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Home>Service> Awardees of Fervent Global Love of Lives Award> 17th Fervent Global Love of Lives Award 2014> Lai Chih-Ming—A Paralyzed Engineer
[Reborn from Paralysis]

A life without good health is like a geometric sequence starting with zero, where it no longer matters how many numbers it has. Thus, I transform optoelectronic semiconductors into love. I set aside my own life and death as the first human subject in Taiwan who underwent venous angioplasty at the Taipei Veterans General Hospital, endowing two and a half million patients suffering from MS with not only a way to ease off the pain, but also a cure.
—Lai Chih-Ming
 
From an Optoelectronic Semiconductor Expert to a Paralyzed Patient
Lai Chih-Ming, a distinguished alumnus of Kaohsiung Senior High School and a doctoral candidate at the Department of Physics, National Sun Yat-sen University, is an optoelectronic semiconductor expert. Lai has determined to study optoelectronic semiconductors since childhood, and holds over 300 related patents and countless awards. He also aims to be like his role model, Dr. Shuji Nakamura, the father of blue LEDs. Unfortunately, in May, 2008, Lai was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, or MS, which is a disease in which the immune system fails and the spinal cord is affected. Up to this date, there is no cure for MS, those affected by which are paralyzed from the waist down, cannot excrete normally and lose the sense of balance. Patients with MS loses one function of an organ each day. They may seem normal, but they are excruciated by MS at any given moment of their lives.

Standing up against the Disease
What is admirable are Lai's scientific spirit that transforms the disease into love and how he battles against the disease. Lai created a blog for MS which connects all 2.5 million patients around the world with the same disease. His efforts finally paid off on 31 Dec, 2009, when European and American doctors finally proved that patients with MS can be relieved of some of their sufferings after they undergo venous angioplasty, which also reduces symptoms.

Lai organized and provided information regarding venous angioplasty for MS, including video footages before and after the operation, MRI and angiography images and comprehensive journal articles, for Dr. Hu Han-Hua and his team at the Taipei Veterans General Hospital. Lai set his life and death aside and contributed himself to a medical research. His courage deserves thousands if not millions of likes from around the world.

The First Successful Case
On 16 Jun, 2010, Lai Chih-Ming became the first patient with MS in Taiwan who was successfully treated with venous angioplasty. What's better was that, nine months after the operation, Lai not only could run and jump, but also ride bicycles. In 2012, Lai was employed by All Real Technology Co., which is known for solar simulation and where Lai finally returned to his field of optoelectronic semiconductors.

 Lai Chih-Ming has transformed his disease into love, dedicated himself to gathering and organizing medical information, connected 2.5 million patients with MS, and contributed himself to medical studies. The paralyzed engineer truly stands out from 2239 candidates and is awarded the 17th Fervent Love of Life awards.

Five Tools to Conquer MS
According to Lai, there is by far no cure for MS, so the only things patients with MS can do are to reduce symptoms and to prevent their reoccurrence. To do so, one must consult doctors of certain branches of medicine according to his/her symptoms.
Interferon, which is applied to prevent symptom reoccurrence, is injected or administered along with immunosuppresive drugs. Other methods include plasmaphresis and technologies related to stem cells, but they involve high costs and risks.

Non-drug treatments include staying happy, avoiding too much stress and exhaustion, and sufficient sleep.  Rehabilitation and other natural therapies may also help.

When Lai's conditions worsened again, he followed his doctor's instructions. Apart from taking medications, Lai also tried aromatherapy, foot message, body message with essence oil, hypnosis and even fortune telling.

Without using up all his savings, Lai proactively sought methods to reduce symptoms that he deemed fit. He paid attention to all relevant details to everything he did, including taking dietary supplements. He also came across a book written by a doctor. He found the book well written and started to look into the author's view towards multiple sclerosis.

This doctor, who knew MS like the back of his hand, proposed a very important strategy that Lai agreed with. They include the following:
1. Managing symptoms well so that life can be normally led.
2. Optimizing physical conditions so that bodies can function normally.
3. Awaiting new drugs to come out, since medical technologies advance rapidly.
4. When MS is accompanied with other minor conditions with unknown origins, try to reduce them so that MS becomes the only illness that is dealt with, and life becomes simple and comfortable.
5. Confidence, determination, perseverance and patience are paramount. Stay happy and updated with latest information regarding residual effects of MS.

Surmounting Fear and Conquering the Disease
What is fearsome about MS is that patients are like walking bombs. Any acute symptoms can occur, and patients can lose a function of any part of the body anytime, so patients suffer more from MS than they do from cancer. Without knowing when the disease would strike again, patients constantly live with fear that they may be paralyzed, disabled and blind anytime. Their stress is unfathomable.

For patients with MS, fatigue is the most unique and the most uncontrollable symptom of all. Fatigue is followed by other symptoms such as a cramp or a seizure. Rehabilitation is an inevitable part of daily lives for patients, because if they choose not to rehabilitate, their muscles will be lost and they will be physically disabled.

According to one patient, recuperation is the best way to restore stamina and to recover from fatigue. Unfortunately, for patients with MS, recuperation is a luxury because their fatigue usually comes out of the blue and cannot be controlled. As a result, friends and families of these patients are pressured by such an uncertainty.

"Sharing the same pain" is perhaps the most typical of how patients with MS feel about one another. Only those who have experienced the pain can understand and empathize with people with the same sufferings. Being able to feel but unable to move and being unable to feel what was usually felt bring despair and disappointment. What is unique about MS is that patients look normal, but they suffer both mentally and physically. (This is perhaps why MS is rare!)

C'est la vie, in which nothing can be decided by or for anyone. Instead of being worried, it's best that one rests assured and embraces what follows in life. Because of the trials of the disease, the character and vision of patients sublime to near perfection, so that patients can overcome more daunting challenges and tribulations. In the future, because of such experiences, patients know that they have to keep a close eye on their own health and continue to embrace and enjoy life. They will optimistically go through everything in life.

Empathy from around the World
As a member of the Taiwan Foundation for Rare Disorders and the Taiwan Association of Multiple Sclerosis, Lai Chih-Ming has a profoundly different view on life. Of all rare diseases, MS sees the largest number of patients, up to 2.5 million around the world. However, because only very few people in Taiwan suffer from MS, most doctors are unfamiliar with it. Information regarding MS in Taiwan is at best insufficient and unorganized.

With the love of life and empathy, Lai set a goal to do something to help. With his thirst for knowledge, he wanted to find a way to restore health and set an example for other patients. Therefore, Lai created a blog where he exerted his professional abilities to gather information from overseas medical websites and share it with patients with the same disease, giving them mental strength. Lai also wished that he could give back to society with what he could do. His inextinguishable belief in hope and miracles will bring him answers and health one day.

Since Lai became paralyzed, he has been closely recording his own physical conditions and his intake of medications and has been searching for related information from the Internet, friends and experiences of other patients.

Despite the fact that different patients have different conditions due to different body types, Lai is still willing to share his experiences so that other patients can be as unlikely to go through the same pain as possible.

Lai is not a doctor, but with the same diligence he had exerted as a student and a researcher, he aims to discover at least one way or two to relieve patients of sufferings or to cure the disease entirely. Benefiting all patients with MS is the happiest thing in Lai's life.

The Experiment and Victory
In 2009, Lai learned from his constant endeavor that it was discovered in other parts of the world that MS is, to an extent, related to CCSVI. In addition, these research projects suggested that, with venous angioplasty, symptoms of a CCSVI patient can be reduced, or at least prevented from deteriorating. After four months of efforts, Lai sought assistance from doctors at the Taipei Veterans General Hospital, including Dr. Hu Han-Hua, Dr. Chang Feng-Ji and Dr. Tsai Ching-Biao

Lai frequently provided doctors with related information from overseas, including footages before and after operations, MRI and angiography images and research papers.

As a strong-willed person, Lai never gives up on himself. He firmly expressed his desire to contribute himself as a human subject for the operation. Lai's efforts finally paid off when he became the first successful patient treated with venous angioplasty in Taiwan on 18 Jun, 2010. His courage has been admired ever since.

The better news was that, nine months after the operation, Lai was not only able to run and jump, but also able to ride a bike. When patients in other countries with MS saw Lai's story on the blog, they also sought opportunities to be treated at the Taipei Veterans General Hospital.

As Mencius so eloquently put, "When Heaven is about to place a great responsibility on a man, it always first frustrates his spirit, exhausts his muscles and bones and exposes him to starvation and poverty." For Lai Chih-Ming, all difficulties in life are dwarfed before what he has suffered from the disease.

Multiple sclerosis is the greatest challenge of all. Lai bravely marched forward on a mountain where the top is unknown. Despite all uncertainties, Lai will conquer the highest peak there is, where he will gaze down to all the beauty that life has to offer.