Fear and Earwax

September 25, 2012

So today the thing I feared most about coming to China happened....I got sick and had to go to the hospital.
First let me assure you that I am totally fine and it wasn't really as big of a deal as I thought it was going to be.  The thing is, before I came to here I read countless stories about unsanitary hospitals and how unreliable the adulterated medicines can be in China.  Even the Department of Public Health told me to bring my own hypodermic needles when I go to the doctor because theirs may not be clean and my regular doctor wrote me a prescription for penicillin to have filled in the states and take with me ‘just in case’.  It’s no wonder I was freaked out, right?
Here's what happened:
About three or four days ago my left ear started feeling clogged.  It was constantly popping and if I pressed anywhere near my upper jaw I felt cracking and pressure.  Everyone around me has been getting colds and I figured I must be getting sick too.  However, it was getting increasingly uncomfortable and then last night I woke up in the middle of the night and my hearing in my left ear was completely gone!  I panicked!  I thought for sure I had an infection or something and that my eardrum was going to rupture right then and damage my hearing forever. (I’d like to interject that I know nothing about medical science and that I have a vivid imagination.)  After the longest 12 minutes of my life, my ear popped and my hearing returned.  But I slept the rest of the night sitting up because every time I lay down the clogging feeling returned.  So weird!
The next day, I knew that I should have it checked out by a doctor but I was freaked out! Not only by getting Chinese medical care but also about missing training.  I was pretty worked up by the time I approached my trainer, Angela, and asked her for help. 
She immediately called HR who contacted my insurance agent.  Within two hours I had talked to my agent 3 times.  During that time she set an appointment for me with the doctor, contacted HR for a copy of my passport, then had it faxed over to the center I was training at so that I wouldn’t have to go back to the hotel for it, texted me the address to the hospital in Chinese so that I could show it to the cab driver, she even had both a nurse and a doctor call me to talk about my symptoms and about what would happen at the hospital.
After 4:30pm the medical center only has emergency service so my nice Disney trainer let me leave an hour early to make it there by 4pm.  I took a cab to the international hospital and the cabbie’s face was grumpy when he picked me up but once I showed him where I was going, he started acting extra nice. Before I exited the taxi he even mustered an English ‘Thank you’.
Upon entering the hospital, which I discovered is really more of a medical center that deals mostly with foreigners, I was greeted by friendly English speaking staff. It was a professional and clean atmosphere and the front desk lady knew exactly who I was saying, “Oh you are here about your ear!”  An English speaking doctor examined me and as soon as he looked inside my ear he said, “Your ear canal is clogged with earwax.”  (Gross!)  Then he whisked me out to a sweet-faced nurse in a bright coral-colored.  It was the most cheerful uniform I’ve ever seen, outfit trimmed with white piping accessorized with matching white shoes and a coral nurse’s hat.  The nurse lead me to another doctor.  While she translated what was happening the smiling doctor flushed my ear with saline solution (I think), scraped and swabbed the inside and prescribed some drops.  She wore gloves and a mask, opened all of the instruments in front of me making sympathetic sighs the whole time.  I was so relieved.   
Now I’ll spare you a description of the many disgusting and fascinating things that came out of my ear (I was so tempted to take a picture) but I will say I feel a lot better.  I had no idea how much I wasn’t hearing. As soon as I left the building I felt like an entire world of sounds had been opened up!  If I could’ve run to a mountaintop and started spinning around and singing Julie Andrews-style I would have!  
So in the end, my fears and my ear problems were alleviated.  It’s good to know that in an emergency I’m not alone in China.  I have Disney and I have a solid insurance company and I have dear China friends that worry about me. Several volunteered to go with me to the hospital.
One more thing I’d like to point out: Have you ever arrived at a doctor’s office or Urgent Care and had to wait an hour before someone would help you? Not at the Chinese hospital, they took me as soon as I arrived.  Eight different people helped me and I was out of there in 30 minutes!  That includes paying at the cashier the total cost of about $14.  (Which is probably expensive by Chinese standards but I paid it happily.)