At the end of Clay's visit, he got an experience that he certainly did not bargain for. Clay, Dave, and I went over to Steve's house for some Monopoly and beer on Clay's last night. I hadn't been feeling too great that day, but felt good enough, I figured some of the food I had during our trip wasn't sitting too well with me and it would pass. Well, it turned out I was wrong. It ended up being food poisoning, which led to dehydration and low electrolytes, which somehow caused all the muscles in my legs to convulse/tingle/hurt/lock-up. Needless to say, I got freaked out, called Clay, Dave, and then Xingxing, who called the ambulance.
All in all, I made it through my stay in the hospital better than I entered. I'll spare the not so glorious details that no one wants to read, and instead give some observations I have about my stay at what is said to be the best hospital in Changzhou. First, having a sickness with flu like symptoms when China is aggressively trying to prevent H1N1 from entering China is not a good idea. On the ambulance ride and during the first two hours I was there they did nothing to treat or even ask me about my symptoms. All that occurred was a few different rounds of interrogations about where I had traveled, who I had been in contact with, and other questions to determine whether it was the swine flu. The first blood test they did was for the swine flu.
Almost every one of the nurses I had was very kind, attentive, and excited to be taking care of the foreigner. The emergency room was pretty clean and sanitary, and had plenty of nurses. The room I spent most of my time in, though, could've of used a few sanitary upgrades, and most of all, could've used some more nurses...it's not like China's low on labor supply or anything. The bathrooms lacked, as most do in China, any sort of sanitary devices. Now, normally I don't really mind this, but at a hospital, a little cleanliness could go a long way. The thing that upset me the most, and trust me I got pretty upset, was the smoking. In China, you can pretty much smoke anywhere you want to, and the 2/3 of males who do smoke tend to do so. But, I figured (wrongly) that the hospital was somewhere smoking wouldn't be tolerated. Of course, there are no smoking signs up everywhere. But, no one seemed to really enforce this or worry about it. Well, Teddy (my advisor) and I became the no-smoking enforcers during my short stay. My other main complaint was that the Chinese attitude to healing seems to be to "wait it out". I don't deny that time and rest help with recovery, but when I had a high fever, I wanted to combine hydration and fever medicine with time. The nurses didn't agree. I won out after waiting for 12 hours didn't do anything but raise my fever.
I mentioned Teddy, and I will mention him again, because he took a day out of his life to sit by my side at the hospital. He went above and beyond his job duty of managing the foreign teachers and spent a sleepless night with me at the hospital as well as served as translator and cultural difference explainer to me and the Chinese nurses and doctors. He was great. Likewise, Clay, Dave, and Xingxing were absolutely awesome for staying with me the first night, and Xingxing did a spectacular job translating some pretty specific medical terms. After my experience, I'd say that a stay in a Chinese hospital might not be worth the 'experience' or the stories you get to tell later.
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