Well as the title implies I will be spending a week with Sim Sim. Finn, Luke, and Katherine will be going to Hawaii for a week to visit their parents. I have set them a mission why they are in Hawaii, find the nearest Taco Bell and get me Two Chicken Quesadillas and a large Baja Blast and bring it back. My payment for said Taco Bell is that I will watch Sim Sim for the week they are gone. As everyone knows I am not a huge fan of dogs but I can tolerate Sim Sim, except for the fact that he is driving me nuts right now. Finn just dropped him off in my apartment maybe ten minutes ago, and the whole time he has been walking around with his bone in mouth and whining as loud as possible. If this keeps up I am taking him for a walk on the train tracks today. It is literally driving me insane. All work and no play makes Josh a dull boy. All work and no play makes Josh a dull boy. All work and no play... sorry about that I had to snap out of that, whew. Now I am having a conversation with Sim Sim like he is a person. I am telling him about all the chuckles we are going to have together. I am also typing this one handed while I pet him with my other hand to keep him from whining. This is how I know I am not ready to take care of a kid cause I would give Sim Sim to the first stranger I met on the street so I don't have to listen to anymore whining. My favorite part of taking care of Sim Sim is going to be the pointless trips to take him down seven flights of steps to pee and then right back up seven flights of steps, that is going to rock. My gluts are going to be ripped out of there mind by the end of this week.
As you guys might remember from my last story I have had some trouble with my bowels. Some of you have asked why I would tell these stories and some of you have expressed distaste. Well I am giving a food warning right now, if you are eating finishing eating and then resume reading, especially if you are eating lasagna or chili or any other food that looks kinda like well you know where I was going. So read at your own risk if you continue to eat. As for why I would tell these stories, why not, I promised to share the experience of living in China for a year and to be absolutely honest about it, so here goes. For the last 5 days I have been afflicted with a condition I will call Loose Bowel Syndrome or LBS for short. The symptoms of LBS are the inability to control your own intestines. All the food that you eat immediately goes through your body and out the exit. It is really kinda of annoying, because I am hungry but I know that no matter what I eat I am not going to have it long. The only day I actually felt good was the day I didn't eat anything at all the day before, so I was all out of ammo. Before all the moms out there start telling me I need to be eating certain kinds of food that is what I am doing. I am eating plain rice and plain noodles, I am not eating spicy or overly greasy food. I say overly greasy food because all Chinese food is made with oil, I just get the ones made with the least amount of oil. No matter what I eat my body is still a through way. I feel like I have been eating nothing but Lean Pockets all week. "Diarrhea Pockets" So I went to the hospital on Wednesday to see a doctor. Some of you are thinking wow he must be really sick he went to the hospital, well yes and no. In America we have private doctors who we see for life's little ups and downs and hospitals are for emergencies or serious diseases. In China they do not have a private medical community, so you go to the hospital for everything. I had the same feeling when they told me I should go to the hospital, I was thinking I am not that sick I don't need to go to the hospital. In American I would have just scheduled a visit with my family doctor, but in China I needed to go to the hospital.
The hospital in China is a fun experience that we all should do at least once in our lives. So Wednesday morning, Gordon a Chinese student who chose the name Gordon because he loves Half-Life, picked me up at my apartment and took me to Dong Fong General Hospital. Gordon, who has excellent English especially for a Freshman, related to me the story of how he had recovered from dysentery just a month or so ago. So I was a little nervous, I didn't want to have dysentery, I heard that disease sucks. Gordon also tells me on the way to the hospital that I would definitely need to give a stool sample, I was thinking no problem I could go right now in the back seat of this taxi if I needed to. So we get to the hospital and check-in at the front desk. We had to head upstairs tot he fourth floor and the gastroenterologist office. Basically you walk in this office and set your medical file on the guys desks and wait your turn. Then everybody after you sets their file on top of yours and waits as well. So by the time it was my turn they were probably 10 people in the office all around the doctors desk waiting to go. So I sat down in a little stool, get it stool, and began my examination. So while the doctor is asking me questions, Gordon is translating, all of the other Chinese people are huddled around me listening and waiting. It was a little uncomfortable,and in the middle of my diagnoses a women just comes right in and start talking to the doctor, lifts up her shirt and starts pointing to a spot on her stomach. The doctor then tries to answer her question as quickly as possible while also trying to still examine me, it was rather hilarious. So the doctor says he wants a blood test and a stool test, so we head down tot he 2nd floor.
On the second floor they have testing windows kind of like tellers a t a bank, and you walk up to them and hand them your stamped receipt. You ave to pay for the test before hand, it cost we a whopping 40 quai total for both tests, that is not even 10 USD. So we go to the blood window first, you hand the lady your receipt and then she grabs your arm and pulls it through the gap under the window. Then she proceeds to take your blood right there at the window. She actually stuck me pretty good considering how hard it is to find my veins and left a only a small bruise. Then you walk over to the stool sample window where they have these little white cups. The cup is about 1 inch deep by 1 inch wide with a little 1/4 inch handle coming off of one side. So then I have to go into the Chinese squatty potty and try to poop in this little cup, miss my pants which I have tucked up with my other hand and do it all while my thigh muscles are burning from doing a wall sit with no wall. As you might have already guessed I failed, epically. I have not been able to stop going all week and when I needed to go I couldn't. I crouched in that bathroom for a good ten minutes trying to go. When I got out of there I was physically drained from the effort and strain. However I did notice one good thing about Chinese bathrooms, they have mastered the ability to make doors ft flush. So unlike American bathrooms there is not a one inch gap on either side of the door that people can stare awkwardly in at you. Trust me I appreciated greatly considering the circumstances of my stay in that particular bathroom. So without the stool sample we just used the blood teat, I got some medicine and I left the hospital. All told that trip cost me 80 quai, for those of you at home keeping score that is like 12 USD. I can't even see my family doctor without paying him a 15 dollar copay. Much less get medicine and tests done, but are health care system is fine no need to fix it.
So since I have been sick for the last week I have had a lot of people trying to take care of me. I have been getting calls and text messages like crazy. All my students want to know if I am sick, if I am getting better if they can do anything for me. It is nice but also at the same time it can be a bit tiring, but I'd rather people cared then they didn't. So Lily of course has been taking care of me like the mom she is. She has come an visited me, she's the one who made me go tot he hospital, she even got a renowned professor/doctor of gastroenterology to take a look at my case. He is a Chinese Doctor that moved to Australia about 20 years ago and he has come to our college to give a lecture. So Lily took him and another professor from Wuhan, out to Wu dang Mountain today. So I got a call from Lily and she likes I asked this doctor to check you so I am going to hand him the phone. The next thing I know I am talking to this Australian dude. I only wish I could see this person in real life because he sounds exactly like a native Australian. I want to see a Chinese person with that accent, It would blow my mind. So this guy gives me a differential right over the phone, asking about my symptoms, if I have a fever and then he gives me a diagnoses. He is like he Chinese, Australian speaking Dr. House. He said he was going to tell Lily what medicine to buy for me and I should be fine in a few days. So that's awesome, once again I have been saved by Lily. I realized that when I tell all these stories now about Lily taking care of me, she is going to read them and probably get a big head. On the other hand she told me that reading my blog posts give her a headache, because it hard for her to read so much English, not because my stories are bad. I know what some of you were thinking.
Well I have to go take Sim Sim for a walk now,and I have to take his bone away. He is only allowed to have it for 15 minutes at a time or maybe that's a whole day I am not sure. Either way he is going to hate me and then try to kill me in my sleep, great.
