Chinese Hospital

I was exhausted after teaching on Monday. Even my students noticed by saying "Where is your smile today, Abbie? Did you leave it in your room?"

"I'm sorry everyone. I just can't find any energy. We will continue our discussions while I sit down, is that okay?"

I find myself waiting for a response from them every time I ask a question. During our class discussions, I try to lead them to some of the possible answers. Slowly they're becoming more outspoken, but their lack of a response didn't matter this time. I sat down for the rest of class.

That night I decided to go to bed as early as possible. Howard was going to take me to the "body doctor" in the morning so they could run some tests to that I could complete my residence visa.

I fell asleep around 8pm.

At 1:30am I woke up crying. Sometimes, if I'm having an especially terrifying dream, I'll catch myself waking up with tears coming down my face, but this time was different. I was sobbing when I woke up. My hands were clenched around my stomach. I tossed and turned in different positions trying to get the pain to subside. "This is the worst pain I have ever felt in my life." I thought to myself. I felt like I had been shot in the stomach.

I grabbed my phone and text messaged Jen. Before she answered, I was at her door.

"Call Howard. I have to go to the hospital. Now."

We met Howard downstairs. "Do you just need some hot water?"

"No, Howard. Hospital." He (and everyone else in China) thinks that hot water and fruit cures everything. While I'm sure this reasoning works at certain times, I was sure that steaming cup of water would not cure this pain.

The next 6 and a half hours are quite a blur. Howard shuffled us from room to room. The doctor listened to my lungs and felt my stomach. I cringed in pain. She wrote a prescription for a muscle relaxer that we then had to buy at the front of the hospital. We walked in to the injection room. (Through the doorways we could see doctors stitching together a man's face that had been hit by a car.)

I stood in front of the nurse, Howard to my side and Jen next to him. While the nurse prepared my injection, Howard pulled the curtain between us. The nurse (in Mandarin) told Howard to tell me to pull my pants down. I waited for instructions while Howard translated.

Howard, while still standing less than a foot away from me, spoke to Jen, "Um. Um... You uhh... tell Abbie that ummm she has to pull her pants down."

Jen peaked around the curtain, "It's going in your ass."

"Yeah, I figured...."

After waiting over a half of an hour for the muscle relaxer to work, I noticed a man that had been following us from room to room since we had arrived. He wore a dingy suit coat, a dress shirt, khakis, and work boots. After I decided that the injection wasn't helping, we returned to the doctor's office and Howard gave me a bottle of hot water. While waiting for Howard to finish speaking to the doctor, I looked up at this strange man and we shared a meaningful glance. The doctor prescribed some IVs. After purchasing them, we walked back to the IV room.

It was an open room with about 50 beds lining the walls. Over half of them were occupied. Jen and I stood at the doorway while Howard talked to the nurse. The strange man had followed us to this room as well and motioned for us to sit on one of the beds.

We named our new friend Clarence after the angel in It's a Wonderful Life. I was sure he was some sort of guardian angel sent to watch over the round-eyes. He chose a bed across the room from us and took a short nap. After waking up, he walked out of the room. I had imagined that he thought we were pretty safe in our current location, so he decided to comfort someone new.

I was on my second IV when Clarence returned - refreshed. He was wearing a green hooded sweatshirt with "HOT" written on the front, jeans, new sneakers, and was carrying a bag full of rolls. He munched on one while offering the rest of them to the three of us. We each declined.

He stayed with us for a while longer until finding someone in more need of his assistance then us. We never spoke, but at times like those I really wish I knew Mandarin. Really really wish I knew it.

After about 5 hours of IVs, we left. I'm not sure what the first IV was but the second was a glucose drip and the third was a very strong antibiotic with some painkillers. I slept the rest of the day away, woke up for dinner, and slept for another 9 hours.

At this time, I'm feeling much better. I still have attacks of pain and some nausea, but each day gets better than the previous. I feel awful that this happened. Mostly because of the worry I must have caused my family. I'm sorry, Mom. I'm sorry, Josh. I'll be home soon.