A Life Less Ordinary

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A Life Less Ordinary: New Asian Heroes is a weekly series brought to you by DBS
September 17, 2006SITNews: Disabled but oh, so ableby Wong Kim Hoh
The corridor on the fifth floor of the Third Hospital in Anshan, a grimy city in north-east China, is a tad dingy and dark. Several wards - each housing at least eight patients - line one side; pantries and washrooms that reek, line the other.
At the end of the corridor, a door on the left opens to reveal a brightly lit unit which has been converted from two wards. The cluttered living room leads into an immaculate bedroom cum office. Just next to it is the kitchen which has... a bath tub. Apparently, it used to be a bathroom.
For nearly a decade, this has been the home of Dr Zhang Xu, 42, and his mother, Madam Yi Shu Yuan, 67.
Dr Zhang is the hospital's most famous resident and patient.
An orthopedic surgeon, he was also the director of the hospital's medical administration department until a diving accident in 1997 ended his fast-rising career and made him a paraplegic. Wheelchair-bound, he only has limited use of his left arm.
He does not treat patients now, but Dr Zhang leads a life far more active than many able-bodied individuals.
Using a computer which he operates with a headpointing system, he translates medical texts from Chinese to English, and is completing his long-distance master's in Rehabilitative Counselling from San Diego State University.
He has travelled the world, giving talks at conferences and institutions. More amazingly, he is beavering away to realise his dream: To help the disabled - which number more than 110,000 - in Anshan and its surrounding areas.
He wants to initiate physical and occupational rehabilitation programmes for the community. To this end, he has started a rehabilitation outfit - the Bethesda Rehabilitation Ministry.
In the last 12 months alone, he has persuaded various foreign organisations to donate more than 800 wheelchairs to the poor and disabled in Anshan.
The elder of two sons born to an engineer and his teacher wife, Dr Zhang graduated from Jinzhou Medical University in 1987.
At Anshan Third Hospital, he was one of the brightest and most popular surgeons, becoming its assistant director of medical administration when he was 32. He was also married in 1994 to a nurse, with whom he has a daughter, now 12.
'I believed I could do anything then. I made grand plans, and told myself I could be director of the medical bureau in Anshan given time,' he recalls in fluent English.
In 1997, he heeded a call by the Chinese Health Ministry to become a volunteer doctor in Yemen, where doctors were scarce. He ended up as the sole orthopedic surgeon in Ibb. Seven months into his two-year stint, disaster struck when he dived into a pool beneath a waterfall. He hit a rock.
'My hand got in the water first, then my head. There was no pain but I could not move.'
It was several hours before he was transported to a hospital. A seven-hour operation ensued. He was unconscious for several days. When he woke up, his head was the size of his trunk. There were tubes all over his body.
His brother, businessman Zhang Chong, knew of his condition but hid the extent of his injuries from their parents for fear of distressing them.
Going home to Beijing was a touch-and-go exercise that took several days. The plane had to stop in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, as there were no direct flights between Yemen and Beijing.
His anxious mother finally saw a skeletal version of her 'big and strong' son nearly one month after the accident, at the China Rehabilitation Research Centre (CCRC).
'He smiled when he saw me and told me he was good. So I smiled too. But I ran outside afterwards and cried my heart out,' says Madam Yi, who has cared for her son 24/7 in the last decade.
She went on her knees to plead with a doctor to save her son. The doctor told her that Dr Zhang would not live long, and to cook him his favourite dishes.
Amazingly, he cleared the critical hurdle but went into deep depression. His wife decided to leave him, and took their daughter with her. He did not want to live.
'I told my mother one day to take me to a cliff and push me off. She cried, and said she would jump with me if that was what I wanted. I stopped saying I wanted to die after that,' he says.
A Japanese professor attached to the CCRC noticed a listless Zhang one day in the physiotherapy room.
Professor Rachei Reiko Yatani struck up a conversation with him and, to lift his spirits, told him about paraplegics who led meaningful lives. She handed him a book that would change his life.
Joni is the story of Joni Eareckson, an American girl who broke her neck at 17 but went on to become a famous artist, author and speaker.
Egged on by Dr Guan Hua, a kindly surgeon at the CCRC, Dr Zhang began translating Joni into Chinese.
'He was staying in a ward with 11 other people, so we could only do it at night when the other patients had gone to bed. He would dictate, and I would write everything down. He had many stones in his kidney and although he didn't feel the pain, he would be drenched in sweat. There were times when I wrote with one hand, and wiped him with the other,' his mother says.
The book was completed 45 days later. However, Dr Zhang spent a frustrating few months trying to track Eareckson down, hoping to obtain copyrights.
Another kind soul came to his aid. When he heard of the paraplegic surgeon's plight, Dr Guan's American friend, John Aldis - a doctor then working at the American Embassy in Beijing - tracked down Eareckson on the Internet.
Dr Aldis was to feature in Dr Zhang's life in many other ways. He gave the latter his first computer. The Net opened up worlds of possibilities Dr Zhang never imagined.
The Chinese version of Joni, published in 1999, has sold 30,000 copies. It has earned him an Outstanding Youth of Anshan City Award (2002).
He had a tearful meeting with the author when Eareckson visited him in Beijing in 2000. He reciprocated with a visit to her Joni and Friends International Disability Centre in California a couple of years ago.
He also took the opportunity to visit several rehabilitation centers across the United States over a three-month period. He was recently offered a scholarship to study at Pepperdine University in Malibu.
'I told them not now. I had just started the ministry, and a lot still needs to be done.
'Until I became disabled myself, I didn't realize how hard life is for the community here. My dream is to start with a small medical clinic. The long-term goal is a comprehensive centre that offers physical and occupational rehabilitation,' says the doctor who, earlier this month, organized an outing to the mountains for 13 disabled people and their families so that they could have a taste of the outdoors.
One of his greatest hopes is to raise enough funds to buy a small van with wheelchair access so that more of these outings can be organized.
He has mixed feelings when asked about his wife from whom he is now divorced.
'There is a bit of bitterness, but I can also understand why she left. My regret is that I don't get to see my daughter very often,' says Dr Zhang, whose former wife has custody of their child.
His mother hopes a good woman will come into his life to look after him when she herself is no longer able to. Her son, meanwhile, is sanguine.
'My friends told me: So many miracles have already happened in your life. When your mother is no longer able to take care of you, another miracle will happen.'