Hospital

On the subject of stairs, I have to tell you my tale of landing in the hospital already! (Bear with me, I will make the connection.)

A couple of weeks ago, one of my classes invited me to go on an outing to Dong Xiao Forest Park, a scenic park area not too far away, where they were planning to hike around and have a BBQ. Sounded like fun so I went. We took a bus for about an hour and came to this place in the mountains (think something like Great Falls) and unloaded and started to climb. We hadn't gone far when I took a big step, the rock was unsteady and rolled back. I hyperextended my knee and heard a nasty "ping"sound. The next step was excruciating. The kids helped me to a bench where I sat while the climbed and after they carried me to the BBQ place. The knee didn't hurt at all when I wasn't standing so I was having a great time eating and talking etc, when the next thing I knew, I was on the ground with about 20 kids hovering around! They called an ambulance (over my protests) and it came and people carried me down the mountain in a stretcher. I was feeling fine by this time so I was mostly embarrassed.

Get to the "People's Hospital", not the best one in town but the only one where there is a doctor who spoke English, and they did a CAT scan and it seems I had a mini-stroke! Everyone was focusing on my head problem and no one would pay attention to my knee which was very frustrating! They said I had to stay and they loaded me into the last available bed in the place -- the center bed in a 3 person room --with great apologies. My poor roommates then had to deal with the veritable parade of people who came to "be with me". Students came in pairs and were with me constantly, even through the night! All the other teachers, reps from the university came with flowers, etc., I was quite the Queen.

Meanwhile, I was tested for everything known to man, given incredible amounts of medicines: pills, injections, and two drip bottles a day, all while trying to get people to pay attention to my knee! Finally, the next morning I was apparently the "main draw" for Rounds as 8 doctors surrounded my bed, including the head doctor for the whole hospital (who, they tell me no longer sees patients). She started poking around my knee and DEFINITELY found the sore spot! It was the ACL, it wasn't torn only sprained which I had figured out myself since by the next morning, it was definitely getting better on its own. This was followed by many more tests, including x-rays, a brain scan and a sonogram to locate the errant blood vessel in my neck which had caused the problem. It is small so no lasting effects but I will probably have to add an anticoagulant to my daily handful of pills forever.

Comments on a Chinese hospital: the best part is the level of care I got, although I don't know how much of that was related to my "foreignness". The oddest part is that they don't provide food. If you don't have someone to bring you stuff from outside, you will starve in there! You even have to provide the water you take the pills with! Not just pay for, someone must leave the hospital and go buy you a bottle! That was a little odd.

The flip side, though, was the cost. There was some consternation since my local health insurance hasn't kicked in yet and I was wondering how Kaiser was going to deal with THIS! Turns out that for 2 days and 2 nights, all those tests, all that medicine (including 3 weeks worth to take home), all the doctors AND the ambulance, the total cost was $217!

I decided to rack it up to experience and not even bother Kaiser!

Oh, I almost forgot the connection to the stairs. All is well now, a week and a half later. The only problems I had for awhile were with the stairs on campus -- my knee REALLY didn't like those!

April Fool!

I thought April 1 might be a good time to reappear on your radar screen -- a la a bad penny. Thanks to the numerous, somewhat nasty I might add, emails I have received, it appears you all think I am dead. Here is the real problem. I keep complaining about my internet situation but I have finally decided to adjust to it instead of fighting it or waiting for it to change. The adjustment means that it is 5 AM as I write this! I only have a good reliable "bandwidth" in the early morning. With the aid of a "workaround" provided by my computer savvy son, I have returned to the original site as the new one proved to be worse. Anyway, to catch you up...

I am now here at Longyan University in Fujian, Province. It's quite a nice place, a small city 2 hours inland from the coast in a hilly part of town. The air is good, the people friendly and my apartment comfortable. This is not Harvard but a small provincial university which most of the students would not have chosen if they could have done better but it is at least a university which gives them some status. The kids are really nice, I love teaching this age group. The work load is light so it will be a "pleasant" if not financially lucrative year.

The university has built a new campus on the complete other side of town. Students, with their teachers have been moving over there for the last two years on a department-by-department basis. Left here on the old campus we only have English and Chemistry and we are due to move in August. The new campus is much more modern, spacious and attractive and apparently, so will our apartments be. The downside is that it is WAY out of town. From here we can walk to almost everything, there it will be a bus to go anywhere, even food shopping.

In the meanwhile we have this nice old campus pretty much to ourselves. Nothing is ever crowded, the walkways are beautifully shaded, flowers are starting to bloom, it's quite pretty.
It is, however, built into the side of a hill so that wherever you go, it seems you must walk both up and down a lot of stairs.

I am going to "publish" this, just to make sure I can, then I will do another quickly.