I am grateful that I work and learn on the ancestral and unceded lands of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Nations in Burnaby and on the ancestral and unceded lands of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations in Port Moody
LUN'S SICK
Original (Published in "Lun's World"): 2004-2-4
Rewritten: 2025-4-21
When Lun fell ill, the biggest difficulty was that he didn't know how to tell us.
Although Lun is very thin and small, he is relatively healthy and does not get sick more often than other teenagers of the same age. Generally speaking, he only catches a cold occasionally.
After he was born and returned home from the hospital, my wife and I discovered that he had not had a bowel movement for 24 hours. Looking at his tiny body, I wondered how such a tiny body could hold so many food leftovers? The more we thought about it, the more anxious we became, so we decided to take him to see a doctor. The doctor smiled and told us that this was normal. Before long, his intestines were unobstructed again, and we both felt relieved.
Lun immigrated with us to Vancouver when he was less than two years old. He drank homo milk and grew up chubby. Suddenly, one day when he was two years and three months old, he stopped drinking milk and started eating cheese instead. In the following months, he gave up fruits, vegetables and dried fruits. Since then, he has had frequent constipation and has had to take fiber supplements. His figure gradually becomes slimmer.
Six percent of people with autism almost never speak in their entire lives. Lun belongs to this category and still doesn't speak to this day. Therefore, the biggest difficulty he faced when he was sick was that he didn't know how to tell us about his condition. He couldn't say headache, dizziness, blurred vision, stomachache, nausea, etc. Whatever ailment he had, we can only guess from his behavior and overall condition.
When infants and children are sick, they are prone to fever, and Lun is no exception. As he grew older, his fever became less frequent, but his unique eating habits brought him gastrointestinal problems. Due to unbalanced nutrition, his physique was relatively weak and he was easily affected by colds.
He had a disability, which was that he did not know how to rinse his mouth or vomit, and he often swallowed back his vomit and gastric fluid, which not only burned his throat but also did not help relieve his stomach discomfort. We could only watch him suffer.
It wasn't until he was twelve that he spontaneously walked into the bathroom for the first time and vomited into the toilet. Although we felt sorry for him at that moment, we were relieved that he knew how to spit out the food, which saved him from the torment of "stomach nausea" and helped alleviate his condition.
We continue to accumulate experience and now it is easier to tell whether he is sick.
When he gets up, observe whether he has had enough sleep. When brushing his teeth and washing his face, feel whether his body temperature is normal. If he feels uncomfortable, he will make irritable sounds. He had no appetite, difficulty swallowing, a pale face, hit his head, held my hand and pressed it on his abdomen... etc., all of which showed that he was not feeling well. Another family trait is the appearance of double eyelids when one is sick.
He showed signs of discomfort, so we naturally asked him if he felt "uncomfortable." He learned the word "comfortable," but because he did not know how to pronounce it with a nasal sound, he pronounced "um" as "ha." So when he says "comfortable" or "oh, comfortable", it means "uncomfortable".
Lun has been extremely afraid of seeing doctors since he was young, and the one he saw most often was his family doctor. Fortunately, Dr. Shih was extremely gentle and patient, and after more than ten years, he finally influenced Lun. After protesting and struggling for a while, he obediently followed the doctor's instructions.
He didn't know how to swallow pills, so the medicine had to be crushed and mixed with water before he could take it. He gradually realized that taking medicine could relieve his discomfort and is now very cooperative.
He doesn't eat fruits and vegetables, but he rarely suffers from what the Chinese call "heatiness" (This is a categorical nature of body type and this one implies that the person easily becomes sick after eating deep fried food.) He loves French fries, but rarely gets mouth ulcers. A few years ago, my younger brother and he had chickenpox, one week apart. His younger brother was itchy all over and almost cried, but Lun only had more than ten spots, and they were not very itchy. We both guessed that it might be because Lun had a simple diet and lifestyle.