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My Journey — Why I Founded "Relife"
A Story Written in Tears and Promise
You are always in my heart.
Many patients ask me what inspired me to enter the world of Chinese medicine and why I named my clinic *Relife*. This is a deeply personal story, a narrative born from a profound loss, but it is the very heartbeat that defines who I am as a clinician today.
“ If it were not for my younger sister, Yun-Ni, who exchanged her youthful and beautiful life to show me this path, Tsung-Mei Tsai, L.Ac. would not be standing before you today. As I type these words, my tears still flow freely...”
Let heaven and earth bear witness to a love and a promise that transcends life and death. The chain bracelet on my wrist has never left me, not for a single second. Yun-Ni was cremated wearing an exact identical bracelet. We bought them together in her final days, when she was briefly clear-minded, as a sacred token that we would find each other and become sisters again in our next life.
The Onset of Illness
My sister, who was just one year younger than me, began suffering from unexplained, recurrent low-grade fevers. Thinking she was merely exhausted from life, she didn't pay it much attention. It was only during a routine pediatric visit for her own children that she happened to mention it. The pediatrician, noting that she had no cold symptoms but a persistent fever, urgently advised her to see a gynecologist.
The specialist became alarmed immediately. A biopsy confirmed our worst fears: a rare and aggressive malignancy. She was rushed into a massive surgery to remove all gynecological organs in her abdominal cavity. Just seven days after this major operation, she was subjected to a grueling and intensive regimen of concurrent chemotherapy and radiation. She was supposed to complete six or seven rounds of chemotherapy, but after the fourth round, her body could take no more. Any further dosage would have been lethal.
The photo on her memorial service banner was taken in her hospital room right after she was admitted—a brilliant, elegant, and gentle woman with long, beautiful hair. When that picture was captured, she looked at me with a sweet, soft smile and said,
"Once treatments begin, I won't be able to look this pretty anymore..."
Eighteen months later, she was gone.
The Heartbreak of Her Final Month
Your spirit and courage contiue to shine in this world.
My precious sister, who had entered the hospital as a striking beauty with only a minor fever, was reduced to a fragile frame of skin and bones before the hospital finally declared there was nothing more they could do. It was summer when they told us to take her home. Since the children were out of school, I flew back from the United States to care for her. In my heart, I always felt she was holding on—holding on for her sister, who had no medical background but was frantically trying to learn massage and Qigong, hoping to fly back and save her. Instead, I became the final straw of her despair.
I cared for her during her last month and a half, being one of the very few people, aside from her husband, allowed to be near her. Because of this, the profound fragility of her body, broken by illness, is an agonizing ache carved indelibly into my heart forever.
When she became weak after her treatments, she made the agonizing choice to cut off the rest of our family from seeing her. Once, when our elderly parents brought freshly stewed chicken soup and stood outside her iron gate for over half an hour, she stubbornly refused to open the door. She never wanted them to try and see her like that again. At the time, we privately misunderstood her, tolerating it as the erratic temper of a sick patient. We did not realize it was her immense strength and deep tenderness. A patient knows her own body best; she simply could not bear to let her white-haired parents see her gaunt and deteriorating state. She never showed us her surgical or radiation scars, she never cried in front of us, and she never voiced her pain, her terror, or her helplessness. It was only after she passed away that I finally understood her fierce love.
To this day, no matter how many years have passed, the memory of her final form brings an unending torrent of tears to my eyes: her abdomen scorched into hard, dark skin from radiation; the tight swelling of her ascites; her feet terribly edematous from fluid retention. And finally, on the wooden makeup table at the funeral home, her lifeless arm slipping down, swaying without vitality... It pierces my soul.
When a person completely loses their *Qi* (vital energy) and surrenders the full weight of their body to someone else, even a frame of skin and bones becomes as heavy as a thousand pounds. I remember once, her husband, who stands a tall and strong 6'0", briefly lost his grip while supporting her from behind under her arms. Yun-Ni slipped straight down, landing heavily on her knees. I saw her mouth open wide into the shape of a scream, yet I couldn't hear even the faintest whisper of a breath.
Her profound thoughtfulness and unimaginable strength deeply shook my soul.
During that month and a half, she would always ask me what time I would arrive the next day. Her husband later confided in me that before I arrived each morning, she would cry until all her tears ran completely dry. That was why, whenever I was with her, I never saw her shed a single tear. Cancer patients often spend the long, quiet nights with their eyes wide open, unable to sleep. I can only imagine what she endured during those hours when everyone else was asleep—facing the terrifying helplessness of a body spiraling out of control, confronting the fear of impending death, and feeling her life slip away, drop by drop, amidst a tempest of shattered hopes.
Before she left this world, I had zero medical knowledge. I loved her fiercely, but I was entirely helpless. I could do absolutely nothing to ease even a fraction of her agonizing pain.
Living with the Echoes of Loss
You have never been forgotten; you live on in the quiet light that memory keeps burning.
After her funeral in Taiwan was completed, I returned to the United States. I had not cried during the services because the rest of the family needed me to be strong. But back in America, I completely disconnected from the outside world for six months. Every day, I wept so bitterly that I could not even see the words of the sutras I was reading. Between my tears, I recorded an audio series of over thirty children’s storybooks. Before she passed, Yun-Ni had desperately wanted to record herself reading stories for her two toddler-aged children, but her sudden decline left her no time.
When her children would wake up crying in the middle of the night, asking,
"Where is Mommy? Why won't she come back?"
my heartbroken brother-in-law would tell them,
"Mommy went to live on the moon. If you are good and grow up a little more, she will come home."
“Through this tragedy, I realized that when a person falls ill, it doesn't just affect an individual. It shatters a home. It breaks everyone who loves them. A patient’s health is the absolute foundation of a family's happiness and joy. “
For six months after her passing, I lived feeling as though my body was floating through space, entirely untethered. Then, one day, I felt my feet touch solid ground again. I walked to the front gate of a Chinese medicine school and enrolled. Standing there, I still harbored the heartbreaking illusion that if I mastered this medicine, I could somehow travel back in time and save her.
It was a friend who finally comforted me, saying,
"Perhaps your bond with your sister in this lifetime was meant for this very purpose—her life was the guiding light that led you to the path of Chinese medicine."
Only then did I accept that I could never go back.
The Birth of "Relife"
You are never alone; beyond this life, we will remain bound as sisters of the heart.
And so, I, Tsung-Mei (Connie) Tsai, made a solemn vow from the depths of my soul: I would dedicate my entire being and exert every ounce of effort to become a truly skilled clinician—a doctor patients can wholly lean on, and a practitioner who possesses the genuine power to heal. My life's purpose is to give those who cross paths with me a tangible, truthful hope to restore their health, allowing patients and their families to reclaim the joy and happiness they deserve.
This is the profound meaning behind the name of my clinic: **Relife**.
To my dearest sister, Yun-Ni: Thank you for quietly watching over me and guiding me on this path, leading me to the incredible mentors and teachers who have lifted me up. I will spend the remainder of my days honoring my original vow, never forgetting why I began. Until we meet again, and become sisters once more...