Health Update

So after a few weeks of writing about my illness, I'm just going to continue the trend and write once again about my sickness. My teammates all agree that my week was blog worthy, so I'll take their advice and post a little about how I've been doing. As I wrote last week, I self-diagnosed bronchitis because of all the symptoms that I had. After a few more days of intense coughing, and feeling pretty bad, I broke down and went to the hospital last Thursday.

If I haven't explained the Chinese hospital experience yet, I'll just start off by saying, you have absolutely no privacy in Chinese hospitals! I went through the registration process which consisted of Mr. Lee, the best driver ever, running around to about 4 tables trying to get everything in order to get me registered in the hospital. Then we walked up to the 3rd floor, not many elevators in China, and had to find an open doctor to talk to. After looking through a few rooms we found a free doctor. It is sort of weird to have your FAO's assistant, Amy, and your driver, Mr. Lee, translate all the symptoms you have into Chinese. I also enjoyed the questions I was asked as the door was open with many Chinese people walking by to see what was wrong with the foreigners. After a short physical exam, meaning he used his stethoscope to check my breathing, the doctor signed a paper and told me that I needed to go and get a x-ray of my chest. Oh but first we had to run down to pay for the examination and for the x-ray. Then we went up to the 5th floor, by stairs, to get the x-ray done. Now every x-ray that I have ever gotten in the States I've always had to remove all metal and clothes and there was no else in the room with you, however China is a bit different. I removed my jacket, left all other clothes on and Amy was standing in the room with me. I just had to hug the machine, while the huge observation room was occupied by Mr. Lee, Joelle, and the guy taking the x-ray. I guess their was also a window/door that led to the waiting room, so anybody could have looked in. Then we waited for a few minutes to get my x-rays. Usually the patient never gets to see the x-rays and everything is done behind the scenes. However in China, they just hand you your x-rays and send you on your way. Then we headed back down to the first doctor we saw and he looked them over for about 5 seconds before he diagnosed me with zhi qi guan yan, which I found out 4 days later translates to Bronchitis. Then I had to go to the pharmacy, which is on the first floor of the hospital, to get the medicine that the doctor prescribed. So after this visit to the hospital, I spent about 298 kuai, which is about 43 US dollars. That was round one of the hospital/clinic for this particular illness.

On Sunday, I was still feeling pretty bad, I don't think that the medicine was really working, so I ended up calling International SOS. This is part of my insurance in China, it is 24-hours of emergency medical doctors who can help you with any information that you might need for any ailment that you might have. SOS and I have become pretty good friends so far in China, I'm actually surprised that they do not know my name yet. So I called them to ask about what I could do because I didn't feel any better. They told me that because of my asthma, my bronchitis will last longer and that I needed to get another inhaler.

On Monday morning, I realized that I had a few cold sores around my mouth, so I decided to go to the school clinic to get some medicine or something for them. I didn't want to go to the school clinic, but Joelle said that I had to. So I went, of course they dismissed the real reason that I went there and focused more on the cough that I still had. I was told that I needed to get a blood test and that I lacked vitamin c, so I got my prescription for that and also got vitamin b, maybe for fun? I don't know why they gave that to me. Apparently my blood test told the doctors that I had a virus and the only way to cure it was by getting an "injection". "Injections" in China equals a IV in the States. Now I've never had an IV drip before, which was a surprise to all of my students, but in China this is the cure all medicine. If you have a cold, get an injection, if you have the flu, get an injection, if you have a cough, get an injection! Yeah, not a big fan of that. So I went on Monday evening after my meeting, thinking that I'd be getting a shot or something, but no, three hours later, I was still there waiting for the fluid to hurry up and get into my blood stream. I now have a huge bruise on my left hand due to the injection. But then on Tuesday morning after being frustrated with the first injection, I was told that I needed another injection. So Tuesday afternoon, I was out again. Injection round 2, now I also have a bruise on my right hand. So after 6 and a half hours or so in the clinic, I'm left still feeling a bit sick, two huge bruises on both of my hands and wondering why in the heck I got an injection in the first place!

I just wanted to give you all a little update on my health status in China! If you could please lift up my health, as well as my teammates health, that would be much appreciated. I hope that this blog finds you well, well at least better than me :)