help with pain, inflammation, blood flow, and relaxation. Wu then adhered eights cups to the places where the needles were located.

"No rush. Take it easy. Everything will be better," Wu said. Afterwards, he took away the lotion bottle he used before massage and left the room. Speaking from the hallway, Wu now met a new patient.

"I feel like he is getting there," Matz said referring to the pain she just experienced during the massage. She thought Wu was meeting the sources of pain in her body. "It was painful but I felt very good [afterwards]," she said. Matz never had cupping in the past but she recalled that she saw an athlete on TV who did cupping. The person was Michael Phelps, the 28 times' Olympic gold metal holders. Phelps had purple circles on his body when he appeared at the swimming pool for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. "That was a really good PR for Chinese medicine," Matz joked.

"I do not actually have a lot of faith in Western medicine," Matz said while coughing. "If I went to a western doctor. I think they would just give me antibiotics. I do not think that would actually make your immune system stronger," she continued saying. This thought brought Matz to try an alternative treatment---Chinese medicine.

As to the obstacles that prevented Chinese medicine from growing bigger in this country, Mazt conveyed, "Western medicine is based on 'so called' scientific models. So if it [Chinese medicine] can not be proven by their models, it is not viable.”

"But their whole system is rigged in a certain way because pharmaceutical companies are the ones that control a lot of systems for measuring the success," Matz pointed out the problem that persisted in the current medical system.

To further express her opinion, she said, "Science stuff is kind of biased actually.” She cited an example of what she learned from her brother who was a physicist in Berkley, California. She said, "In physics, the way you set up a system to prove something true or not...there are bias from the start.” "Science is always subjective," Matz said. Therefore she did not think a Western doctor would encourage Chinese medicine.

However, according to Matz, one thing that differentiated the two sets of medicine was the way doctors saw symptoms. "They [Western doctors] look at one symptom. They do not make connections between the whole person," Matz said, "which I think it important.”

Regarding the comparison, Wu actually thought that Western medicine cost more money, its effects for certain diseases were not good enough, and the side effects by drugs were serious. Most of his patients came to him because they did not find Western treatment effective on their diseases so that they decided to give Chinese medicine a try.

As Matz's first therapy approached the end for that day, she conveyed that patients normally would not get this much time, around one hour at that point, from Western doctors. "They often do a quick physical and then prescribe a pharmaceutical solution," she said. Wu came back as 13 minutes were past. He looked tired now as he sighed when he opened the door.

He squeezed the bump balls and took away all the cups one by one.

"Okay, next, please get up and sit down," Wu said. Matz then followed the instruction and slowly lifted her head from the disposable paper on the bed.

"Show me your tongue," Wu said.

"Better?" Matz asked.

"Definitely better," Wu answered.

"I am definitely relaxed," Matz laughed.

"One, two, three four, five," Wu murmured while doing massage on her head with such a rhythm. He said, "be patient.”

"Ouch," Matz voiced.

"Why is the left side [of the head] so painful?" Wu said. "Negative thinking too much.”

"Ouch...too much negative thinking?" Matz asked. "That is intense," she said.

Then Wu made a final 'one, two ,three, four, five' round of massage on her shoulder and said "bye bye", which ended the one-hour therapy on that day. Wu reckoned she would need three or four more times of therapy in order to recover. For the next appointment, Matz would come next Friday on Nov 11, 2016, a week from now. Today Wu spent an hour and a half on Matz.

In the afternoon of Nov 11, 2016, Matz visited the clinic again and sat on a seat at the waiting room.

"I am going to give it a couple of more times. But I am still optimistic," Matz said. She said she had not felt obvious changes on the coughing and fatigue but she would like to wait for another three or four times' therapy as Wu recommended.

Wu believed she had chronic bronchitis based on the coughing she had for the past weeks. This time, Wu repeated the same procedures as he did last time--- acupuncture, cupping, and massage. But Matz seemed more familiar with the procedure and was used to the pain during massage.

However, this time, Wu did cupping for two times. The set of cups he used for the second time was different to the one from last time. Each cup had a little hole on the top, which could be used to pump out air from the cup by a pistol grip hand pump. Compared to the rubber ball cup, this cup can adhere to the skin tighter and provide stronger suction.

"Little tighter is better, ok?" Wu said.

"No problem. I am with you," Matz answered.

After the whole part of the therapy, Wu placed his left hand's index finger and middle finger on Matz's right wrist, and then the left wrist, for about 30 seconds each. The process was to check Matz's pulse, an important part of Chinese medicine diagnosis. Subsequently, he said, "bye bye.”

"So bad?" Matz worried as she did not hear clearly what Wu said just now ---bye bye.

"Yeah, so bad..." Wu laughed. He then updated to Matz about the therapy progress. Wu said, " Your flame problem comes from here," as he pointed to the stomach part, " Because there is food retention here.” For the next time, Wu would focus on the knee problems.

"I could feel he was getting it something deeper," Matz said after Wu stepped out of the room. She conveyed that if she went to a western doctor, she believed she would be recommended to overly wear antibiotics. "It does not solve the problem. It suppresses it [the symptom].” Matz had not taken antibiotics for thirty years since she had little faith for such logic to suppress symptom.

"If there is a bug [in this room], there is a reason for the bug," Matz said in citing an example for his understanding towards Western medicine and Chinese medicine.

Matz then handed cash for this time and the last time, $60 each, to Wu before leaving. For the whole treatment at Wu's clinic, Matz's cost was not covered by insurance.

After this visit, Matz visited two more times on a weekly basis. After the four times' therapy, Matz said she felt much more positive changes on her coughing and fatigue.

"I would definitely recommend him," Matz said through a text message, "though he had an interesting bedside manner." This referred that Wu did not talk much except he needed.

However, not all Wu's patients came here with non-emergency illnesses. For some of them, this was their last resort. For instance, another patient, R, came to treat terminal cancer.

Mr. Chen's male partner, R, who denied to disclose his name was diagnosed terminal lung adenocarcinoma in August 2015. At that time, his doctor assumed that he might only have seven months left.

R came to hospital because he had a stomachache. He thought he had chronic appendicitis but ended up discovering two points through CT scan. With biopsy, the doctor diagnosed terminal cancer. Then radiotherapy was recommended.

"Radiotherapy is poison," Chen said. He said that R used to have good physical ability but after doing radiotherapy, R was getting weaker and weaker as of November 2016. They then started worrying about R's health.

"Tumors did not diminish. It showed that it [radiotherapy] did not work," Chen said.

"[But] you are killing yourself if you refuse to continue radiotherapy," Chen repeated what the tumor doctor said to them when they conveyed the intention to stop taking Western medicine, instead they wanted to switch to Chinese medicine. "He [the doctor] said Chinese medicine lacked scientific proof, "Chen added.

Chen and R did not trust what the doctor said, so they decided to make a bet with the doctor. They would postpone the next radiotherapy until six weeks later and see if the cancer spread. During the time range, they would receive treatment from Wu and do exercise.

"That way, your tumors would double in six weeks," the doctor said, according to Chen.

In six weeks, R was checked, and the cancer did not spread.

However at the moment when they decided to stop visiting the doctor and switch to Chinese medicine, things turned around.

The genetic test R had done previously now had a result. R had mutation that matched targeted therapy, an important mean for cancer-treatment. However, this news brought a new challenge to Chen and R.

"We almost gave up before he [the doctor] did genetic test," Chen said in recalling that R had an extremely low possibility to match targeted therapy because of his racial ethnicity. However, now R had a new hope from Western medicine.

According to information on the National Cancer Institute website, targeted therapies are drugs that block the growth and spread of cancer. For R's case, the doctor recommended him Tafinlar, a newly approved drug by FDA (The Food and Drug Administration) in 2013 for targeted therapy.

"To eat or not? It seemed a gift that fell from the heaven, " Chen sighed. He said it was truly a trying time as they asked for ideas from other doctors, which included Wu. But Wu never conveyed any message to them for whether to use this drug. All Wu said was that if R decided to eat, Wu would help recover R's liver with Chinese medicine since Tafinlar had side effects.

"We initially did not want to eat it, but we could not afford the mental pressure, " Chen said. He said it seemed a pity if they did not at least try it. Therefore R started taking Tafinlar from January 2016 until March.

"We could see that his physical capability declined significantly ever since he took the drug," Chen said, "He used not to be like this," Chen added.

The March check result showed that the cancer did not spread, however Chen said, he saw more lymph node on R's body. Now they were getting scared.

"If the cancer did not spread, it showed that the drugs were effective on him," said Xin Wang, associate professor of Huashan Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University in Shanghai, one of the top-notch hospitals in China. Wang specialized in oncology.

Wang said that the seven months the doctor said might be a median number. The actual time that R might live depended on his self-physical capability. It was possible that a robust patient might live for over ten months.

"Even if in China, we do not recommend patients to use Chinese medicine as a replacement to [Western medicine]," Wang said, as Chinese medicine was difficult to be quantified and standardized. For example, she said, the mechanisms of Western medicine were detailed and clear. When she prescribed drugs, she was clear of the chemical reactions. The drugs took into effect by restraining the genes on cancer cells. But Chinese medicine, for this point, was faint to learn.

"Chinese medicine could be the last resort," Wang said, "when Western medicine had no plans for the patient.”

But Wang did admit that Tafinlar had side effects.

"[So] we recommended that patients could use Chinese medicine as an ancillary mean, " Wang said. It could help patients recover immune system and relieve the side effects the drugs brought. "But it [Chinese medicine] could not be the prime method, " she added.

Also, " lung cancer is very difficult to draw any conclusion or comparison from one single case, " Shan Zha, assistant professor of Institute for Cancer Genetics at Columbia University, said in an email.

Jun Lu, a doctor-in-charge in Chinese medicine at Qingdao Municipal Hospital, had different opinions.

"Chinese medicine treated a patient as a whole and believed the patient, the virus, and the cancer were an entirety, " Lu said. "But Western medicine treated only partial illness.”

Having practiced 15 years in Western medicine, Lu switched to Chinese medicine practice five years ago.

"Having been a Western medicine doctor for so many years, I felt it was not the best solution for certain diseases," Lu said. Diseases included gastritis and hepatitis B, she said. So he decided to change his path.

"Chinese medicine was meant to let the patient live with the tumor," Lu said regarding R's case. "If the person have energy to eat and exercise, his/her immune system would recover, the tumor would therefore be restrained, " he said.

In order to make a comparison of both systems, Lu cited an example that an experienced car engineer might know what went wrong only by listening to the sound of the engine without opening it up. It might be that screws at somewhere were getting loose or certain parts of the engine needed more lubricant. This process was based on experience the engineer had, which indicated Chinese medicine. However if the engineer did a car check, it might be that all parameters were normal but the noise made out of the loose screws still remained. "How do you explain this situation [with scientific evidence]? " Lu said in referring to Western medicine.

In reality, when a Western medicine doctor heard from a patient about anywhere in body feeling uncomfortable and saw the parameters normal, he or she would think that this discomfort was out of imagination, according to Lu. "But we [Chinese medicine doctors] cared about your real feelings," Lu said.

"For Chinese medicine, if you captured patients' patterns and characteristics, the treatment would become easy," Lu said. Those patterns derived from Shanghan Lun, a Chinese medical treatise compiled in the year of 220. It was the oldest complete clinical textbook in the world.

"Why a patient coughed at 1-3 am, not 4-5 am? " Lu said, "There were rules and characteristics in here.” When we did therapy on patients, each channel in body represented certain symptoms," Lu said. "I chose this channel because you spit yellow phlegm. But I would choose another channel if you spit white phlegm," Lu said.

As to the concern regarding scientific proof of Chinese medicine, Lu said, "Chinese medicine was meant to let virus have no place to live by changing your internal body climate.” Since virus has been mutating ever since, antibiotics had to upgrade in order to fit the change. However, the characteristics of human illness remained the same, and this was what Chinese medicine cared.

Lu did recommend that patients made use of the two systems.

"Even though I might name all the rest of your symptoms after you told me just one symptom," Lu said, "I still thought you were better to do checks to make sure my judgments were right.” For reasons why he could name all the symptoms, it was because symptoms on the same channel in body shared similarities. This was the knowledge that Chinese medicine gave.

In Lu's opinion, to let more people admit Chinese medicine, practitioners should learn to use plain language and examples to let people easily understand the richness of Chinese medicine.

Back to R's situation, they were still struggling with the lymph nodes.

"Of course to take a deeper look at the lymph nodes, he needed to do biopsy, but we refused to do that because the damage was severe," Chen said, "it [the equipment] had to insert into his throat" Chen said.

For the last time R did biopsy for lung in order to make sure if he had cancer, R could barely handle the pain. He was hospitalized for two days. So for this time, they rejected. But the doctor still recommended that R should continue radiotherapy and take drugs.

"Wouldn’t he die sooner? " Chen said. They believed that taking the drugs was another form of radiotherapy. "It was all lie," Chen added.

So starting from March 2016, R stopped using all means from Western medicine except regular check. Instead, he relied on Chinese medicine. Wu did acupuncture, cupping, and massage on R and Wu never prescribed drugs.

"But every time we came to do the check, he [the doctor] scared us by saying any parameters were high," Chen said, "the mental pressure we undertook for this was even greater than radiotherapy.”

"We argued with the doctor about whether Chinese medicine worked, but if he said it worked this would make him lose face," Chen said in referring to the time at the end of 2016. "But basically we won," Chen said in referring to Chinese medicine. At that moment, R had lived for 16 months and his physical capability was recovering bit by bit.

So far, R and Chen seemed more determined that they would follow the procedures of Chinese medicine for R's cancer. However, another turning point appeared in December 2016.

R came to the doctor for regular check but realized that platelet count decreased dramatically to an alarming level. The normal number of platelets in the blood ranged from 150 to 400*10^9/L, however R’s parameter was only 20*10^9/L, compared to his previous number, 80*10^9/L.

"Because of the platelet thing, our life messed up," Chen said.

But the check result in January 3, 2017 showed that it was even lower--11*10^9/L, which was emergent.

In order to increase the platelet count, R had to transfuse blood. So he scheduled a time the next day on January 4, 2017.

"But we still hesitated whether to transfuse blood. Because it was like smoking opium, " Chen said in explaining that R might therefore rely on having new blood to live.

"Did we really trust those parameters or our instinct?" Chen said. He said if R's platelet number was really low, Chen would see imprint of blood on R's body every time Chen did massage on him. But Chen never saw that.

At the night before, Chen as usual did massage on R, learned from Wu. On January 4, they went to hospital and got ready for the operation.

"Before the second the nurse inserted needle into his [R's] back, I said stop and do another check," Chen said. Chen said the nurse was laughing and said the result would be the same within 24 hours. But when the result was revealed, the parameter became 56*10^9/L, and everybody was shocked. "How could there be such a huge difference?" Chen said.

The doctor could not explain the reason, either. It might be that the equipment broke. Or maybe, the massage Chen did last night took into effect. But nobody knew the answer.

When R came back for another check on January 8, 2017, the number rose to over 80*10^9/L.

"Doctor Wu later told us that the parameters were nothing. If you wanted it high, I could make it high," Chen said. In order to make the parameters high in such a short time, Wu just did massage on R. Then it became high on January 8.

"The rise of platelets was critical to us," Chen said in mentioning January 4th. It gave both Chen and R the confidence that R had a hope, and more importantly, Chinese medicine might work.

"He [the doctor] thought we were crazy, we did not respect R's life," Chen said.

Chen and R had a design company, and R's medical expenditures were mostly covered by insurance. However, as R was now sick and Chen had to take care of him all day long, the business was getting hard to operate.

"The company was about to shut down," Chen said, "and we would no longer have money.” "We would die poor," Chen laughed as he said that they would soon not be able to afford the loans of their house.

Chen said every time they visited the doctor, the fee would be around three to four thousand dollars, plus the three months while taking Tafinlar from January to March in 2016, about nine thousand dollars, they were really undertaking great financial pressure.

"If we do not worry about money now, he will calm down and live longer," Chen sighed. "But the stress in life will kill him," he added.

Compared to Western medicine, the expenditure to visit Wu was $60 a visit for each person. Chen also came to do therapy every time R visited, so the total was $120 a time.

"Because we had serious illness, Doctor Wu usually spent two and a half hours on us. But for other people, it would be only one hour," Chen said, "but the charges were the same.”

"Wu did not care about fame and money," Chen said.

Since August 2015, they visited Wu twice a week, and then once a week as R's conditions were getting better, now once every two weeks. "R used to only be able to exercise for 5 minutes a day during the weakest time, then 10 minuets, 15minutes, now 20 minutes," Chen said.

"It was a miracle for him living this long," Chen said. "But he now had less desire to seek to live," Chen conveyed as he worried about their financial status. To make more money, R had to start working. They recently flied to Alexander city, Alabama on January 26 to do business and came back on February 6. Chen said, "it was fortunate for him to return alive, even I could barely afford the hard work.”

They came to New York to see Wu on February 12, and the interview was conducted on February 13.

"What Western medicine could bring to him? " Chen asked, "only to make him die sooner.” "But I still hold confidence on Chinese medicine, " Chen added.

The doctor mentioned in the story, according to Chen, was John Sierocki, one of the two doctors at University Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro who specializes in medical oncology. From the bio at U.S. News Health Care, Sierocki has been in practice for more than 20 years.

Sierocki refused to make any response.

Chen said Sierocki sometimes would ask for Wu's information and wanted to visit Wu. He conveyed that he had an interest to know how Chinese medicine worked.

R now has lived for 18 months, as opposed to seven months. His next visit to Wu's is in three weeks.

2022.1.24

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