Near the end of my second year at NUNM, a cosmic 2x4 strikes and sends me back into uncertainty.
Dave and I are sound asleep. And then not. Startled awake by cellular alarm bells, I sit up and ask Dave to get some water. Something isn’t right. When he returns, I am unconscious, lying in my own urine and excrement. While a black hole squeezes me into singularity, Dave calls 911 and I come to as an EMT carries me down the stairs to an ambulance. A screaming pain in my lower abdomen floods and recedes as I drift in and out of consciousness. I hear voices on the other side of a thick, rubber wall, “Are you diabetic?” “Could you be pregnant?” “Do you have epilepsy?” My voice replies from a distant shore. “No, no. No.” And then another flame burns through me. I disappear into reassuring black.
Seven days earlier, I sit with Heiner Freuhauf, a world-renowned Chinese medicine scholar and founding professor of NUNM’s Classical Chinese Medicine program (CCM), at his clinic east of Portland. When he’s not reading academic papers or doing research, he has a thriving practice treating chronic, difficult and recalcitrant diseases with Chinese herbs. As an enthusiastic transfer into the school’s new CCM curriculum, I feel a strong affinity for Eastern medicine, its elegant understanding of science and symbolism, and Heiner’s straddling of the two. I also enjoy my visits to his home clinic—an idyllic, off-grid womb of nature and family. He frequently treats students at NUNM —an opportunity to witness “the master in action”—to help our sleep-deprived brains function optimally during the rigors of academia. I see him in my never-ending quest for a thyroid fix, but more, Heiner is a father figure. I am calmed and hopeful in his wise, healing presence.
While my right hand rests on his desk, Heiner runs his usual gamut of tests. In Chinese medicine, a patient’s pulse and tongue are primary diagnostic tools. Heiner instead uses a clunky-looking device from Germany that I’d sooner see in an auto body shop than health clinic. It’s eerily similar to the Arizona doc’s machine but I suppress suspicions. Students and faculty alike extol Heiner’s excellence so we trust, maybe even deify him.
He places a sensor on my index finger, then taps a number of keys. Testing, assessing, scribbling notes. Testing, assessing, more scribbles. No words are exchanged. I hand over a weightless faith and relax in the hearth of familiar, fatherly care.
“Hm.” He says.
“Hm?” I reply.
“Your kidneys are cold. The yang qi is very deficient, almost non-existent.”
In Chinese medicine, kidneys represent the ancestral energy we inherit in the form of talents, life purpose and opportunities. Yang is the expansive, active form of this energy and is connected to the masculine—the father.
Heiner looks at me and says, “It’s as if your ancestral father line is missing or empty.”
I reply matter of factly. “Well, my dad died when I was 18.”
He’s not satisfied with my answer. “There’s something more,” he says. “The degree of “cold” in your yang kidney channel feels bigger than the loss of your father.” He makes a note to add an herb to my formula that will rouse the yang deficiency.
The herb is called Fu Zi, or Aconite. Also known as Monkshood, these prayerful, purple hermits belie their innocence—ingesting just two milligrams is fatal. Chinese herbalists have been using this plant for centuries for its ability to revive and warm severely deficient or contracted symptoms. Herbs are classified with specific properties — hot, cold, pungent, bitter, sour, or sweet. Aconite is one of the hottest plants used in Chinese Medicine. Not hot to touch, of course. Hot because, when administered, it’s like jumpstarting a dead battery. Many practitioners avoid using it, but Heiner has successfully healed patients, including his own cardiac tumor, using this powerful herb.
Heiner looks at me and says, “It’s as if your ancestral father line is missing or empty.”
So when Heiner suggests adding Aconite to my formula, I oblige. The potential to heal nagging autoimmunity and my “empty or missing ancestral father line" is too compelling to ignore. Cautious but acquiescent, I start taking the brown, acrid smelling powder.
Within a day, the herb fulfills her prophesy. My skin becomes hot. My head, even hotter. Exhaling, I feel like an open-flame pizza oven. During a diagnosis exercise in my Herbs II class, a friend reports, “Kim, your tongue is black.”
I stop taking the formula but Heiner suggests a lower dose. Aconite is doing its job. I just need less voltage. I see myself at the end of a long journey—little monks ushering me home. With broken circuit repaired grief’s long blackout will be banished from my cells.
The next six nights, I dream of dying. I’m eaten by a shark, struck by lightning, drowned in a tsunami. A chemical bomb detonates and I explode into a million pieces. I can count on one hand the number of nightmares I’ve had in thirty years, so my brain’s new horror subscription is unnerving, to say the least. Meanwhile, I develop my first-ever bladder infection, accompanied by a fever, so my former MD/ND/DCOM savior prescribes Cipro over-the-phone to prevent further complications.
Feeling hot, lethargic and disoriented, Dave wonders if I’m coming down with a flu. He picks up the prescription and I take my first dose at 5pm. Six hours later — well, we know what happens.
I spend the night in the ER, slipping in and out of a black hole. Dave calls mom at 2am—their first-ever phone conversation—and reassures, “We’re in the ER but Kim is going to be OK.” I cling to his words, clawing my way out of the hole and then slipping back in. When I finally stabilize, a kind nurse lays one, two, then three warm, weighted blankets on me as muscles shiver and throw off adrenaline.
Calmed at last, I return to what I know: It’s early morning. Spring 2006. I am a student. A girlfriend. A daughter. I survived.
But what I don’t know? Why it happened. The flag of uncertainty claims Kimberly Warner’s body as her nation. The attending physician conjectures. Possible seizure? Allergy to Cipro? Renal colic? Aconite is an unknown so mischievous monks are ignored. He can only confidently report the reaction, not the cause. “Kimberly Warner experienced a strong vasovagal response.”
Cause: Unknown.
Reaction: Unconsciousness.
Outcome: Unwavering resolve.
Western docs, eastern docs, father-figures and faith collided in one pivotal moment—my body’s forceful voice detonating any lasting desire to pursue medicine. I feel disappointed but clear. Disillusioned but free. With kidney yang qi finally unplugged from her “ancestral father line”—and no longer charged by its purpose and promises—I harness the courage to exit dad’s path and find my own.
Did those tiny purple—perhaps even mystical—monks fulfill their promise after all?
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Sorry you had to go through that but so glad you are here to tell us about it. Edge of the seat writing!
That is terrifying. The body’s ability to betray us is ghastly. I’m so sorry you had to go through that. Not knowing seems just as frightening if not more so than the actual symptoms.
Thank goodness Dave was there. Thank goodness we still have you with us today. ❤️🔥