Choi Chung Fai (From Hong Kong) Occupation: Social Work Supervisory Officer
I am a social work supervisory officer. My daily duties are to guide and supervise school social work in a number of secondary schools in Yuen Long, Tuen Mun and Tin Sui Wai. There are more than ten thousand students in these schools altogether, and their problems all fall within my work area. With today’s school culture and climate, you can imagine how much pressure I have been facing, and such work pressure is perhaps the cause of my illness.
Towards the end of last year, I had an open wound in my foot which did not heal up after more than three weeks. When I went to St. Paul’s Hospital for consultation, the doctor suspected that the glucose level in my blood was abnormal, and a preliminary blood test indicated that it was high. So the doctor suspected that I had diabetes, and asked me to return the following day for further checks. Two days later, I returned to have blood tests, after both fasting and taking in sweet fluid, and the index was 12 for glucose level after fasting, and 19 for having taken sweet fluid, which means that I was confirmed to have diabetes. At that time it was 13 January 2004.
The doctor told me that for diabetes, the patients need to take medicine for the rest of their lives. Even though the illness itself is not dangerous, the complications incurred can be fatal. So he gave me prescriptions for one tablet of the medication to be taken daily continuously. After taking the medicine for more than twenty days, the glucose level in my blood was still hovering between 7 and 9, and at times the glucose level would drop so much that I had cold sweat all over. In order to fight with this illness, I asked the doctor to refer me to the Diabetes Centre in Tung Wah Hospital for follow-up work. In mid March, I went to Tung Wah Hospital for a check-up and a diabetes course. There were diabetic patients with different levels of seriousness, varying from new patients to those who had the illness for more than seven years. Many of them started with one tablet a day, and afterwards, the dosage increased to two, four, until they had to have insulin injection once or twice daily. Some have lost the vision of one eye, some had one leg removed. It really sent chill down my spine. I asked myself, “Is that going to be my future?” I was feeling very depressed, fearing that I would become a burden to my family.
When I left the Diabetes Centre, I walked along Tung Wah Hospital Road all by myself, feeling extremely sorry for myself. Suddenly I remembered how two years ago a teacher whom I respect very much taught me to get rid of a kidney stone (which not even an ultra sound machine was able to handle) through practising qi-gong. But subsequently as my teacher emigrated to Taiwan, I became slack in practising it. So I immediately called my teacher up to ask him how to deal with my diabetes problem. My teacher’s first response was, “ Don’t take the medicine, just practising qi-gong will do”. I was thinking to myself, “Teacher, with your level of qi-gong, of course it is achievable, but for me, I need to take the risks of incurring complications if I don’t take the medicine. After all, with my teacher being so far away in Taiwan, it will be difficult for him to teach me face to face, what should I do?” I reckoned I had better continue with the medicine first. Afterwards, I started collecting a lot of information about diabetes and also looked for books about qi-gong in bookstores. By chance I came across Master He’s book “ Qi-gong practice and a healthy life”. This book mentions how to regard illnesses and stresses the concept of man’s self-healing power, which is similar to what my teacher taught me. Eureka! I thought that was just what I was looking for. At the back of the book, there was a website address which brought me to the World Institute for Self-Healing (WISH) and to the WISH President Ms Christina Chiu’s talk.
After the talk, I joined a basic course at the end of March and an Intensive course at the beginning of April to learn Taiji Five Elements Self Recovery Program (TFESRP). With the direction of President Chiu, I had dropped the glucose controlling drugs as soon as I started practising TFESRP. Everyday I had two to three hours of practice. On the fourth day, the glucose level index in my blood had already steadied at between 4 to 6. In May when I went to Tung Wah Hospital for consultation, the blood tests indicated that all indexes, including glucose level of my blood, kidney and liver functions were normal, except I was overweight and needed to reduce my weight. That report greatly increased my confidence and so I have put in more efforts to practise the qi-gong. It has been more than half a year since then, and I have not taken even one tablet of diabetes medication since then. Although I try to control the amount of my food intake (to control my weight), basically I have been having a normal diet. I can now eat practically anything. I can even take some dessert after meal, but the glucose level in my blood is still kept at 5.6. I can say that I am now no different from a normal person. TFESRP has indeed cured an illness that western doctors consider to require medication for life.
After practising TFESRP for half a year, besides curing my diabetes, I also had some other gains. The most important change was my view towards illnesses. I now regard illnesses as a kind reminder from my body, telling me that there is a need to adjust my lifestyle. Moreover, practising TFESRP enabled me to have a new understanding and experience of man’s basic potential. I realized that we actually all have the potential power in ourselves and we don’t need to seek power and assistance externally, neither do we need to rely on drugs. The problem with us is only that we have been too used to relying on doctors that we have not used our own potential.
It was my luck and karma to have a chance to practise TFESRP. I believe there are many others who need this help. I hope through sharing my own experience with the readers, I would provide some encouragement and inspiration to those who need this help. Our life is in our own hands, what we have in ourselves is already sufficient.
2004
(Special thanks to WISH volunteer Mdm Wanda Lau for her kind translation of the original text)
