The Clinic

I live in a neighborhood that can only be described as urban residential.  Basically, it is a maze of side streets full of small storefronts.  Most of these are like 15 feet wide or so and they contain a variety of shops with consumer goods.  Little convince stores, fruit shops, small hole in the wall restaurants, stores that sell random household goods, a store that sells mirrors and shower heads, little4 barber shops, and a store full of cheap pirated CDs and DVDs.  Basically the little shops and the street vendors who inhabit the sidewalks in front of the shops supply the community with many of its basic needs.  For anything that the little stores don't have, there is China's first Walmart right down the street.

I said it was a residential neighborhood and didn't say anything about the houses.  The neighborhood is full of high rises which rise above the storefronts up about 20 stories or so.  My school itself is built into a hill, and much of the school is built over store fonts on the street below.  No street front space is wasted.  God only knows how many thousands of people live here.  Anyway, there has to be some kind of medical care for all these people right?

There is a hospital somewhere in my little neighborhood, but I only go there because for whatever reason I always end up there when I'm lost.  Walking down the main streets I saw a place I originally thought was only a pharmacy. It is right between the other storefronts, across the street from a small restaurant, right down from a pirated DVD place and the shower head store.  So walking by I saw some desks on one side and a guy giving someone an exam.  I guessed that it was a pharmacist giving an exam to give someone the right medicine.  It didn't take it very seriously.

About a week later, when I had just gotten back from my hike and was developing quite the fever.  I remembered the pharmacy and thought Tylenol.  Okay I thought, this should be easy enough, the only stumbling block as I saw it was walking the 100 yards to the pharmacy, and I figured I could still do that even with the fever.  I got there, and there were people waiting at the counter, and I gazed across the 25 foot wide clinic.  On one side the pharmacy counter.  On the other, three desks with lounging doctors watching the TV in the corner of the room and gazing out onto the street.  Between the pharmacy on one wall and the doctors on the other there is a row of the same kind of seats that you sit in at airports while waiting for the plane at the gate.  In the back of the clinic behind the doctors desks is a dental setup where someone was getting a tooth pulled.  

One of the doctors was looking at me.  He had on a lab coat and there was a sign on his desk that said doctor in Chinese, so what the heck I thought and went over to tell him what was happening.  

I mentioned diarrhea, because it is one of the few medical problems I know how to say in Chinese, even though it really wasn't my main problem, and then motioned to my forehead and my fever.  The doctor stuck a thermometer under my armpit and checked my breathing and pulse and blood pressure while I waited for the thermometer to warm up.  Five minute4s later his exam was done and he pulled the thermometer out.  39 Degrees.  That's 102.2 Fahrenheit.  So I was right about the fever.  At this point the doctor started mumbling things in Chinese that I didn't understand.  He kept acting out an IV.  I was like IV? I need a pill or two and I'll be okay.  Well I don't know how to communicate that effectively in Chinese so I just kept nodding and saying OK and the doctor sent me over to the pharmacy counter with a long four point prescription.

I paid the pharmacist about $20 US and he motioned behind a partition to 2 small beds.  There was a Chinese girl laying on one rolling around and getting an IV and they motioned for me to lay down on the other bed and pull down my pants.  OK.  Then they pulled out a big syringe and warned me that it was going to hurt.  No problem.  I've had lots of shots before.

Actually I haven't had that many shots directly into the muscle of my ass.  They do hurt, a lot!  You feel every drop of the liquid expanding your muscle, filing it up like a balloon.  It feels like your ass is exploding.   After the shot in the ass they gave me some water to drink and started an IV through the top of my right hand.  That didn't hurt much.  I was still feverish and sweating a lot, and also pretty bored.  Played around with my phone for a while.  Tried to sleep.  Kept falling into these short dreamlike states, which were unfortunately interrupted by the noise of people talking very loudly in the clinic, or on the street (the clinic has no doors, it is open to the street in the front.) 

After a while I started staring awkwardly at the Chinese girl in the bed next to mine.  She was pretty cute.  She had great hair anyway.  I thought she might be a little older than me.  I have been having trouble meeting Chinese girls my age and I though the clinic is as good a place as any other so when I caught her checking me out I started talking to her.

All of a sudden the IV flew by.  The last 20 minutes (out of 2 and a half hours) went by in a flash because it was all me working the game.  She got my phone number off my phone before I asked for hers.  Turns out she is an 18yo freshman finance major that lives with her family in my neighborhood.  Went to the school I teach at.  Has a lot of brothers and sisters in my classes.  (Remember: big families can mean big money!)  Suddenly being sick had turned into a good thing.  This was all Saturday night.  When my IV finished I went home, promised to come back the next day and slept great.

Sunday I felt a little better but not 100 percent.  I was texting back and forth with that girl and we decided to go back to the hospital together.  The doctor did another exam and told me I needed 2 more days of IVs.  Whatever.  As far as I was concerned I was on a date.  We went back to our beds and laid down and talked the IVs away.  It started raining and she waited for me to finish because I didn't bring an umbrella.  How romantic.  We walked back to my school with my arm around her and now I'm a hell of a lot closer to getting that Chinese girlfriend than I was last week.  And my sickness?  Well Monday I decided not to work and went back for my last IV.  Right now it's Tuesday night and I felt fine today, even braved a little hot sauce with my late night snack.

What is there to be excited about... totally convinced my school to buy me a couch and a coffee table that shit should come tomorrow!