HMMM...

i had a fun experience tonight... a run in with a Chinese hospital.


don't worry, it wasn't for me.


actually, it was for one of the team leaders here. she hit her head on the fan above the stove last night pretty hard. well, hard enough for it to swell up pretty good and bleed a good bit.

she went to bed that night feeling okay, except for a small head ache.

then she woke up today, just like new. only, around noon she started feeling dizzy, and the headache came back.


by dinner, she was having trouble remembering things and for some reason she was emoting oddly. she was both laughing and crying at random times for no reason. she would be talking one moment, and be laughing the next for no good reason.

'possibe concussion, possible hypoglycemia' rang loudly in my EMT ears and i did a quick SAMPLE history and OPQRST (for you EMT's out there).

thurns out her father is hypoglycemic and she has been tested before in the States because signs kept pointing in that direction, only with no avail. she was negative on all blood work. plus, that evening she had been drinking plenty of high-sugar juices, just in case.

so, possible hyperglycemia or maybe a little keto-acidosis, and of course you can't rule out the concussion due to the previous injury.


i told her i thought we should get to the hospital of things kept persisting.

they did, and in her case they also degenerated.



so, hop in taxi, and off to the hospital!

which, p.s., is hard to find if you don't know what it is called, and you don't speak Chinese very well...


and somehow i ended up being the go-to guy for translating and in my broken mandarin i got us to the hospital only by the skin of our teeth.

meanwhile, our patient in the back of the taxi is uncontrolably laughing again for no reason.


we get to the hospital, and it is a pit.

this was the sweet front entrance...


and this was the E.R.


can you tell the difference between the doctors and the family members?

yeah...


neither can i.


as we were waiting in the middle of the E.R. (they just let you stand around wherever) a guy ran past me with a bowl full of blood and splashed some on my shoe. he was racing because the bowl got full and he had to dump it out in the bathroom sink so he could use it again... not after rinsing it out, of course. as we all know, rinsing is pretty much the same as sterilizing anyway.

plus, there are other people bleeding, vomiting, and writhing around freakin' everywhere. i mean, it was chaos!

anyway, we finally see a 'doctor,' notice 'doctor' is in quotes because in China all you have to do is go to a four year undergrad school and whammy! you're a doctor. and this frickin' doctor says






'she has a cold.'






a cold?







whf?








at this point i'm furious because this guy didn't even take her vitals. pulse, BP, respirations, nothing. all he does is look at the back of her throat and he tells me she has a freakin' cold?!?!


NO!!! SHE NEEDS A CT SCAN!


are you people insane?


finally, with the help of some Chinese people who speak a little English also, we rally for a CT scan and get it.

she goes in, and oops, the scanner is covered in dried blood...


but, i guess in China, much like the bowl, blood can't hurt ya. it's just the same as red kool-aid. not a disease carrying, pathogen filled, bacteria laden juice, just waiting to infect the first thing it touches... which also happened to be my shoe...



...



anywho, things actually turn out okay. she didn't have any brain or head trauma to speak of. just a bump on the melon.


only, none of this still explains the odd way she was acting and feeling...


oh well, that will be an adventure for another day!



i said it before, and i'll say it again...












China is crazy! - i love it!