First hospital trip

Well, it happened sooner than I would have liked. On Tuesday, I had to make my way to an international hospital in a cab, in the rain.

After a night of laying on the bathroom floor with a fever and excrutiating back pains, I decided to see a doctor. Being shown to an internal medicine department, a clearly puzzled doctor ordered blood and feces tests. This next part gets graphic folks so stop reading if you get queasy with these types of things...

It took several attempts to draw blood out of a vein in my hand. Much crying took place on my part because of the pain and on the part of my nurses who huddled around this scarred American not knowing what was going wrong. After getting out a few droplets, I was given a small plastic container and two wooden popsical sticks. There were no instructions, I was just pointed in the direction of the restroom. How the sticks were supposed to work remains a mystery to me, let's just say, the lab got its sample.

There isn't such a thing as privacy in a Chinese hospital. You can be in a room with a doctor, with the door shut, and people still walk in trying to get the doctor's attention. You are supposed to place your registration paper outside the doctor's door but the Chinese are aces when it comes to cutting in line. Literally, I had to put my arm out to block someone from jumping in front of me for a diagnosis.

Turns out, I have an infection in my bowels. I say have because 5 days later, I am still not 100%. I took antibiotics and some Chinese pooper stopper (technical name, I know) and still my insides are trying to crawl out of my body.

The problem is (besides the obvious lack of recovery) I don't know what caused this. I am now buying big jugs of water and am no longer randomly ordering unknown Chinese cuisine- see previous post for an explanation of what I mean.

Any world travelers have suggestions?