Free Stealing Time by Leslie Glass Page B

the heart?
"Yes, it's the liver. The liver is the reservoir of stamina. That is the place of hun —intuition. The liver is in the yin location of the abdomen. It stores blood and belongs to the yang element of wood; thus it is called the shaoyang of yin."
Sai nodded as if she understood every word. It was just that she didn't agree. She didn't think April's problem was yin. Yin was yielding, and April was not that.
"The trouble is in your daughter's heart. But the wood element of spring corresponds to the liver. So the problem arises from her liver."
Aieeyee! Sai's head swam. How did he know that? He looked so young. His hair stuck up like Elvis Presley's, or a movie star's. Sai could see there was hair spray in it. She wondered if a young master of classical medicine should be using hair spray.
The young master interrupted her thoughts. "There are five elemental phases, five parts of the year: spring, summer, late summer, autumn, and winter. Each has its excesses and deficiencies."
Yes, yes, but what did that have to do with April's spending her nights with a Spanish man?
"In order to properly utilize the knowledge of the five elemental phases, one must calculate the arrival time of the season and observe normal and abnormal patterns. Since your daughter is ill in spring, we must calculate from the first day of spring on the Chinese calendar. If the first day of spring this year had not yet arrived but the weather was already warm—as it was this year—we must consider this an excess of fire. In your daughter's case the fire excess would humiliate the water element and damage the normalcy of the season. It would overcontrol the normal qi of metal. This is called qi yin or reckless qi."
Ah, now they were getting somewhere. But then the young doctor of the Yellow Emperor's classic medicine started talking about the variability of heaven and earth, and Sai was confused again.
He said she must bring April to him so he could take her pulse. If she was in a truly advanced state of reckless qi, the radial pulse could be as much as five times as large as normal. At that point her yin will have collapsed.
"And if both the carotid and radial pulses are five times larger than normal, this condition is called guan le or obstructed. That means yin and yang have become extreme and stagnant. The prenatal and postnatal ging essence qi have become exhausted; the eventual consequence is death."
Sai swooned and nearly fell off her chair. Was April's heart beating five times as fast as normal? Sai had no idea. But then the young master reassured her again. For another hundred dollars she could obtain a powder that would slow down April's heart and save her life. This seemed an unavoidable expense. Sai figured if she could save April's life she could get the money back from her when she was well.
Neither Sai nor Ja Fa was entirely satisfied with this diagnosis, however. They felt they needed a second opinion and took the PATH train to New Jersey, where they spent Tuesday night with the Dong family and consulted another well-known Chinese doctor. This one inspired greater confidence in spite of charging a much lower fee. Me Nan was a bargain at only twenty-five dollars. She was one of the so-called barefoot doctors, also just recently arrived in this country, but she worked in a cleaning service during the week and had a boyfriend with only one hand. His other hand was made of wood and covered with a black glove that made him look very official when he opened the door of their apartment.
Me Nan gave Sai a cup of tea and asked many questions about April. She wanted to know the quality of her hair, its thickness and vibrancy. The color of her face and the tone of her flesh. She also wanted to know what else was going on in April's life, in addition to the Mexican police boyfriend, that might also be contributing to the impairment of her judgment.
"Uh, uh, uh," she commented as she listened to Sai's discourse on the matter.
"Good healthy hair.