It has taken me a long time to feel like sitting down to write this chapter. This may be because I am still assimilating the experience. No one likes to be in a hospital, and in my case, not speaking the language well, this was especially true. I still don't know how I actually came down with pneumonia. I never had a really bad cold or cough. The weather wasn't terrible. I just had a slight cough and a headache for several days. After seeing the doctor and taking medicine for a week, I didn't feel any better and my chest had started hurting.
We were getting ready to leave for Guilin. We had gotten time off school, made the travel arrangements for the train trip and let Tim's sister, Freddie, know that we would be meeting her. She was on a tour of China, especially the Three Gorges area. Guilin was the only place we could see her, for one evening, before the tour continued. A friend was meeting us and would take us around the area. Everything was ready, and we eagerly looked forward to 5 days in a renowned area of spectacular mountains and rivers.
I kept thinking that I would be better soon, but on Monday Tim finally insisted that I go into a larger hospital and get checked again. After the usual routine of paying to see the doctor, seeing the doctor, going upstairs to get the price for an x-ray, back downstairs to pay, back upstairs for the x-ray, back downstairs to revisit the doctor, back upstairs for the price for a different x-ray, back downstairs to pay for it, back upstairs for the actual x-ray, waiting 20 minutes for the x-ray to be developed, then back downstairs to see the doctor again, we were ready for the final consultation. The doctor told me what I had was quite serious and I needed to be in the hospital for one week. I definitely had pneumonia, and possibly tuberculosis. My waiban (our handler at the college) wanted me to go into the hospital on the spot, but I resisted and finally agreed to return in the afternoon after gathering a few necessities not provided by the hospital -- minor things like toilet paper, soap and towel, books, clothes, and snacks.
On my return I was admitted to respiratory wing of the hospital. Most of the patients were elderly, though there were a few younger people like myself. All the rooms had three beds: two occupied by patients, the third to be used for those who came from home to help care for the patient. I had read that food often was not provided and needed to be brought in by friends, so Tim was calling people to see if they could bring me lunches and dinners. I did actually get breakfast, usually bread, at the hospital, but friends brought me all my other meals. I was given a room to myself; they were afraid that another person would slow down my recovery. By 4:00 I was hooked up to an IV drip that was to be my near constant companion for the next 8 days. I named it "Buddy." The routine was pretty typical for any hospital – blood tests, urine tests, bowel movement tests, spit tests, blood pressure, and temperature taken several times a day. The main difference was, of course, the language. I have to admit that sometimes I pretended to not know what they were asking just to see what would happen. One chuckle was due to the need to ask daily if I had had a BM. The first day, I really did not know what they were asking. Our waiban is a very proper young man. He was asked to find out about my bowel movements, but didn't know the right word. Stammering and very pink in the face, he flipped through the dictionary and came up with the word "sheet." I looked at him blankly. He finally showed me the word "shit." Realization dawned. The "i" in Chinese is pronounced "long e," therefore "sheet." The next day a young student, sent to keep me company got equally embarrassed with the word excrement. After that the nurse would turn red, and nod toward the toilet. I would shake my head or nod and hold up one or two fingers as appropriate. The other time I really got tickled was when the nurses and doctors would cluster outside my room, practicing phrases in English, whispering to each other. "Would you like watch T.V.?" "You feel better now?" etc. They then came in to see me and after elbowing each other would be too embarrassed to say what they had practiced. We finally solved the language problem by having me write down how I was doing each morning. Their reading skills were much higher than their speaking skills, so they could usually understand what I had written. If they didn't understand they would borrow my dictionary. One time I wrote down that I had eaten tou-dou-se and dou-fu for dinner. They came and asked me what this was. Finally they understood that it was potatoes and tofu, written in Pinyin Chinese. Everyone laughed at that.
The second day I was in the hospital, Tim and the children left for Guilin. I had had a difficult time convincing him that he should still go and that I would be OK. The university had students spend the day with me each day for the first week. The second week they forgot about me. I was supposed to go home after a week, but the pneumonia had not responded to treatment, so I had to remain longer. In fact after five days of IVs, 5-6 bottles a day, I was feeling no better. I had pain in my chest and the middle of my back and was very tired with not much appetite. On the fifth day they got the lab results back. The TB test was negative, though they were not convinced. The infection in my lungs was Coccidiosis Sprangnum, or something like that. It was often resistant to penicillin, so they changed my antibiotics, putting me on chindamycin phosphate. After two days of that I began to feel better. However, I also began to get an itchy rash. On the third day I was covered with small pinpoints of raised bumps, definitely an allergic reaction to the chindamycin. I was given another bottle of IV to counteract the reaction and then taken off all antibiotics. They really didn't know what to do with me. By now I had had 38 bottles of IV (usually 500 ml each). I felt partially naked without Buddy attached to me from morning to late afternoon. I was on pills and being watched, but that was all. Finally they decided to re-x-ray my lungs and see how they were looking.
It was now mid October and the weather was getting quite chilly. I could see my breath in the mornings in my room. I went up to the x-ray room with a friend to translate for me. You are required to completely undress your upper half. No modesty allowed in China. You then get the dubious pleasure of being pressed, bare breasted, up against a very cold plate containing the x-ray film. Lab technicians, male of course, are walking in and out. Ignore them. Breath deep. Hold. Good, you're done. You can get dressed again and wait outside until the film is developed. The x- rays showed some improvement, but not completely cured. The doctors wanted to keep me a couple more days to see how I did just on the pills, so I climbed back into my bed and waited.
Sometimes when friends visited we talked about odd things. I learned about the two kinds of blessings in China, white blessings and red blessings. Red blessings are births, and marriages. White blessings are deaths. Death is a blessing for the people because the death of a person makes room for another person to be born. It is sad for the people left behind, but good for the earth. I learned about funeral customs. The months of August and October are the months when the old people usually die. August because of the heat and humidity, and October because the temperature is getting colder, is extremely changeable, and still very humid, making it difficult for a person's body to adjust. When someone dies, firecrackers are lit and people hire a band to play music for the deceased. The casket is loaded into the back of an open truck. The family sits around it, throwing out fake money as the band serenades the deceased through the streets of town to the crematorium. The family sometimes has the body displayed in their home for a period of time after death. The minimum length of time is usually four days. They believe that it can take as long as four days for the brain waves to totally cease and the spirit to be completely separated from the body. During that time the Taoist priests hold prayers for the deceased and the family must feed and entertain everyone who comes to pay respect to the deceased. The priests decide the length of the period of prayer for the deceased. Sometimes it can be as long as 11 days. This often causes a lot of financial hardship on the family as many traditional dishes of food need to be served and are very expensive. During the mourning period, traditional music is continually played, very loudly, over speakers to honor the dead. A hospital in China can be a very noisy place.
The tenth morning arrived. I had felt better yesterday, but this morning again had pain in my chest. I wrote up my chart, saying how much I wanted to go home but felt I wasn't better enough to leave. I had spent much of my spare time the past 10 days reading my prayer books and writings of my Faith. After breakfast I tried to pray and be content with staying longer in the hospital. So many times one particular prayer with the words "cause me to be satisfied with whatsoever Thou has ordained for me..." had given me peace of mind. This time though I felt that I was being tested. I felt that I needed to do something. I said my healing prayer and asked for guidance. The prayer book opened to the passage: "With a look He granteth a hundred thousand hopes, with a glance He cureth a hundred thousand incurable ills…" I heard in my mind the words "As ye have Faith, so shall your powers be." and I knew it was time for me to practice that faith and to go home. I asked to be released that day. The doctor asked me to promise to return if I felt worse at all or if the pain returned, and to continue taking the medicine. I was to stay in bed, except for short walks for the next 10 days. I agreed, so he released me, telling my waiban that it was against his better judgment. For the next ten days whenever the pain returned, I would say the healing prayer and know God would take care of me. The pain always stopped when I prayed. When I returned to have my chest re-x-rayed one month later, the x-ray was clean. All signs of pneumonia and TB were gone.
I have slowed down since in some of my activities. I decided that I didn't need to sit in a drafty classroom learning 2nd grade Chinese first thing each morning in the freezing cold, and I get more rest than I used to get and am careful about colds now. Otherwise I am fully recovered and feeling well. My faith in my religion and prayers are reaffirmed and stronger than ever and I feel much more capable of facing the next tests. Thank you for ordaining this for me, and for continuing to give me chances to grow and learn.
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