A lady rang me yesterday to say that she has inoperable breast cancer and asked if acupuncture can help. I said that with the disease at such a late stage, acupuncture can certainly help but it won't be a cure.

I explained that I always recommend having acupuncture to help minimise the side effects of chemotherapy and other conventional therapy, such as nausea, vomiting, fatigue, pain, hot flushes, night sweats, and pain and numbness in the arms and legs. The nasty side effects make it hard for  many patients to continue with their therapy, and having acupuncture helps ensure they finish their course of conventional treatment.

It turns out that this lady was offered chemotherapy last year but she refused because she was afraid of the side effects. I wish she had rang me when she was first diagnosed.

​The 4th of February was World Cancer Day, and it's a stark reminder of how prevalent cancer has become. In 2015 the British Journal of Cancer reported that one in two men and women in the UK will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime.  

Cancer survival is improving and has doubled in the past 40 years in the UK. However one major problem is that the side effects from conventional treatment make it hard for many patients to continue with their therapy.

Acupuncture is a very useful adjunct to conventional therapies as there is a wealth of evidence that shows the benefits of Chinese medicine for cancer care. Fatigue and pain are some of the most common conditions we help with, as well as nausea and vomiting, hot flushes, and peripheral neuropathy (pain, numbness and tingling in the arms and legs). I certainly wish my father had access to acupuncture when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 1981.

Watch this British Acupuncture Council video marking World Cancer Day 2020 to see what oncologists have to say about acupuncture.

I am packing for nearly four months away -- three weeks of pure relaxation in Hong Kong and three months in Harbin, in northern China, for intensive acupuncture training at the Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine. Passport, tick. Visa, tick. Currency, tick. Chinese Phrases for Dummies, double tick.

My wonderful, supportive husband is so excited for me to have this opportunity to see Chinese medicine practised in a Chinese setting. Not just for a week or two, but to be completely immersed in a hospital setting for a few months. I've known about this trip for the past three years since starting acupuncture studies, but now that it's finally time, I really should stop and ask myself, what exactly am I expecting from this whole China adventure?

I expect to learn how Chinese medicine works as primary medicine. In our teaching clinic in South Bank, more often than not we see chronic conditions like long-standing joint and back pains, auto-immune diseases, insomnia and depression - conditions that are not very well treated by Western medicine. Patients don't come to us in the first instance; they tend to come to Chinese medicine after they've tried everything else.

I expect to learn techniques that are not taught in the West, such as scalp acupuncture for stroke  and other neurological conditions. Last year we had a short lecture on acupuncture for stroke rehabilitation, and it whet my appetite for more. 

I hope, rather than expect, to see how acupuncture is integrated with cancer care as this is my personal area of interest.  

But more than anything, I expect to meet people who couldn't come from a more different walk of life, but with whom I share a love of Chinese medicine and a passion for helping patients regain their health. All I have to do is revise and speak this very difficult tonal language that is Mandarin. It is not for the tone-deaf!

Tess has lost it, you say. Family and digestion? Don't you mean family and food? Bear with me a moment, there is some logic to this.

It seems a distant memory now that I am up to my neck in essays and final exam preparations, but my son B and I had a great Easter travelling to the US (Tennessee! Alabama!) to visit my family, whom I hardly see these days. The last time that my siblings, my mum, and I were all together was eight years ago. That was way before I had any inkling that I would be studying Chinese medicine in my 40s and trying to engineer such a radical career shift. It was great to see everyone and to finally meet all my nieces and nephew, which is what I expected. But what I didn't expect is that with my acupuncturist hat on, I now had a profoundly different -- and privileged -- insight into my family.

For example, cancer runs in my father's side. My wonderful dad died of pancreatic cancer in his 40s, while his older sister, my lovely and wacky auntie, died of bowel cancer in her 50s. It is no secret why I want to specialise in using acupuncture to support cancer patients undergoing conventional treatment! 

In Chinese medicine, cancer often occurs against a background of Spleen Qi Deficiency. Spleen is the organ responsible for efficient digestion, to extract nutrients and energy from food. When we have strong digestive qi, we can do this efficiently. If we have weak digestive qi, we will struggle to break down food and absorb it. This undigested food will turn to Phlegm, which contributes to many kinds of cancer. (The ancient Chinese  viewed what we call tumours as a kind of Phlegm build-up.)

How do we strengthen our digestive qi? Less meat and more vegetables for starters -- they say that your plate should contain all the colours of the rainbow, meaning having lots of different vegetables and fruit. When you're eating, sit down and enjoy your meal, rather than multi-tasking and trying to work/watch TV/read newspaper at the same time. The digestive system likes warm food, so avoid cold foods coming straight from the refrigerator, especially if you live in a cold climate. My son and husband don't like this dietary advice because they adore their Haagen-Dazs cookies and cream and ice-cold drinks. But try to minimise this and your digestive system will be happier for it.

Above all, enjoy eating and sharing meals with your loved ones. So glad I did plenty of this while away. Now it's time to finish that paper on acupuncture and lymphoedema, and start revising for the biomed exam. I am so very near the end of Year 3!