Coughing. That was the first thing I became aware of after I feel asleep. I was coughing, a lot. Apparently that was all I needed to wake up from my beauty sleep. When I opened my eyes I had a huge bandage on my right cheek and my two doctors, Nick and Shen Yao, surrounding my bed. I was laying in the post-op room two hours after my surgery had begun. Not going to lie, I was a bit out of it.
Yet even in this groggy state, I happily realized one thing: the pain was gone! That stupid pressurized puss blob on my face had been deflated and the process in doing it had not rendered me paralyzed!
Nick and Shen Yao asked me a few questions before walking away to discuss some other details. While they were gone, I tried to ask my nurse how the surgery went. Unfortunately, she couldn’t speak English and it just wasn’t the right time for me to say, “too expensive” in Chinese. So I resorted to a simple system of thumbs up, thumbs down and in the middle. Smiling, she gave me a thumbs up.
After a few more minutes they gave me the all clear and wheeled up to my VIP room where Linda and Luke sat waiting. I got off the stretcher and walked like a drunken fool over to my regular bed. I was feeling goooood.
I was also feeling paranoid. I really don’t know why but I was suddenly panicked that I had said something insulting or embarrassing during the surgery. I had heard that people talk under anesthesia and for some irrational reason I was sure that I had said something horrible. So I kept asking my doctors if I had talked during the surgery. Shen Yao looked really confused by my question and in trying to give me some sort of answer nodded her head and said yes.
I knew it!
Then Nick, whose English is a bit better and his soul a bit younger added, “Yes, you told us many secrets.”
I was mortified.
“No, no, I only kidding,” he said. “You did not say a thing.”
Isn’t there some sort of rule against picking on a person who just got out of surgery?
Satisfied by his answer, I decided to ask both him and Shen Yao how my surgery went.
Let me tell you, I did not gain any lady points by that procedure. Apparently the infection had been even worse and more disgusting than they had originally thought. As soon as they made the incision my infection and all of its glory started to pour out of my gland. They also mentioned that it had a rather rotten scent about it. You know it must have been good if even my experienced doctors were put off by it.
After they set up my IV and had antibiotics pumping through my system, Nick and Shen Yao said their goodnights and left. This was about the time Jessica walked in with another teacher from my school named Bao. They had both been in the “waiting room” watching the screen for updates on my surgery. I say, “waiting room” because what it really was, was an open-air shed outside of the hospital. You see, when a family wants to see what is going on with their loved one’s procedure, they go to this shed, sit on its plastic chairs and watch three screens. These screens say the names of patients preparing for surgery, undergoing surgery and the names of patients whose procedures have been completed. Apparently, my name never came up. Is it bad if a hospital is ashamed to have you as their patient?
When Jessica and Bao walked in the room, I noticed that there was another man with them. Turns out he was my boss, Mr. Shen. Really, I couldn’t think of a more fantastic way for the two of us to meet. Wait, I can.
Luckily, Mr. Shen turned out to be a really nice guy. Since Luke, Linda, Jessica and Bao had all been at the hospital for so long without having anything to eat, he offered to stay and watch over while they ran to grab some food.
So when the others left the hospital for a well-deserved break, I in my goofy state thought that this would be a most excellent time to try to make a good impression on my boss. First impressions are most important, after all. So I started to try to make small talk with him. I asked him about the weather, how long he had lived in Hangzhou and other super exciting topics.
Not so surprisingly, Mr. Shen didn’t really know how to respond to this situation. Here I was, cracked out on antibiotics and sporting a cheek bandage and the poor guy was being forced to partake in awkward small talk. Thankfully, the stars aligned and I feel asleep in the middle of our conversation. I make great first impressions.
After that, I only woke up for the few times when the nurses came in to switch out my antibiotics. The night was a bit of blur but I remember enough to know that when the others got back and prepared to leave, Jessica stayed behind to spend the night and Bao stayed until 1:30 in the morning to make sure that nothing bad happened with my first round of antibiotics. What did I tell you about having an awesome community here?
The next morning was the start of what would become my regular schedule for the next five days. A woman came in at 6 a.m. to give me my soupy rice bowl for breakfast. Then at around 6:15 a nurse came in to give me my TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) which came in the form of four skittle-like green pills and one white pill. To this day, I still do not know what these things are actually called. After a lost-in translation moment that resulted in my not taking the pills, I did manage to find out that they’re supposed to help with swelling. Then the nurse started me up on the first of that day’s four IV bags of antibiotics and had me do a breathing treatment for that cough I mentioned at the beginning of this post.
Did I mention that I managed to screw up the breathing treatment as well? I thought I was supposed to use my mouth to breath in and out of a tube that was connected to my medication. After my first 15 minutes stint of this though, the nurse corrected me and told me that it was actually supposed to breath in through the mouth and out through the nose.
“Like smoking,” she said.
Probably not the healthiest way to teach someone how to do their treatment but I guess it got the message across.
Around 7 a.m. Nick and Shen Yao came in to check on my gland. They hadn’t been able to get all of the infection out because it had entangled itself so much in my cheek’s tissue. So they told me that they would have to irrigate it twice a day with sodium chloride to get the rest out. While I was feeling fine then, the irrigation procedure brought me back to my pre-surgery days of unpleasant facial sensations.
They pumped my gland full of the solution and then squeezed and pressed on my cheek to try to clear it out. Let’s just say that that area was particularly tender. Oh, and this is how I learned that the Chinese are still fearful of experiencing another Opium Wars. Because I did this all without any pain medication. My doctors said that in China, because of its history with drug addiction, medical professionals are extremely hesitant to give any patients hardcore pain killers.
Adding to this whole ordeal was the fact that the first few times the procedure was carried out was done in front of all of those curious interns I mentioned in my first post. I was the monkey in a circus.
After the horrible irrigation was carried out, I was given a pair of the hospital’s swanky PJs. What I’m about to say is in no way politically correct but guys, they looked like holocaust PJs. Honestly, they had white and blue stripes and had clearly seen better days. But of course, I put them on anyways.
A few hours in my new PJs had passed when Jessica and I got our first visitor, Peter. He made it a point to come in and see me every day I was in the hospital. On that first day, he surprised me by bringing in the camera he had used to take a picture of my pre-surgery self with. I guess he had asked some of the doctors to take a picture of my surgery and was wondering if I wanted to see them.
“I heard it was pretty gross,” I said.
Laughing, Peter said, “Yeah, it really was.”
Again, does no one here know the rule about not making fun of a patient right out of surgery?
Well of course I wanted to see the pictures and Peter brought the camera over for me to take a look. I want you guys to talk to me again, so I’m not going to say the details. But I will say that I was shocked that my doctors were actually talking to me after being trapped with my gland for two whole hours.
After the pictures, Peter gave me a pep talk and told me not to act like a patient in the hospital. He wanted me to get up and walk around as much as possible and to try to forget about the fact that I had a massive bandage on my face.
When he left Jessica and I took his advice to heart. We got up and went for a little walk. Needless to say, that whole experience felt like the walk of shame because everyone was looking at us. I have to admit, the hospital isn’t exactly where would you expect to see westerners. Especially westerners as patients. But we just laughed about the whole thing and even went outside for a bit. It was not as strange as you think. It felt like all of the hospital’s patients went outside. It was our own little PJ party.
After our walk we went back to my room and discovered two very important things: hospitals in China do not supply their patients with soap or toilet paper. We immediately made a phone call to our teacher friends at school and told them to bring some supplies with them when they came for their visit that afternoon.
When the group finally arrived, they brought with them yet another surprise in the form of yet another boss. Thankfully, my goofiness had worn off a bit and I didn’t make a fool of myself. The deputy principal (whose name I cannot remember) was extremely friendly and presented me with a beautiful bouquet of flowers and a card from the school. There was even a rumor that the principal himself was going to come and say hello. Thankfully for all of us involved, that awkward encounter never did fully bloom.
I was also given a cactus by Luke, Linda and Jessica. He is now named, Eugene.
The next few days were full of friendly visits from my friends at school and even from my friend Georger’s Mom! When she came in, she brought with her some tea and milk as gifts! Maybe there is something to this surgery thing. Don’t worry, I have no intention of picking up some freak bacteria again.
I even made some friends with the nurses on our floor. They would laugh with me when I tried to speak Chinese and at me when I had to get yet another IV needle inserted into a new part of my arm (five in total). I found nothing humorous about that last part.
The only major downside was that silly irrigation process. It really did hurt and I swear to God Shen Yao pressed harder and harder each day. We got into our little routine of she and Nick walking in, making small talk and then of them both working through my tears and shakes.
It was during one of these cleanings that Peter became one of my favorite people in the whole world. He came in for his daily chat and saw me upset by the pain. He tried to talk to me but I was too busy feeling sorry for myself and only gave him nods. He immediately told Shen Yao to stop the procedure and to give me some pain medication.
God bless the American healthcare system!
Clearly Shen Yao wasn’t too thrilled about this but she and Nick stopped what they were doing and waited for me to get a small dose of morphine. It was only a bit, but it made all of the difference. The pain was suddenly transformed from a sharp jab to a more muted, heavy pain.
Thus became my life at the hospital. Chatting with my doctors and nurses, getting two cleanings a day and pumping my veins full of medication. By the fifth night though, I was starting to feel like a dog. I would get so excited whenever anyone came to visit me, would go for regular walks and was otherwise sleeping in my bed. Bow-wow it was boring.
Jessica and Linda did a great job though, of taking turns spending the night and entertaining me. Linda and I would play cards and Jessica would bring in some of her swanky films. Oh, and we also ordered pizza. The service in China is so nice that they even brought it into the hospital and up to my room. Good times.
Finally, on the sixth day, my doctors said that I could go home as long as I came in every day for at least one irrigation procedure. I quickly agreed to their terms.
Jessica was with me and we were both so excited that we blasted, “Shout,” from my computer and had ourselves a little dance party. This caused quite the commotion and many of the Chinese patients on my floor peaked their heads out of their rooms to see what was going on.
I’m sure seeing the two of us jumping around was quite the sight to see. One guy even pulled out his phone to record us. We probably should’ve stopped then but we were too excited and kept on groovin’.
What I loved most about the end of that hospital stay was that it made me realize just how many nice people I had been surrounded by. Nick and Peter gave me their emails in case I ran into any trouble in the city. My nurse Daisy (who also happens to be 22) gave me her phone number and made plans with me to hang out with me later. Shen Yao really took me by surprise when she invited me, Linda and Jessica to all hang out. We’ve since met up with her and her family twice. Once at the silk market and once at a traditional Chinese tea ceremony. They bought us lunch both times.
It was a great ending to my horrible beginning at Sir Run.
Oh, and you want to know that best part about this whole thing? Everything, my surgery, my room, my morphine, the antibiotics, everything only cost $1500.00. Even me and my broke, post-college self can afford to pay that bill!
End Part Two
Things to look forward to:
-Squirrels in China
-Using my wound to get a taxi cab ride
-Explanation of my students
-Our military censorship in a restaurant
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Chinese Hospital Adventure: Part One
What an adventure. I think that might be the best way to describe my last two weeks here in China. From the moment my plane touched down in Shanghai to this afternoon when my new friends and I walked around the beautiful West Lake in Hangzhou, this crazy country has done nothing but keep me on my toes.
Granted, I figured that my first few weeks would be a bit of a challenge. But I thought that those problems would come in the form of jetlag or of having a Chinese vocabulary that consisted only of, “hello,” “thank you,” “too expensive,” and “watch out for the car.” But nooooo, this Eastern country just had to be different and throw a complete curveball in my direction. I am talking, of course, about my six-day stint in a local hospital where I lost a bit of hair and gained a lot of stories.
To truly understand this tale, I have to take you all back to the week before I left. Nope, strike that. I have to take you back to the middle of last summer when my jaw first started to hurt. I was working at a summer camp and would wake up every now and then with what I thought was a sore jaw muscle. The times when this happened were few and far between though, and I would usually forget about it until the next pang occurred.
By the time I got home, I noticed that my jaw was a bit swollen and that the pain was becoming more frequent. Having only two weeks to prepare for my trip, I squeezed in an appointment with every type of doctor possible in hopes of getting my jaw taken care of before I left. The dentist thought I was grinding my teeth. The doctor at Lawrence Prompt Care didn’t know what was going on, told me not to worry about it and to just keep taking ibuprofen. My regular doctor just figured that I had TMJ syndrome caused by excessive gum chewing and told me it would go away with time. Like hell it did.
As the time to leave for China got closer, my jaw became more swollen and the pain more constant. The night before I left was horrible in that my jaw kept me up all night and left my poor parents trying to convince me to postpone my trip until the situation could be resolved. But I was sure that it would all go away with time and decided to board the plane as planned at 6 a.m.
Fast-forward to my fourth day in China and I was a wreck. The ibuprofen wasn’t working and my Tylenol only offered me a few hours of solace at a time. Plus, I couldn’t open my mouth. So as my two co-workers, Linda and Jessica, got to indulge in the amazing local cuisine, I was stuck on a nursing home diet of semi-melted yogurt. And that semi-swollen jaw I had told you about? Well, it had taken on a life of its own and ballooned out to the point where I belonged more on an episode of, “America’s Got Talent,” than in a school house.
Luckily for me—and I really mean LUCKILY—I am surrounded by an amazing community here in Hangzhou. When Monday rolled around, one of the teachers took me, Jessica and Linda to the international clinic at the Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital. Really, I swear that’s what it’s called! I knew it would be a good clinic in that it automatically reminded me of Run DMC. But I digress…
Let me just say that NOW I love this hospital. However, when I first arrived, I was not the biggest fan of Sir Run. When our car pulled up to the front entrance and let us out, our group walked through not a door but several sheets of heavy plastic (like the ones they use to keep the cold air trapped in freezers with) and into the chaos of the admittance lobby where a long, loud line of people both sick and well were trying to get help from the front desk. My heart sank. It was going to take forever for me to even see a doctor.
This was the first of many instances when I would begin to realize that being a Westerner in China can be a very “helpful” thing. We skipped the admittance line completely and went straight to the elevators to go up international clinic on the fifth floor. Apparently, being a foreigner made me a VIP patient and let me bypass the regular healthcare protocols. While the ridiculousness of me being any sort of VIP made me laugh and feel a bit better, my nerves started to creep in again when we got to the waiting area for the elevators. I wasn’t exactly in the mood for a lesson in social practices at that point but that’s exactly what I got. While in the US people wait for everyone to get off of elevators before they enter, in China it is a mad, melee dash. It took us a few tries and a lot of help from the school’s teacher but Linda, Jessica and I finally managed to push and shove our way into one of the elevators.
Oh my God it smells like corn. Yes, that was the first thing that came to my mind when I stepped on the elevator and watched as the doors closed to seal me in with the strange scent. (Side note: Corn on the cob is the equivalent to America’s ice cream bars…it’s the bees knees and everyone eats it). Luckily for all of us, the clinic waiting area was extremely nice and did not smell of produce. In it we had access to the internet, CNN, clean water and an awesome nurse whose ringtone was, “I Want it That Way,” by the Backstreet Boys. I was in a good place.
They quickly called me to be checked by a doctor and Jessica, being the absolutely amazing person that she is, went with me to offer emotional support. So as the my school’s teacher (who, by the way, is name is Luke) and Linda waited in the clinic’s lounge, Jessica and I went to see what the heck was going on with the right side of my jaw.
When the door opened and I met the man who would be one of my three doctors at Sir Run, I was surprised to see not a Chinese doctor but a very tall American who introduced himself as Peter. He was in Hangzhou working with an exchange program and by the end of my six days in that hospital, Peter would become my favorite person in the entire world. Well, Peter took one look at me and knew exactly what was wrong. I was not suffering from TMJ but a horribly infected Parotid gland. He paired me up with a specialist, Shen Yao who could drain the gland and get me back to normal.
Before he left, Peter asked if he could take a picture of my cheek for a class he taught back in the states because it was so swollen. In non-medical terms: he wanted to take a picture because it was just that gross. This was when I first started to suspect that my situation wasn’t exactly normal. I later asked him about it and Peter said that this sort of infection doesn’t happen that often anymore and that I was one of the more severe cases he had seen in his 20 years of practice. I’m not particularly thrilled to be the holder this title.
When I met Shen Yao, she immediately went to work and took me to get an ultrasound so she could see what had caused the infection. I hadn’t exactly had an ultrasound before (you’re welcome, parents) and thought that it simply involved skimming the surface of my skin. What I didn’t realize was that there would be a lot of pushing and pressure involved. It was not a pleasant surprise. As I lay there on the table and the ultrasound technician pressed and rolled her way across my face, I lost it. No, there was no guttural sobbing but I couldn’t stop the tears from rolling down my face nor stop my body from shaking from the pain. I was tired, hungry and completely terrified. In their own way, I’m sure my doctor and the technician tried to comfort me but I couldn’t understand a word of what they were saying. I just wanted to go home.
After the ultrasound, Shen Yao determined that my gland had become infected due to a large cyst that had formed and blocked it up. She also determined that because it caused me so much pain, that I would have to go under general anesthesia to remove the cyst and drain my gland.
Well this sucks, I remember thinking.
Thus began the second stage of my hospital adventure: preparing for surgery. I was admitted to Sir Run and given a private VIP room. It had a gorgeous view of downtown Hangzhou and a TV that got CNN. For this room, I would only be charged $80 a night. (Yeah, I know). Then I went to get some x-rays taken, draw blood and all of that other fun stuff. This portion actually turned out to be a highlight in that when I went to the hallway where I could get all of the procedures done it was filled with laughing, happy, healthy people dressed in the hospital’s pj’s. All of them were running around from station to station like it was some sort of game. It was so strange. At one point a guy actually lit a cigarette in the hallway to start smoking! Silly Chinese! Thankfully, that action was quickly squashed by a nurse passing by. The school’s teacher, Luke, said that he thought the group was a business that had come in to get their physical’s taken care of together. I think we offered as much entertainment to them as they did to us.
Once the tests were over we went back to my room, Shen Yao came to look at my gland and to further explain the surgery. It was during this time that I met my other doctor, Nick. The first time I actually saw Nick was when Shen Yao was drawing the surgical lines on my face. He came into my room, didn’t say a word to anyone, looked at my face and then ran out. We of the Hangzhou Foreign Language School were quite confused. Our confusion only expanded as more people came in for a visit. It was like an episode of, “Grey’s Anatomy” when the residents get really excited about a strange case. All of these young doctors kept peering around the corner of my room to get a good look at the yellow-haired girl and her swollen puss-filled gland.
When Nick returned, he brought a strange old man with him. At first we were all very confused because well, we thought that this older man was just a patient or a patient’s family member who had wandered in from the hallway. But no, this was my barber and he wanted to shave my hair. Honestly, before this point I hadn’t even thought about the fact that they would have to give me a haircut. I mean, I had just gotten trimmed before I left the country! But I really didn’t have any other option and got up to take the walk of shave (ha! Punny) to the chair in the corner of my room.
The barber ended up shaving only a little bit of my hair off. Right now there’s just a small portion of my head that, as the German teacher in our school so eloquently put, makes me look like a skinhead. While the barber shaved off my hair, Nick decided it would be a good time to read me the dangers of the surgery and have me sign a consent form. Basically, he said that there was a chance that my face could become paralyzed by the procedure. My mouth dropped open. I mean, before this moment, I had never even broken a bone.
After asking Nick how confident he felt about his surgical abilities…for future reference, this is not a good topic to joke about with a Chinese doctor…I went ahead and signed the form. They had already cut off my hair so why not add a scar to the mix.
With the form signed and my hair cut, Jessica, Linda, Luke and I prepared to settle in and wait for the surgeons to call me. But that weird barber just wouldn’t leave. Well, as it turns out, pre-surgery haircuts are not complementary. We were the ones who had to cover the bill. Granted, it was only $3 but still, it’s the principle of the thing!
We also had to try to explain to Nick that I react poorly to hydrocodone. This proved to be a problem in that none of us realized how to actually spell h-y-d-r-o-c-o-d-o-n-e. He finally said he understood but we weren’t too sure. Then the room cleared out of doctors, residents and nurses and we started to play the waiting game.
This also proved to be a bit difficult for me. The longer I sat around, the more I felt the pain and thought about what I was about to do and the fact that Nick might not understand how important it was that I not have hydrocodone. Again, I just wanted to go home. But sitting on a 14 hour flight just wasn’t an option and I really did have faith my doctors. But still, everything mounted up and yes, I cried again. In a strange way, this led to another great memory that I’ll never forget.
Linda, who I had only known for a few days, came over to sit on my bed and gave me exactly what I needed: a hug. She told me everything was going to be just fine and then, as I started to get a hold of myself, Linda gave me a quick kiss on my forehead. Those simple acts made all of the difference to me. I didn’t feel like I had to take this on alone.
After about 30 very long minutes a man came in to take me to the surgery room. He wheeled me out to the elevator with Linda, Jessica and Luke following. Unfortunately, they couldn’t ride on the super-special-surgery-elevator I was on and we had to say our quick goodbyes there.
As the doors to the elevator closed, I couldn’t help but smile…it smelled like corn. My doctors kept me awake until I got to the surgery room itself. In there I saw a few familiar faces and one of the nurses I had been with that day even grabbed my hand and squeezed it to show support. Kelly, what the heck have you gotten yourself into? That was the last thing I remember before the anesthesia kicked in and I fell asleep.
End Part One
What to look forward to!
-My awkward hospital meeting with my boss
-My stylish PJs
-No toilet paper
-Walking outside as a patient
-Peter becomes my favorite person
-Squirrels in China
-Using my wound to get a taxi cab ride
-Shopping with my surgeon
-Explanation of my students
-Our military censorship in a restaurant
Granted, I figured that my first few weeks would be a bit of a challenge. But I thought that those problems would come in the form of jetlag or of having a Chinese vocabulary that consisted only of, “hello,” “thank you,” “too expensive,” and “watch out for the car.” But nooooo, this Eastern country just had to be different and throw a complete curveball in my direction. I am talking, of course, about my six-day stint in a local hospital where I lost a bit of hair and gained a lot of stories.
To truly understand this tale, I have to take you all back to the week before I left. Nope, strike that. I have to take you back to the middle of last summer when my jaw first started to hurt. I was working at a summer camp and would wake up every now and then with what I thought was a sore jaw muscle. The times when this happened were few and far between though, and I would usually forget about it until the next pang occurred.
By the time I got home, I noticed that my jaw was a bit swollen and that the pain was becoming more frequent. Having only two weeks to prepare for my trip, I squeezed in an appointment with every type of doctor possible in hopes of getting my jaw taken care of before I left. The dentist thought I was grinding my teeth. The doctor at Lawrence Prompt Care didn’t know what was going on, told me not to worry about it and to just keep taking ibuprofen. My regular doctor just figured that I had TMJ syndrome caused by excessive gum chewing and told me it would go away with time. Like hell it did.
As the time to leave for China got closer, my jaw became more swollen and the pain more constant. The night before I left was horrible in that my jaw kept me up all night and left my poor parents trying to convince me to postpone my trip until the situation could be resolved. But I was sure that it would all go away with time and decided to board the plane as planned at 6 a.m.
Fast-forward to my fourth day in China and I was a wreck. The ibuprofen wasn’t working and my Tylenol only offered me a few hours of solace at a time. Plus, I couldn’t open my mouth. So as my two co-workers, Linda and Jessica, got to indulge in the amazing local cuisine, I was stuck on a nursing home diet of semi-melted yogurt. And that semi-swollen jaw I had told you about? Well, it had taken on a life of its own and ballooned out to the point where I belonged more on an episode of, “America’s Got Talent,” than in a school house.
Luckily for me—and I really mean LUCKILY—I am surrounded by an amazing community here in Hangzhou. When Monday rolled around, one of the teachers took me, Jessica and Linda to the international clinic at the Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital. Really, I swear that’s what it’s called! I knew it would be a good clinic in that it automatically reminded me of Run DMC. But I digress…
Let me just say that NOW I love this hospital. However, when I first arrived, I was not the biggest fan of Sir Run. When our car pulled up to the front entrance and let us out, our group walked through not a door but several sheets of heavy plastic (like the ones they use to keep the cold air trapped in freezers with) and into the chaos of the admittance lobby where a long, loud line of people both sick and well were trying to get help from the front desk. My heart sank. It was going to take forever for me to even see a doctor.
This was the first of many instances when I would begin to realize that being a Westerner in China can be a very “helpful” thing. We skipped the admittance line completely and went straight to the elevators to go up international clinic on the fifth floor. Apparently, being a foreigner made me a VIP patient and let me bypass the regular healthcare protocols. While the ridiculousness of me being any sort of VIP made me laugh and feel a bit better, my nerves started to creep in again when we got to the waiting area for the elevators. I wasn’t exactly in the mood for a lesson in social practices at that point but that’s exactly what I got. While in the US people wait for everyone to get off of elevators before they enter, in China it is a mad, melee dash. It took us a few tries and a lot of help from the school’s teacher but Linda, Jessica and I finally managed to push and shove our way into one of the elevators.
Oh my God it smells like corn. Yes, that was the first thing that came to my mind when I stepped on the elevator and watched as the doors closed to seal me in with the strange scent. (Side note: Corn on the cob is the equivalent to America’s ice cream bars…it’s the bees knees and everyone eats it). Luckily for all of us, the clinic waiting area was extremely nice and did not smell of produce. In it we had access to the internet, CNN, clean water and an awesome nurse whose ringtone was, “I Want it That Way,” by the Backstreet Boys. I was in a good place.
They quickly called me to be checked by a doctor and Jessica, being the absolutely amazing person that she is, went with me to offer emotional support. So as the my school’s teacher (who, by the way, is name is Luke) and Linda waited in the clinic’s lounge, Jessica and I went to see what the heck was going on with the right side of my jaw.
When the door opened and I met the man who would be one of my three doctors at Sir Run, I was surprised to see not a Chinese doctor but a very tall American who introduced himself as Peter. He was in Hangzhou working with an exchange program and by the end of my six days in that hospital, Peter would become my favorite person in the entire world. Well, Peter took one look at me and knew exactly what was wrong. I was not suffering from TMJ but a horribly infected Parotid gland. He paired me up with a specialist, Shen Yao who could drain the gland and get me back to normal.
Before he left, Peter asked if he could take a picture of my cheek for a class he taught back in the states because it was so swollen. In non-medical terms: he wanted to take a picture because it was just that gross. This was when I first started to suspect that my situation wasn’t exactly normal. I later asked him about it and Peter said that this sort of infection doesn’t happen that often anymore and that I was one of the more severe cases he had seen in his 20 years of practice. I’m not particularly thrilled to be the holder this title.
When I met Shen Yao, she immediately went to work and took me to get an ultrasound so she could see what had caused the infection. I hadn’t exactly had an ultrasound before (you’re welcome, parents) and thought that it simply involved skimming the surface of my skin. What I didn’t realize was that there would be a lot of pushing and pressure involved. It was not a pleasant surprise. As I lay there on the table and the ultrasound technician pressed and rolled her way across my face, I lost it. No, there was no guttural sobbing but I couldn’t stop the tears from rolling down my face nor stop my body from shaking from the pain. I was tired, hungry and completely terrified. In their own way, I’m sure my doctor and the technician tried to comfort me but I couldn’t understand a word of what they were saying. I just wanted to go home.
After the ultrasound, Shen Yao determined that my gland had become infected due to a large cyst that had formed and blocked it up. She also determined that because it caused me so much pain, that I would have to go under general anesthesia to remove the cyst and drain my gland.
Well this sucks, I remember thinking.
Thus began the second stage of my hospital adventure: preparing for surgery. I was admitted to Sir Run and given a private VIP room. It had a gorgeous view of downtown Hangzhou and a TV that got CNN. For this room, I would only be charged $80 a night. (Yeah, I know). Then I went to get some x-rays taken, draw blood and all of that other fun stuff. This portion actually turned out to be a highlight in that when I went to the hallway where I could get all of the procedures done it was filled with laughing, happy, healthy people dressed in the hospital’s pj’s. All of them were running around from station to station like it was some sort of game. It was so strange. At one point a guy actually lit a cigarette in the hallway to start smoking! Silly Chinese! Thankfully, that action was quickly squashed by a nurse passing by. The school’s teacher, Luke, said that he thought the group was a business that had come in to get their physical’s taken care of together. I think we offered as much entertainment to them as they did to us.
Once the tests were over we went back to my room, Shen Yao came to look at my gland and to further explain the surgery. It was during this time that I met my other doctor, Nick. The first time I actually saw Nick was when Shen Yao was drawing the surgical lines on my face. He came into my room, didn’t say a word to anyone, looked at my face and then ran out. We of the Hangzhou Foreign Language School were quite confused. Our confusion only expanded as more people came in for a visit. It was like an episode of, “Grey’s Anatomy” when the residents get really excited about a strange case. All of these young doctors kept peering around the corner of my room to get a good look at the yellow-haired girl and her swollen puss-filled gland.
When Nick returned, he brought a strange old man with him. At first we were all very confused because well, we thought that this older man was just a patient or a patient’s family member who had wandered in from the hallway. But no, this was my barber and he wanted to shave my hair. Honestly, before this point I hadn’t even thought about the fact that they would have to give me a haircut. I mean, I had just gotten trimmed before I left the country! But I really didn’t have any other option and got up to take the walk of shave (ha! Punny) to the chair in the corner of my room.
The barber ended up shaving only a little bit of my hair off. Right now there’s just a small portion of my head that, as the German teacher in our school so eloquently put, makes me look like a skinhead. While the barber shaved off my hair, Nick decided it would be a good time to read me the dangers of the surgery and have me sign a consent form. Basically, he said that there was a chance that my face could become paralyzed by the procedure. My mouth dropped open. I mean, before this moment, I had never even broken a bone.
After asking Nick how confident he felt about his surgical abilities…for future reference, this is not a good topic to joke about with a Chinese doctor…I went ahead and signed the form. They had already cut off my hair so why not add a scar to the mix.
With the form signed and my hair cut, Jessica, Linda, Luke and I prepared to settle in and wait for the surgeons to call me. But that weird barber just wouldn’t leave. Well, as it turns out, pre-surgery haircuts are not complementary. We were the ones who had to cover the bill. Granted, it was only $3 but still, it’s the principle of the thing!
We also had to try to explain to Nick that I react poorly to hydrocodone. This proved to be a problem in that none of us realized how to actually spell h-y-d-r-o-c-o-d-o-n-e. He finally said he understood but we weren’t too sure. Then the room cleared out of doctors, residents and nurses and we started to play the waiting game.
This also proved to be a bit difficult for me. The longer I sat around, the more I felt the pain and thought about what I was about to do and the fact that Nick might not understand how important it was that I not have hydrocodone. Again, I just wanted to go home. But sitting on a 14 hour flight just wasn’t an option and I really did have faith my doctors. But still, everything mounted up and yes, I cried again. In a strange way, this led to another great memory that I’ll never forget.
Linda, who I had only known for a few days, came over to sit on my bed and gave me exactly what I needed: a hug. She told me everything was going to be just fine and then, as I started to get a hold of myself, Linda gave me a quick kiss on my forehead. Those simple acts made all of the difference to me. I didn’t feel like I had to take this on alone.
After about 30 very long minutes a man came in to take me to the surgery room. He wheeled me out to the elevator with Linda, Jessica and Luke following. Unfortunately, they couldn’t ride on the super-special-surgery-elevator I was on and we had to say our quick goodbyes there.
As the doors to the elevator closed, I couldn’t help but smile…it smelled like corn. My doctors kept me awake until I got to the surgery room itself. In there I saw a few familiar faces and one of the nurses I had been with that day even grabbed my hand and squeezed it to show support. Kelly, what the heck have you gotten yourself into? That was the last thing I remember before the anesthesia kicked in and I fell asleep.
End Part One
What to look forward to!
-My awkward hospital meeting with my boss
-My stylish PJs
-No toilet paper
-Walking outside as a patient
-Peter becomes my favorite person
-Squirrels in China
-Using my wound to get a taxi cab ride
-Shopping with my surgeon
-Explanation of my students
-Our military censorship in a restaurant
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