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A couple of weeks later she pulled up outside his house. It was 9AM late summer and the sun shone and its warmth infused the day. The Rochester Urologist ordered another ultrasound. And the catheter was due for its monthly replacement and check-up. Like a car service. He wanted to look inside too for signs of cancer. And this meant injection of a radioactive tracer isotope and a PET scan. I wasn’t too sure about that. The kidney condition was  improving but the doctor wanted more images, graphs and numbers to trace the path forward. This is high-end search and destroy western medicine: Find the culprit, cut it out, poison it with chemo or radiate the bastard. Maybe all three. Western medicine has diagnostic tools, technicians  and machines. Chinese medicine has rhythm, timbre and texture, the pulsing throb of the pulsing body under three  fingers on your wrist  reporting the inside story. It was a quarter century ago in this small cubicle deep in China Town, New York...

An hour later and they drive into the parking lot behind another Rochester medical clinic. It was very hot and the sun beat off the black top. She said she’d rather wait in the air conditioned truck while he went inside to give a vial or two of blood. Name and date of birth and wait and soon you’re inside once again. It's air-conditioned cool and production line efficient. The technician's checking vials and needles on the silver tray. She looks African. A colored scarf wound around her head, long thinly platted dreds and bracelets on her wrists. I offer the inside of my arm. She speaks softly in a thick dark voice and I hardly feel the prick. “Where are you from?”, I ask. “The DRC”, she says.  “The Democratic Rebublique of the Congo”. I say. And she looks up surprised.  “King Leopold. The Belgium Congo. Very bad”, I continued “ very bad.” “It was very bad” she says, and not looking at me makes a chopping motion across her wrist. "The colonialists cut off our hands.” she s...