A taste of Chinese medicine
Slowly, I’m beginning to expect the unexpected.
After a weekend of reveling in a newly discovered “Western”-style bar with a handful of new friends, my body became exhausted. The fact that rain had infiltrated our city along with cold damp air that turned summer into fall in a heartbeat made the situation worse.
I awoke Tuesday morning feeling like I hadn’t slept for days. My head pounded with a headache and a fever. There’s no calling in on my second week on the job, so I went to class with an extra bottle of water and a dose of ibuprofen. Class went well: We discussed editing shorthand marks, a few vocabulary words and transitive and intransitive verbs. But, during the lesson, I could feel my voice weakening, my throat throbbing and my body starting to ache.
After class, I returned to my small apartment on the other side of, climbed the five flights of stairs and crashed onto my extra firm mattress.
A few hours later, the phone rang. Two friends of mine who have become tennis partners and Chinese tutors were downstairs and wanted to see me. They were concerned because I was not at the courts that afternoon and they heard I was feeling ill. Soon they arrived at my door bearing gifts of a dozen freshly picked bananas, a bag of not-quite-ripe yellow apples and a handful of large fuzzy kiwis.
"You need to have a rest and lots of vitamins (sic) C," said Sunny, the taller of the two.
"I can’t take all this fruit," I pleaded. "It will go bad before I get a chance to eat it all."
They reluctantly took back nine bananas and all but three apples, but they left the kiwis because it’s got "lots of vitamins C." They also urged me to go see a doctor.
"He can give you an injunction (sic) that will make you feel better," said Sabrina with a nervous smile.
"No, thanks, I’ll be OK soon," I said in the manliest voice possible. I don’t like going to the doctor back home, and I can’t see how a doctor in China is going to be any different.
Like a good Westerner traveling to a foreign land, I learned the first two rules of self-preservation. Number one: Take what you need from home, including vitamins, ibuprofen and loperamidi tablets (for "traveler’s diarrhea"). I followed the first rule and took a few extra things along in case of emergencies.
The second rule for a Westerner traveling in a country where he or she does not know the language: Don’t get sick.
It’s only been a month into my adventure and I’ve already broken the second rule. By Thursday, my headache and sore throat were much worse. Three days of sleeping between classes was not having the desired effect. In fact, Thursday afternoon saw me in some of the worst pain I could imagine (not including childbirth). I could barely swallow a glass of water without jolts of sharp pain shooting through my skull. At this point, I was ready to try anything.
I found my neighbor Helenia, who has a constant supply of medical products, including Chinese herbal medicines, Western painkillers and even sterile needles for the occasional injection. I told her about my symptoms and she said I should see a doctor right away, and that by waiting so long, I was being too proud for my own good.
Helenia, a frank yet motherly young woman from the Philippines, accompanied me to the community health center located directly across the street from campus. Wedged between an electronics store and a copy shop, the clinic sits among a small strip of shops while nearby vendors hawk products and services from carts. This small community has everything one would need: a shoe repairman, knock-off Nikes and cheap medical service.
It was early evening when we arrived. Inside, florescent bulbs buzzed overhead, basking the room in a bright white light. A skinny young man dressed in a while lab coat invited us to sit down at a small desk. After spending all of four seconds peering into my mouth with a flashlight, he and Helenia discussed the diagnosis. After listening to 10 minutes of gibberish, I expected a long list of options. Instead, Helenia said simply, "You’ve got two choices: IV or injection."
"I’m sorry, say that again," I protested.
But she didn’t have to. My throat was infected and we all knew it. The only thing that would help was an antibiotic, but it seems like the young man in the lab coat did not think pills would work fast enough.
So there I was, in the back of a tiny Chinese medical office, pants around my ankles, mooning a scrawny med student in a white lab coat who didn’t look a day over 25. He held a (new) 2-inch needle with a syringe filled to the brim with a mixture containing God-knows-what from six different bottles, and he was ready to pierce my bottom. He wasn’t wearing gloves, but he did disinfect the target by rubbing a bit of alcohol around the area with a cotton ball.
Suddenly a vision of Hilary Clinton speaking about "Universal Health Care for all Americans" flashed through my head. But there were no Pfizer pens, no Viagra posters and no Lipitor stomach models. This is China, and, in China, pharmaceutical companies and insurance providers don’t line doctors’ pockets to push their brands or services. And here, the words "campaign finance reform" have no meaning. That needle was a refreshing reminder at how health care should be: cheap and accessible.
I don’t know what "just a little pinch" is in Chinese, but the injection was painful, and as he emptied the syringe, I could feel the burn of liquid oozing into my flesh.
After the procedure, I zipped up and limped to the front of the office. The man spoke a few more words to Helenia, and she turned to me and said, "It’ll be seven Yuan (the equivalent of $1), and you have to come back tomorrow at 8 a.m. for the second shot and at 5 for the third."
Third rule of self-preservation: Expect the unexpected.
Chris Gauthier is a recent Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts graduate who is spending a year in China teaching English at Hebei University. He will be writing regular columns for The Advocate during his stay in China. To read all of his Advocate columns, visit blogtheberkshires.com. Readers can also read more about his experiences on his own blog at chrisinchina.wordpress.com.