Still unorthodox. But more professional this time

I received the annual update about this website domain recently. It means that this blog has been here for over a year! I am aware that I have not posted any news lately. I’ve been swamped. Mostly mentally. There has been something quite important happening to my life and a new route has opened to me. I am no longer in Grenoble, I moved to Paris.

Even though I am whining about my life from time to time here on this website, working close to the hospital environment reminds me how lucky I am. I think that I have already gained a good deal.

For many things that happened in my earlier life, I was able to justify or even explain in scientific ways. For many other things, such as my parents’ unorthodox practices of therapeutic treatments on me, the only way is to accept that those were just simply wrong. Or in fancier terms, they were chimerical hopes.

One reason all the trials that have been done on me were during summer breaks is that my parents expected that the up-coming scholar year would be a little bit better than the previous ones. This reminds me of one interesting memory that I am telling you now…

A month or two before my second grade, my father once came home and he looked very happy. He had some new acquaintances in a village far away. This time they seemed more reliable with the treatment for my skin.

My father’s social network somehow brought him to a wealthy man living in that village. The man was once a military doctor on the other side of the battle line, and as he was the tenth child in the family, people called him Doctor Muoi. He was, in fact, listening to my father’s story about me with care. For the first time, he was the one who said that my skin was caused by something in the blood, and it was not contagious at all. Having the confirmation from a medical professional was a true relief for my parents. From that moment they could assure other parents that their kids would be totally fine playing close to me.

My parents decided to take me there the Saturday after.

Dr Muoi lived about 35km away from our home but it was feeling like we were crossing the whole world. It took us about two hours on the road. For me it was a very long nap on the motorcycle in between  my mother’s arms and my father's back.

When we arrived, the consultation started with several all-the-time-asked questions. Does it hurt? Is it itchy? Can you hold a pen? Can you open your palm? I was more than familiar with those questions. People ask me that every day. And I was sick of answering them.

After carefully checking all over my body, Dr Muoi came up with a special treatment that he assured was completely harmless and brought only goods even to healthy people: Blood filtration.

If you are thinking of some complex system with intricate machines, it is unfortunately not the case here. We were living in some rural zone of Vietnam in the beginning of the 90s. Dr Muoi said that he had been thinking about the treatment since he first heard of me. The method that he called blood filtration could be simply described as follows: some vitamins in the form of powder for injection would be dissolved with sterilised water. Using the same syringe that collected the vitamin solution, he withdrew an equal volume of blood from the vein on the back of my hand. If my memory did not betray me, every time it was 5mL of vitamin solution mixed with 5mL of my blood. After several movements of agitation in order to  homogenise the mixture inside the syringe, he injected everything back to my body at the buttock site (yeah, it is called dorsogluteal intramuscular injection if you want a more professional saying). Everything was done as a “homemade treatment”. And it was totally free of charge. Dr Muoi’s wife in addition was an excellent cook. For me those were “special Friday events”. No doubt they were much better than school.

From my own perspective nowadays, I was a real “cobaye” (a guinea pig) for his DIY experiment. It might seem dangerous to look back from every single point of view but it was true that Dr Muoi brought real hope to my entire family.

The treatment was done once every two weeks, on a Friday afternoon when my father had to ask for half of a day off from work. My mother could not come with us every time as the kiosk was our immediate source for living.

My brother then had to be at mama’s place. He accompanied me on papa’s motorcycle. The doctor then offered him some vitamins and supplements in the injection form to his butt. That was the moment I felt like a star and tried not to show any discomfort with the syringe. Whilst I am trying to be all cool with the needle, my brother was completely freaking out when Dr Muoi was about to throw the syringe at him. My brother always screamed a while before when the needle landed on his butt. 

At the beginning the treatment was planned for 6 months. After the third month we came there less and less often. Maybe my brother did not find it pleasing as I did, maybe there was not any improvement seen on my skin, we did not come to Dr Muoi’s house anymore when the new school year started. Or maybe my parents were losing hope.

Ever since, whenever I need to withdraw some blood for analysis, as the vein cannot be seen at the site of the anterior elbow, I always tell the nurse to do it from the vein on the back of my hand instead.

And the steam sauna with herbal essential oil is one of my favourite activities as Dr Muoi recommended us to do so once every week for the purpose of improving blood circulation under my skin.

That, though it did not work, though could be dangerous, was always one of the nicest experiences I have while trying to figure out my life.