Lucky me

I'm a health care consultant working in China.  I've given speeches on the Chinese health care and insurance system, I've helped clients with plan design questions and researched administrative procedures.  Now I can add first hand knowledge of Chinese hospitals, emergency rooms and medicine.

Lucky me.

Two weeks ago Saturday while at a party, I thought I would demonstrate a yoga pose to some friends.  I started prepping for it, transitioning my weight to my left foot, bent down and then collapsed on the ground.  My left knee gave out with no apparent warning.  My friends laughter (my balance has always been bad) transitioned to concern as they noticed my white face.  Something was wrong.

I sat there for a while, had some water, then tried to stand up.  No go.  I got dizzy and leaned against the table.  My fun night was over.

My wonderful friend Ade went with me to the emergency room.  We went to Hua Shan hospital that was pretty close and I had been to a talk earlier in the week where the hospital director there had spoken about his hospital's prestige and excellent facilities.  The driver dropped us off at the night entrance.  I limped inside, in quite a bit of pain by this point while we tried to figure out where to go.

We found someone who told us that the international clinic was down the hall and to take the elevator to the 8th floor.  Very slowly we made it there, only to discover that was the wrong location.  I waited and Ade went back.  They told her we had to walk across the campus to another building (in the dark).  She threw a fit.  Although we were hampered by not knowing the word for wheelchair, knee or accident in Chinese, she managed to procure a wheelchair and someone to push me across the campus to the "international" clinic.

Five minutes after arriving I was in the room with the doctor.  I started, tentatively, in English to tell him what happened.  "Can you speak Chinese?" he asked.  I sighed, but between the two of us managed to explain the incident in Chinese.  He gave me a brace, told me to wait until Monday and they'd schedule me for a CT scan.  Cost of service - about $90

Monday I had my team ready - my colleague Ma Jian (who has been trained as a doctor) and my good friend Lily (Mike, her husband went to Notre Dame).  They both agreed to accompany me.  However, my CT scan had been pushed back to Tuesday.  My leg, however, still hurt and I couldn't bent it.  Ma Jian knew people at another hospital (Rui Jin); Lily picked me up.

First we went to the emergency room - the doctor there was very nice, but decided it wasn't an emergency and told me to wait for my CT scan on Tuesday.  Cost of consultation - $2, which they refunded because they couldn't help me.

Next we went to see a specialist from Lily's connections (which meant waiting in the hallway of another building for a very long time).  After he looked at my knee he determined it was a ligament or tendon problem - not bone, so he recommended an MRI instead of the CT scan.  That meant going to another building where they scheduled me for an appointment the next afternoon.  I paid in advance - consultation and MRI together was about $185.

Tuesday the drill started again; Lily picked me up and Ma Jian met us at the hospital.  I got a wheelchair and was wheeled into the basement of the hospital.  I'd never had an MRI before - they are very loud.  The technician was startled to see a foreigner.  He rattled off a lot of Chinese at me, then said, "DON'T MOVE!"  I didn't.

Lily and Ma Jian managed to get another doctor to look at my film (after a 45 minute wait).  He was flipping through the pictures making comments - all of which were negative.  "Internal bleeding...tendon damage... ligament...swelling..." At that point he decided that if it was a serious as the pictures were showing I shouldn't be able to stand.  Since I could he decided to examine me.  He looked at my knee, bent it and proclaimed that I should wear the brace for 3 weeks, put Chinese medicine on my knee and I should be fine.  I got the medicine (a poultice and pills for about $10 total) with Ma Jian's help and went home, thoroughly confused.

After all this, I think that I have an overstretched ligament in my knee, caused by the yoga move.  It should heal by itself.  The pain and swelling are almost gone now [2 weeks later], though I am moving really slowly and am not that stable.  I am very lucky to have friends to support me through this process from both a language and cultural perspective.

Lucky me.

Question: Getting sick away from home is never fun. [Christmas 1999; my friend Christa; Austria - enough said] Do you have a story to share?

Happy New Year to all!

G