At Least I Don't Have Malaria!

So it was rather good to be home, especially considering there aren't too many other places in China I can imagine rather being while sick.

I have not had amazingly good luck with health these past few weeks. Less than 48 hours before my solo in the south, I had my third reprisal of Jiardia (and hopefully my last). Now that I am home, I find myself floored yet again with some sort of nasty bug, this time not digestive. At least my body is mixing it up for me so I do not get bored of the same symptoms.

I woke up a few days after returning to Kunming with a terrible sore throat and a fever. While this is always unfortunate, I found myself particularly worried after my unprotected stint in a high-malaria-risk area. Even if the symptoms did not match, you would be worried too. I did my online research, and technically malaria should not show up for 9-14 days after being infected, but I also read that one of the four strains is life threatening. Even on a good day, that is pretty bad news. I tried to buy some medication but my trip to the pharmacy proved a failure. No English what so ever and my Chinese skills do not extend to medical vocabulary. I was doomed to face my illness without drugs.

I woke up Sunday afternoon to find the room spinning and decided I needed to go the hospital, and so called two friends to take me and help translate. Steve asked me why, if I had felt miserable the day before, I hadn't gone to the hospital then. Well, you just don't do that in America. If you get sick, you self-medicate on Nyquil and Ibuprofen for a week or two and THEN consider seeking medical attention. In China, on the other hand, if you get sick, you go to the hospital right away. And I soon found out why: my entire hospital bill was less than $10 US (!) The idea, of course, is to make medical care available to everyone. One of the unfortunate side effects, I found out, is that several doctors go through lots and lots of schooling and work very hard for very little money.

There is a lot of trekking from place to place in Chinese hospitals. Based on my visits to the ER in America, after waiting a while, you are given a bed and then the rest of the visit consists of people coming to you. An x-ray might require a short amble down the hallway, but there are plenty of wheel chairs about if you aren't feeling up to it. This was not so much the case in my Chinese hospital. I first had to go to one building to talk to a doctor who took my temperature ("Very high" – I later learned that meant 101.5) and then gave me some papers that would allow me to get an x-ray and a blood test. So then I had to go to another building where I had to pay. After that, it was another considerable trek to the x-ray building. This was about all I could handle. I had not eaten anything solid or even been able to move from my couch for the previous two days; I blacked out during the x-ray. But this did not mean that I was done, or that I even got a wheel chair. After a few moments' rest, I got to trek my way down to another place where, while standing at a counter, a woman grabbed my hand, stabbed my finger rather violently, and collected my blood.

Having completely all the tests, I got to walk back to the original building to see the doctor again. Result: no malaria! SUCH a relief. So much so that I forgot to ask what I actually had. Sadly, the medication he prescribed seems not to exist at any pharmacy, so drugs are yet to come to my aid. In fact, aside from discovering that I do not have malaria, my trip to the hospital proved pretty much useless. That night, my fever spiked to 103 and I was hallucinating and there wasn't a thing I could do about it. In the tradition of waiting until things turn out for the best to write about them, the fever has broken. I have not left the apartment yet, but I have big plans tomorrow. After all, I have to get ready for my last trip up the East coast of China before returning to California.