As my medical maladies started mounting up, I did something I never do. I turned to alternative medicine.
Chinese herbs in particular.
I’ve had a love/hate relationship with complementary medicine. I’ve never gotten much out of acupuncture in the past. Massage feels good but doesn’t last. Homeopathy seems more Western than complementary but was devised before scientists understood germ theory, which makes me wary.
When I was in my 20s, I was more of a traditional medicine contrarian. I would readily turn to integrative specialists as my first stop. A well-known practitioner in Jerusalem, Dr. Buena de Mesquita, got me off the steroids I was taking for Crohn’s disease through slow weaning and changes in diet.
Later, while traveling in Japan, I visited an Israeli Chinese herbalist in the foothills of Mount Fuji. I dutifully brewed up his witch’s concoction every night – that is until I flew to Hong Kong, where the names and measurements of the herbs I needed were so different, I couldn’t figure out the sourcing and gave up.
I then went through a long period where I didn’t want to have anything to do with alternatives. That continued through my cancer years when, other than medical cannabis, for which I had an Israeli license, I stuck with treatments that had peer-reviewed clinical results: chemo and immunotherapy.
But now, with my body rebelling from post-CAR-T side effects, I thought, why not try again? If nothing else, I’d have an hour with a “big picture” doctor who would take in my whole story.
I found a specialist I’d read good things about in Tel Aviv. While not a licensed medical doctor, he tests all his tonics in the oncology department at Sheba Medical Center, Israel’s largest. That was enough science to persuade me.
He prescribed two concoctions made up mostly of mushrooms and berries I’d never heard of: Astragalus, cordyceps, reishi, ligustrum, goji (lycium).
One was heavily alcoholic; both tasted foul.
I took the tonics diligently three times a day as he prescribed. I didn’t notice any vicissitudes in my body’s “qi.” But when I went to Hadassah for my monthly blood work, my liver enzymes were off the charts.
“Have you started any new medications since your last blood draw?” my hematologist asked.
“I’m taking a couple of Chinese herbal tonics,” I replied.
“Stop the tonics immediately!” the herbalist responded urgently to my WhatsApp. “They can affect the liver!”
I had specifically asked him whether the Chinese herbs he’d given me would interact with any of my meds or ailments. He reassured me they wouldn’t.
“Your blood work levels should come back down to normal in two to three days,” the Chinese doctor continued. He was right this time, although as of this writing, my liver enzymes remain slightly elevated. I’m grateful that, at the very least, he took responsibility for his prescribing error.
The blood work opened an investigation that led to a brand-new ailment: gallstones. An ultrasound revealed that one small stone had left my gallbladder and was lodged in my common bile duct, resulting in infection and fever. If it remained there too long, it could be fatal for an immunocompromised person like me.
The gallstone was removed swiftly via an ERCP, an endoscopic procedure where they send a tube with a camera and tiny scissors down your throat. Fortunately, I was sedated and asleep. Snip, snip and my gallstone was gone.
Over the ensuing ten days at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem, I was given three different IV antibiotics three times a day.
Unlike a year ago, when I had no choice but to be in an isolation ward while getting my immune-depleting CAR-T, my hospital experience this time involved lots of moving around until I got to where I’d eventually end up.
I was first placed in general medicine in a renovated shared suite with a view but a roommate who snored like a smokestack. I was then transferred to the hematology ward, which had been temporarily moved to the Davidson Tower, as their regular home in the Sharett Building was undergoing renovations.
Unbeknownst to me, there was no room in the main ward, so I found myself in an overflow space with 10 beds, one bathroom and curtains – not walls or doors – separating me from my neighbors.
When a room opened up the next day in the main part of the hematology ward I took it; my new roommate didn’t snore, but he left the TV on all day and night. He preferred Channel 14 (Israel’s equivalent of Fox News).
Since this was the same department where I started my CAR-T journey in 2025, I’d befriended some of the nurses and was in possession of that most valuable Israeli Vitamin P – “protexia” (Hebrew slang for having the right connections). So, when nurse Hiba whispered to me that a patient in a single room was checking out and I could have it, we quickly moved my bed, chargers and suitcase.
Only then was I able to sit down calmly to eat Shabbat dinner with son, Amir, and daughter, Merav, in the observation space behind elevators with a commanding view of the Jerusalem Hills.
The saga wasn’t over yet. I was released, then a month later, re-hospitalized for a small bowel obstruction. Another 10 days of antibiotics (which turned out to be the same as I’d gotten for the gallstone) and discussion of surgery.
The serendipitous discovery of the errant gallstone reminds me of how my cancer was found back in 2018. I was having terrible stomach aches and finally had a CT scan done. We never found out what was causing the pain, but we did uncover the cancer.
Whether my uber-high liver enzymes were from the gallstones or the herbs, I learned one more thing: I’m never returning to that Chinese medicine doctor. It’s Western medicine all the way forward now, baby.
I first wrote about my latest experience with Chinese medicine for The Jerusalem Post.
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