Chapter 40: The Old Woman with Wind Stroke

Peilan recognised the newcomers and looked startled.

“Brother Li! What happened?”

A woman behind the leading man saw her in surprise.

“Peilan? Are you here for treatment too? My mother-in-law’s suddenly very ill. We’ve come for Doctor Zuo. Is he inside?”

Before Peilan could answer, Zuo Shaoyang came forward.

“What’s the matter? Peilan, do you know them?”

“They’re from our Laohuai Village.”

“Oh! So that’s where you live, on Mount Qianren. We were there yesterday…”

The man interrupted.

“Is Doctor Zuo here? My mother’s terribly ill. She’s dying. Where is he?”

“I’m Doctor Zuo.”

“You?”

Distrust covered the man’s face as he looked him up and down.

People who knew nothing of a young physician’s ability seemed naturally inclined to doubt it. Zuo Shaoyang was well prepared for that now.

“My surname is Zuo too. I’m the younger doctor. You want my father? He’s at our stall in the market. What happened?”

“Could someone fetch him? My mother’s dying. Please ask him to come and save her!”

Zuo Shaoyang wanted time to examine the patient before his father arrived. If he fetched him himself, he would lose that opportunity.

“Sis, would you go?”

Huixiang caught his sleeve. Turning partly aside and winking at him, she spoke loudly.

“Father only treats headaches and fevers. He can’t manage something this serious. Try another shop. Don’t delay her treatment.”

He did not understand her signals.

“Why couldn’t he? He saved that woman with the retained dead baby the day before yesterday.”

“Yes!” the man said eagerly. “That’s why we came! Someone at the medicine shop up the street told us. Huimin Hall couldn’t help her, but your father did.”

“I see. He’ll do his best. Quickly, put her on the bed…”

“Wait!”

Huixiang tugged his sleeve again and whispered through clenched teeth.

“Stop talking. Listen to me.”

Then she turned to the visitors.

“I’m very sorry. Father’s only an ordinary physician. He really can’t treat this. You should…”

“Sis! How can we turn away people seeking help without even examining them?”

Zuo Shaoyang stared at her.

“You won’t go? Fine. I will.”

He shook off her hand and headed for the door.

Peilan, who had watched wide-eyed from the entrance, spoke up.

“I’ll fetch him. Stay and look after her.”

Before either sibling could answer, she raced towards the market.

“Wait! Don’t go!”

Huixiang ran to the doorway, but the girl was already far away. She stamped in distress.

Turning back, she saw her brother helping the men lower the patient onto the little wooden bed in the hall.

“Father can’t treat this,” she urged again. “Please take her elsewhere.”

“At least wait until he’s examined her and says so himself. Why keep driving them out?”

The men smiled pleadingly.

“Please take pity, miss.”

Huixiang pulled her brother aside.

“What do you know? These are… the people I saw at Huimin Hall this morning. She’s the hopeless case even Doctor Ni couldn’t treat. That’s why I’m trying to refuse. We can’t take on this trouble.”

Startled, he turned to the man.

“You’ve been to Huimin Hall?”

“Yes.”

The man bowed anxiously.

“We heard their medicine was the best in Shijing. But Doctor Ni said Mother couldn’t recover and told us to prepare for her death. We wouldn’t give up. We tried shop after shop all over town. All said the same.

“We were desperate. Then a kind patient in the shop up the street told us Doctor Zuo here was highly skilled. He’d saved a woman with a retained dead baby after Doctor Ni said there was no hope. So we came.”

Zuo Shaoyang nodded.

“Peilan’s gone to fetch Father. I’ll examine your mother first. But if he also judges it beyond treatment, I’m afraid there’ll be nothing we can do.”

The man nodded miserably and cupped his hands.

“Please speak for us. Ask him to do everything he can. We’ll never forget your kindness. We’ll repay you properly.”

Looking at their ragged clothes, Zuo Shaoyang sighed inwardly. Whatever they promised, there was probably no fee to be had.

But he could not simply watch someone die. Whether he had the ability to save her was another question.

“How did it start?”

The man turned a glare on his wife. She flinched.

“It was… my fault. I was washing clothes. My hands were so cold that I tucked them under my arms for a moment. Mother told me to stop being lazy and get on with it. There was still a lot to wash, or we couldn’t finish on time.

“My hands have split from all this washing. Water hurts them. I hadn’t complained. I thought, what was wrong with warming them for a moment? So I answered back.

“She got angry and scolded me. I didn’t dare reply again. Then, while she was shouting, she suddenly fell, unconscious. Her mouth and eyes went crooked and her limbs jerked. I was terrified. I went for your second brother, and they fetched you from the works… That’s all.”

“Did you carry her from Laohuai Village?”

“No. My brothers and I are working on a canal outside town. Mother and my wife—this is my wife—wash clothes at the site for money.”

As he spoke, he peered towards the door.

“Why isn’t your father here yet?”

“Soon.”

Zuo Shaoyang sat beside the bed and examined the patient carefully.

Her mouth and eyes were distorted. Phlegm rattled in her throat. She did not respond to questions and was already unconscious. Preliminary testing showed paralysis of her right arm and leg.

Her pulse was wiry, forceful and slippery. Opening her mouth, he found a red tongue tip and a greasy coating, yellow and white in patches.

His heart sank. It looked like wind stroke.

But facial distortion alone did not justify that conclusion. Facial palsy—also called hanging-thread wind—could twist the mouth and eyes, often with pain behind the ear. It did not, however, cause paralysis or numbness down one side. Her hemiplegia made that unlikely.

Nor did this look like epilepsy. A seizure could cause sudden collapse, but the patient generally regained consciousness quickly, with normal limb function afterwards rather than lasting paralysis or numbness.

It was not ordinary collapse with loss of consciousness, or a spasm disorder with an arched back. Neither involved both facial distortion and paralysis of half the body.

Having worked through the similar presentations, he tentatively judged this wind stroke affecting the internal organs.

Chinese medicine distinguished wind stroke in the channels from wind stroke in the organs. The first generally began without a collapse into unconsciousness, producing facial deviation, impaired speech and hemiplegia directly. The second began with collapse and loss of awareness.

Stroke in an elderly person was difficult enough. An organ-level case lay deeper, was more severe and carried greater risks of death and disability than one affecting the channels.

He had watched his teacher treat such patients during his placement, but had never independently prescribed for one himself.

Anxiety gripped him.

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