Hospital Visits for David... All Week...

As I posted a little bit about David being in the hospital last Sunday, I will fill you in on what has been happening with that.  David got sick on our Yangtze River trip and after we got home on Saturday, he decided that he better see Dr. Tricia and get some help.

They treated him with an IV of antibiotics and antiviral medicines and gave him breathing treatments to help relax the airways.  They also did a blood test, and a CT Scan of his lungs.  They did the treatment twice on Sunday and wanted him to come back again on Monday morning to get another treatment.  She also wanted him to get an ultrasound of the abdominal organs to see if there were any problems there.  His lungs were free of pneumonia and no problems in the organs, so they decided that he had a bronchial infection and after another IV antibiotic treatment on Monday morning, they released him from the hospital. 

I taught David's class on Monday morning and then mine while he went to the hospital.  I contacted my class monitor and instructed her to have my class meet me in the classroom where David teaches, because I didn't think I would have time to close up his classroom and then get over to the building where I teach, and have time to get set up.  Everything went well.

David and I went back to the hospital Tuesday afternoon to get the results of his blood test.  Dr. Tricia seemed to want to talk a lot, so we were too late to get supper at the canteen and decided to buy KFC because it is on our way home and close.  The air quality that day was 500 AQI!  You could taste the pollution in the air! We ordered our meal and sat down to eat.  David tried to swallow his first bite and his throat wouldn't work!

He started coughing and gagging.  I was afraid of him passing out right there in the restaurant.  He eventually got the gagging under control and went into the restroom and get the coughing under control.  David came back rather pale and he was afraid to eat or drink.  We talked about whether to pack up our food and go home to finish, or to try and finish eating there.

We stayed there and he was able to finish his meal, but it really wasn't a pleasant feeling.  Several times that evening, he would start coughing and have the same sensation of his throat closing off.  He was able to get through the night.  The next day, we had lunch with Eva, and after I left for my painting class, David was still talking with Eva when he started coughing and couldn't stop.  It had him scared to even talk anymore!  (If you know David, you know that it was pretty bad if he stopped talking!)

David was back at the hospital on Thursday afternoon getting checked out by Dr. Tricia and Dr. Hu.  They decided that what he had was AHR - Airway Hyper Responsiveness.  This is a hallmark of asthma and it has to be treated similar to it.  David has some pills to take that reduce inflammation, and we have a humidifier (a gift from one of the Chinese teachers that we have lunch with) for sleeping with at night.  He still has some episodes of waking up with his throat closing off because we haven't been able to start the humidifier until tonight.  We hope it helps.

We went on a short trip this weekend to Mt. Tai and Qufu, Confucius birth place.  I'll write about that tomorrow because I'm too tired to do it tonight.