As a generation born in the 1950s and 1960s, the words “resume the college entrance examination”, “planned economy” and “food stamps” are indispensable in my memory.
Me too, but what impressed me most was a few events that happened in the 1980s.
Pepsi Mourning for Poor and Poor Couples
In 1986, I worked in a township health center in Henan, and my husband was a teacher in the same town middle school. When we first got married, we were destitute, which is now called “naked marriage”.
I remember that at that time, our wages added up to no more than 100 yuan. We had children soon after we got married. We were barely satisfied every month. At the end of the month, we usually had to advance our wages to the unit to maintain our livelihood.
At that time, it was still a planned economy. I bought grain by index. I was 30 kg per month and my husband was 29 kg per month. He was in his 20s and had to eat two or three bowls of rice every meal to eat enough. Fortunately, I could not finish 30 kg, so I could barely eat enough every month. But if you want to meet family members and relatives, you will really have a deficit that month.
However, our parents are both farmers, and their parents-in-law’s family is poorer than mine. The husband is the eldest, and it is not easy for his parents to provide him with education, so he is very filial.
Although his life is very poor, he always does not forget to make up for it to his family. Because it is difficult to open his mouth, and it is estimated that most of them will be opposed, he simply adopted the usual method of men-saving some private money.
And when I found out that the accounts were wrong and questioned, we quarreled and even started to do it. Poor and cheap couples are sad, and I deeply realized the meaning of this in those years.
The house leaks and even rains, and my father-in-law suffers from tuberculosis.
In 1988, my father-in-law, who was in his prime, suddenly got tuberculosis, and the whole family panicked-he was the pillar of the family.
Tuberculosis was still a serious illness at that time. For the peasant families who had been struggling for food and clothing all the year round, it was really impossible to raise any spare money for medical treatment.
However, as the eldest son, the husband was determined to eat less than one meal a day and to see his father, so we took my father-in-law to the hospital where I worked and began to take medicine.
At that time, township hospitals did not have free drugs. The first-line drugs for tuberculosis were isoniazid and rifampicin, and there were some other drugs. The sum of 7788 was quite expensive. My father-in-law went to the hospital to return to the clinic every time he finished a course of treatment, and then the doctor adjusted the medication according to the situation.
We also told the family to mark my father-in-law’s towels, bowls and chopsticks and separate them from others. In order to cooperate with the treatment, the husband also dug out as much money as possible and stuffed it into his mother so that he could supplement his father with some nutrition and let him not be tired.
During the period of treatment, the family had a very difficult time. The old man had to see a doctor and the children had to be nourished. I couldn’t help feeling sad when I lay down every night and worried about the next three meals.
Although it was very difficult, it lasted for more than half a year and my father-in-law finally recovered.
A less fortunate uncle
Now that I think of that time, I am very glad that I survived with my teeth. If I don’t raise money in time to see my father-in-law, the fate of the family may be brought down.
Later, when I told my husband about this matter, I thought he handled it very maturely, just like a professional. As a result, he told me that he learned all this from taking care of his uncle.
In 1980, her husband’s uncle, that is, her father-in-law’s younger brother, got tuberculosis first. At that time, the conditions in the family were even more difficult, and she had no money to buy medicine. Very not easy, with the help of friends, she raised 46 tuberculosis drugs, but because of side effects and other reasons, her uncle stopped taking the medicine halfway.
As a result, my uncle’s tuberculosis relapsed again in 1990. Fortunately, the county already had a tuberculosis prevention and treatment center at that time, and the uncle survived again with these free drugs, but his lungs were hit hard again.
In 2014, my uncle unfortunately suffered from esophageal cancer. At this time, the children were already on their own and pooled their money to send him to the provincial capital hospital. Doctors found that the focus was very good and could be treated surgically, but the preoperative examination found that only respiratory function was not supported-the lungs were too weak to breathe autonomously after the operation. The family had to give up. Three months later, my uncle died.
Before his death, he comforted the children that if it weren’t for the 46 tuberculosis drugs, he would have died long ago and would have earned more than 20 years.
But my uncle didn’t think that if it weren’t for tuberculosis, he would have lived for many more years… … …
[snobbish disease] and [dead cycle]
In those years of practicing medicine, I deeply realized that tuberculosis is a [snobbish] disease-mainly troubling the poor.
Poor people are more likely to suffer from tuberculosis because they cannot keep up with nutrition and have poor resistance. After getting sick, they often have no conditions for treatment and recuperation or stop taking drugs rashly due to lack of understanding, thus increasing the cost of treatment.
It is a “dead cycle” to get sick due to poverty and return to poverty due to illness. However, if the economic conditions are slightly better and the hygiene knowledge is a little bit, this will not be the case. Cousin’s son is another good example.
In 1985, my cousin’s son was only in his teens and also had tuberculosis. At that time, I told my cousin that the disease could not be stopped and should be cured at one go. My cousin is also in the countryside, but fortunately my cousin’s brother-in-law has a formal job in other places and sends money back every month, which does not delay the child’s treatment. After about half a year of uninterrupted treatment, he also recovered, and then everything was normal after reexamination.
Now that there is a free treatment policy for tuberculosis, everyone’s life and cultural level have also improved, and most friends will not be trapped in this [dead cycle].
However, China is so big and the poor still exist. I doubt that this [death-followed-bad] may really disappear.
Final summary
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There is a policy of free treatment for tuberculosis, and treatment drugs can be received free of charge at the Tuberculosis Prevention and Control Institute.
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Tuberculosis treatment must be standardized and have a full course of treatment. Drugs cannot be stopped without authorization because the symptoms are relieved, so as not to produce drug resistance and repeated illness.
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When taking care of tuberculosis family members, disinfection measures should be taken: towels, bowls and chopsticks should be used separately to avoid intimate contact between the elderly and children and patients.