Special circumstances-please descrive how and when any unsual family or personal circumstnces have affected your achievement in schoool, work experience, or your participation in school and community activities
參考答案:My reticence regarding traditional medicine does not result from want of experience--indeed, I have spent so much time in hospitals during my life that I am all too familiar with traditional treatments. Born with various congenital defects, my life has been a blur of cardiac, thoracic, and gastrointestinal surgeries, and by the age of five, I was as familiar with taking medication as I was with eating cornflakes.
Without denying the substantial benefits I have derived from my treatments, I nonetheless believe that the maintenance of health depends as much upon the promotion of wellness as it does upon the combating of disease. This is a lesson I have learned from my paternal grandparents. Considerably older than my maternal grandparents, my father's parents always seemed youthful and vigorous. They exercised regularly, ate a balanced diet, used alternative therapies, and had a great deal of joy in their lives. By contrast, my maternal grandparents seemed driven by an almost morbid obsession with disease. Although they sought aggressive Western medical treatments, my maternal grandparents ultimately passed on fifteen years ago, while my paternal set are still leading healthy lives into their nineties.
Since my mother raised me, her beliefs dictated my own health care treatments. We did not consider any alternative therapies to help with my childhood illnesses; all the relief I received came with a prescription. When I went to college and became ill again, I decided that it was time for me to try something new. I turned to my paternal grandparents for advice, asking my grandmother about herbal treatments, nutrition, and lifestyle. She encouraged me to read more about oriental medicine and look beyond my symptoms to the deeper root causes of my illness. Eventually, through a combination of herbal supplements and dietary and lifestyle changes, I was able to wean myself from a diet of prescriptions and gradually find balance in my health.
Unfortunately, such knowledge did not come to my mother. A few years after my medical epiphany, she was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease of unknown etiology. Despite my urging that she investigate wellness-based treatment, my mother reacted to her illness in the same way her parents had reacted to theirs: by ignoring it. A few more years passed, and she developed fibromyalgia. Diagnosed with the same unknown autoimmune disease, my mother's sisters found relief in acupuncture and yoga, but my mother turned to surgery to treat her pain. Unfortunately, surgery could not ease her suffering, and my mother still experienced far more discomfort than her sisters.
While I recognize that anecdotal data is by definition inconclusive, I nonetheless have enough personal and familial experience with illness to be a firm believer in the power of alternative therapies to dramatically improve people's lives. Traditional Western medicine certainly has its place, but an individual's role in actively managing his or her own health cannot be denied. Health is not something that can be taken for granted, and for me, the responsibility of maintaining health reaches beyond caring for myself.
Over the past two years, I have faced the toughest test of my convictions by caring for a dear friend who suffers with HIV. Spending many hours by his side, I have seen how the combination of oriental medicine with traditional Western pharmaceuticals has worked wonders in helping him maintain his vitality. Spending time with him in the hospital, I have massaged his muscles to relieve myalgias and provided him with the moral support that is crucial to effective recovery. This experience has solidified my interest in alternative treatments, and I cannot imagine a more fulfilling and compassionate way to spend my life than by promoting the wellness of others.
