Dr. Lu rolled her eyes.

“Would my insurance cover it?”

She just laughed. “The FDA considers this idea too dangerous for clinical trials.” She made a gesture implying that the prejudice of bureaucrats against dragons was well known. “WOES is largely a syndrome of the developed world, more common in urban than in rural areas, in the North than in the South. Anywhere there are still dragons in the water supply, suggestively, it's hardly found. In China, WOES has only recently become common again, which could be because dragons are now endangered there due to their over-harvesting by traditional healers.”

“That's kind of ironic,” I mused.

Dr. Lu wrote some Chinese characters on a card for me. “My father lives in Ciudad Juarez. This is off the record. He had to move to Mexico to get away from a class-action law suit concerning a different course of treatment. My official advice to you is just to eat bland food and avoid stress.”

Something about the idea of a symbiotic relationship with intestinal dragons attracted me — or at least, I yearned to know more.

“My father won't let me try his treatment myself unfortunately.”

“Because he wants you to put old country ways behind you?”

“Something like that. He was very adamant I should study Western medicine. He thinks our family should cover as many bases as possible.”

“Are those highlights in your hair?” I asked.

She smiled and said, “Busted.”

Dr. Lu's father's clinic was actually a few miles south of Ciudad Juarez.

He made me sign a large number of disclaimers, stared at my fingernails for a long time, and told me there was congestion in my meridians.