Care and courage
4 June 2004, Shanghai Daily
 
The tears well up in her eyes, as 7-year-old Wang Yanzi grits her teeth in response to the painful massage on her rigid right leg. It must hurt terribly, but she utters only a few small cries. Through her tears, she explains that she knows its’ good for her.
Wang, like the other 17 children at the Tse Kong (former name of CereCare) Wellness Center for Children, suffers from cerebral palsy, or CP, a condition caused by brain damage that affects body movement and muscle coordination. She can not walk properly nor balance well. The right side of her body is partially paralyzed. Yet she is one of the lucky ones, because the disease could be much worse: Other victims have seizures visual impairment or difficulty with hearing or speaking. And Wang is here, where she can get therapy – and the rigorous acupressure therapy is beginning to work. Her motor skills are improving dramatically.
The other children, too, have improved greatly after undergoing and intensive training techniques combines with Conductive Education, which has been used around the world to treat CP since the late 1940s.
Hidden behind the medical jargon are moving stories of incredible progress: once child, who seemed totally unaware of his weak arm, began using the arm to make controlled, coordinated movement. He was able to crawl “commando” style, and to push himself up on his arms.
Two children began to sit independently.
…
All these small steps forward bring smiles to the faces of Lieu Sung Mai and her 70-year-old sister, Lieu Sung Lam (spelled as Lu Shunling in Mandarin), who run the center. Sung Lam, who also suffers from CP, founded the center in 1985 (referring to the center for the handicapped people).
“They light up your life,” says Sung Mai, who is carrying on the work of her sister at the center. One of her fondest memories was witnessing a child who was not expected to ever walk take his first step. “It was such a thrill.”
A victim of CP herself, Sung Lam devoted her life to helping lots of other CP sufferers. She was not diagnosed until 18 years old, after which she was sent to Hong Kong for treatment. After three-year harsh therapies there, she found that traditional Chinese acupressure was the most effective method for her.
She returned to Shanghai in 1956, as she felt that there are more good acupressurists on the Chinese mainland. The seven masters who assisted in her healing became her teachers. At the age of 30, she was able to walk out the front door on her own for the first time in her life.
At that time, she had the confidence to take control of her life and learn how to treat CP. This would mark the beginning of a long and rewarding career as a CP therapist.
Being unable to attend university due to her affliction, Sung Lam took correspondence courses, studying Western and Chinese medicine. As she was unable to write legibly, even though she passed her oral final with flying colors, she was denied her diploma. It was these experiences that inspired Sung Lam to develop her own special technique of acupressure treatment, designed to empower people afflicted with CP to have some form of normalcy in their lives.
With the support of her parents, Sung Lam started working with handicapped people in the early 1980s in association with the Shanghai Red Cross, and started her own center for handicapped people in 1985.
Two years ago, she sold the two family villas on Anfu Road for about 9 million yuan (US$1.1 million) to raise the funds to establish the Tse Kong (former name of CereCare) Wellness Center on Luoxiu Road in Xuhui District.
Today, the center has 18 children, who range in ages from 2 to 9. This age group has the greatest chance to achieve the success which will enable them to have self-help capabilities.
These children undergo intensive training: A therapy session runs for three months, during which they can only go home for a week per session, although their parents can visit every day.
Each child has an individualized treatment plan that addresses the physical, psychological, emotional, social and education needs of the child. The professional acupressurists spend hours each day with the children, putting them through their paces.
Many parents said that as a side benefit, their children had improved social skills, as well.
“At the beginning, she couldn’t move or talk at all, but now she could. So it was pretty convincing to us. We had not seen anything like it before,” says Wang Yanzi’s mother.
Sung Mai, who has decades of experience in management and personnel training for large companies, says that she has found her place in this center.
“Of all people in the world, I admire my sister most,” she says. “Through her own courage and determination, she has managed to grapple with life’s simple physical tasks and complex psychological pains, but she has developed into a good doctor and a rescuer of CP patients.”
Even at 70, speaking with guttural sounds, Sung Lam still trains the acupressurists herself.
After learning the life story of Lieu, Lyle Hayden, an American woman who runs a consulting company in Shanghai, and whose daughter has CP, volunteered to become a fund-raising advisory board member for the center, which is in dire needs of financial help to be able to support all the children that need the help.
“We’ve got some equipment support form the Rotary Club of Hong Kong. But it’s far from enough. We plan to get more land and property to expand the center’s facilities,” she says.
CP suffers are often mistaken as mentally retarded – on the contrary, some of them are very talented.
Perhaps the most famous example of CP is the Irish author, Christy brown, whose struggles and triumphs of growing with CP were portrayed in the Oscar-winning movie “My left Foot.”
Patrick Woock, who got involved in Hayden’s fund-raising project, is very glad to hear of this special center dedicated to CP children.
“I grew up in a neighborhood that has CP. I’m quite familiar with it,” Woock says. “We must expend more effort to help kids gain more mobility and independence and later, integrate with society.”
To donate, please contact cerecare@gmail.com.
 
CP: The Status Quo
Modern medical advances have drastically reduced infant mortality at birth. However, this has resulted in a significant increase in children who then are left to live with disorders caused by birth complications such as cerebral palsy. It is estimated that one out of every 500 babies and up to one in three premature babies are affected to some extent.
In China, there are more than 310,000 children with CP, with a ratio of five CP babies per every 1,000 births. Statistics are practically nonexistent from cities outside of the major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
CP describes a group of disorders affecting body movement and muscle coordination. Though defined as a non-progressive disorder of movement and posture, the disease is not considered a completely curable condition due to an insult to the anomaly of the developing brain.
At present, there are no provisions for handicapped children in schools or public areas. Therefore, CP children’s ability to navigate, function independently and get an education is minimal.
However much can be done to lessen the effects of CP by enabling children to develop motor skills, attend school and live independent lives.
This need is critical to have facilities to rehabilitate these children so that they can function on a daily basis, go to school and go on to live life to its fullest.
 
(photos: “Top: Under the traditional acupressure, enhanced by the Conductive Education, the 18 kids at Tse Kong (former name of CereCare) Wellness Center for Children with cerebral palsy have witnessed great improvement in their motor skills. Above: Lyle Hayden shares a moment with Li Guquan, 2, a CP sufferer, at Tse Kong. – Shen Kai.”)