Hospital... My Turn...

David and I have continued to cough and hack.  On Tuesday, I had to let my class out early because I had NO voice left.  I was feeling poorly when I left for class, so I sent a WeChat to Dr. Tricia asking if it was possible for me to come in this afternoon.

Dr. Hu listened to my lungs and said that he was hearing crackling sounds, and that I needed to be hospitalized so that it could be taken care of.  After checking in and paying 4000 RMB ahead toward my bill, Dr Hu took me down to get a CT scan on my lungs.  The good news was that my lungs were clear, but there was inflammation in the bronchial area.  No pneumonia!

They started me with antibiotics and antiviral medications, and also started breathing treatments.  David came after he had supper to bring me some things that I would need, and stayed until it was time to catch the last bus back to the apartment.  He still has a cough and the AHR.

I had to spend the night there.  Their beds are more like emergency room gurneys.  Hard.  Extremely uncomfortable!  They don't have any private rooms anymore, so there was another woman in the room.  Because you have to have someone to help you in the hospital, her husband was there.  Guess where he stayed?  Yup!  In our room!  Then, he fell asleep and commenced snoring!  LOUDLY!!  With snorts and mumbling in between the snores!  At one point I decided to record it to play for David later.

At about 11:30 p.m., the wife got tired of his snoring (or it finally woke her up) and kicked him out of the room.  That was a little better, but it didn't do anything for the bed.  There was also some sort of alarm that kept going off that was really loud.  It was in Chinese, so I didn't understand what it was about, but it seemed like an alarm for the woman to take a medicine or something.  When you don't have the ability to do any of your usual bedtime routines, it's pretty hard to fall asleep anyway.  I tossed and turned but finally, somewhere around 2 a.m., I did fall asleep.

That lasted until about 4:30 when that alarm sounded and the husband came back in the room.  He had come in a couple of times before I fell asleep, would use the toilet, get some hot water in his cup, noisily slurp it up and give a big sigh, then shuffle out of the room back to where he had been sleeping.  I decided I was going to give up on sleeping for a while anyway when he came back in, so I sat up.  A few minutes before 5 a.m., the phlebotomist came in for my blood.  She turned on the lights in the room, so everyone else decided to get up.

Wednesday was more breathing treatments, more antibiotics and more antiviral.  Kayce came over to bring me lunch and visit for an hour or so.  David was able to get there about 4 p.m. and then they said I could go home for the night, (boy, was I glad!) but I had to come back in the morning for my treatments.   Dr. Tricia ordered a taxi for us, and took us to our apartment.  We made some quick sandwiches for supper, checked email, and went to bed.

Thursday morning, David headed off to his class, and I slowly packed some things for the day and headed out the door.  I was still feeling pretty tired and thinking about the trek to the bus stop, riding the bus (probably having to stand most of the way) to the hospital.  I said a quick little prayer that there would be a taxi driving by that I would be able to get to take me to the hospital.

Sure enough, as soon as I got to where I could be seen from the road, there was a taxi slowly going down the street, and he looked right at me!  I raised my hand, he stopped and backed up.  I showed him the card I have from the hospital because I had no way to tell him where I needed to go otherwise.  He nodded his head that he could take me there!  You may not understand the significance of it unless you also know that taxi drivers usually don't like to take non-Chinese people because they are afraid they won't be able to tell them where we need to go.  I was so thankful for this small, but great, miracle in my life that day!!

Treatments went well, but it was a little boring, just sitting in the hospital after my morning treatments were done.  Then Deneice came over before heading to her classes, and we visited for an hour.  That was so nice.  The doctors came in, listened to my lungs, made me talk to hear how hoarse I still was, and said that they thought I should have a sonogram done of my heart because they thought it looked enlarged.  After they had a chance to look at the CT scan closer, they couldn't find anything wrong with the heart, and that is was probably the size it is because of my XL size.

Friday was pretty much the same, except David came with me.  He was going to do grocery shopping while I went to the hospital.  I read and played on my phone and waited for David to get there to go home with me.  I also was able to be a part of Rachel's laboring to bring her first child into the world.  It was eventually decided that the baby needed to be born by C-Section, so we had to end the video.  I'm glad that the birth of Ahtzera Zumaya went well otherwise. 

Saturday, we were hoping that I could be released from the hospital.  I had a breathing treatment and then Dr. Tricia and Dr. Hu came in to examine me.  My voice was sounding better, not perfect, but  better and my right lung sounded clear, however, the left lung still has them concerned a little.  They said I could  go home, but gave me another six days of an oral antibiotic, a Chinese herbal tea that is supposed to clear the lungs, and lots of cough medicine. 

David brought over some sandwiches for supper, we ate at the hospital and then went to the Kinghorn's apartment, so we could listen to the Adult Session of District Conference.  I sure hope that is the last time I have to spend time in a Chinese hospital.  Not that I wasn't taken care of, but it wasn't what I wanted to be doing.