China ER

The past week saw a couple of brushes with the Chinese health system. Firstly, Irene's lower back pulled in a very painful spasm, that rendered her frozen on the spot, when pulling her jeans on…yes, I was surprised too...The incident occurred at a critical moment – in between me serving porridge and getting Fleur ready for her first school day! Irene could not be moved so while she lay on the floor, I had to serve breakfast and drop Fleur off at school...A couple of days prior to the incident, we met a friendly Dutch girl who happened to be a nurse and studied Chinese medicine in Suzhou. It also so happened that we exchanged phone numbers with her. Serenda was extremely helpful and guided us through the whole process of navigating through the Chinese health system to a point where we could obtain some help for Irene. She accompanied us to the Cowloon (pronounced Chow-long) hospital, where we paid about R12 to be registered on the hospital's system and to see an emergency doctor. The emergency doctor advised to come back the following day to the acupuncture ward. Apparently he had seen worse cases and did not look too worried about Irene. After a painful night and the smell of Tiger Balm in our noses we were shown the following day to the VIP ward, where most Westerners (referred to as laowai) go for treatment. As you probably guessed this is also more expensive. They are however very efficient and professional and in no time Irene had someone applying acupuncture needles to her back and she started her treatment. After three acupuncture sessions she is definitely better and taking it easier.

Two days after the "ugly incident with the jeans" with Irene's back still quite sore, we went to Shanghai for our Chinese medical tests. Apparently you cannot convert or submit your home country's tests for accreditation. It is not accepted in China. You're not allowed to eat for twelve hours before tests but on your arrival you are given a number and then you have to wait with other aliens with very low blood sugar levels to go through the battery of tests. The room is cramped with a huge fish tank in the middle of the waiting room. Probably to calm the highly strung, irritated and nervous bunch of aliens. Here you have to fill out more forms and wait. When they call your number you receive a gown and are then shunted from one doctor to the next. I will not go into all the details of the range of probes we were subjected to, but suffice it to say that it was thoroughly done and with amazing speed. Each test is conducted by a different doctor and I could not help to laugh when one doctor started pressing my nose from side to side. "Why are you doing this?" I asked. "To see if it was broken". I did not try to press the matter at this stage but it appears that guys with broken noses will probably be marked as potential "threats to the public order". When they submitted me to a ultrasound, I could not even get a smile from the doctor examining me when I said that I was not aware of the fact that I was pregnant. Well so be it, they have to one hundred percent sure that they do not let foreigners into the country that may disrupt the good order!

The results of the probes will be sent to us/made public on Tuesday next week…Thereafter we need to submit the test together with more documents to the authorities in Shanghai to confirm our work permits. This has to be done within a month so we're felling a slight bit of pressure in that regard. Our D-day is the 2nd of May.

All the best for the next week!