HEALTH CONCERNS

I went in to work on Monday as normal and as I was teaching my students I felt a sudden pain in my side that did not go away. Fearing another appendicitis attack I stopped drinking anything but water, and ate only fruit for a week. I also took some oral antibiotics in the hope that I could avoid another hospital visit. Gradually it subsided, until I went out the following Thursday and had spicy chicken wings at a roadside shack, always a risk. The next morning it was worse than ever.

I realised a hospital appointment was inevitable so set it up for the next Friday when I had finished my assessments and had the medical for the renewed visa. It did not get worse but certainly didn't go away.

Iris, our new admin lady and my next door neighbour, agreed to take me to the hospital, where we obtained blood tests and an ultrasound. Now visiting a Chinese hospital is very unlike the UK. First you have to pay for everything. So we had to buy a ticket to see a doctor who sent us for an ultrasound scan.. Then we had to go to the ultrasound department. You have to visit a number of testing stations and queue up to be seen, which is a frustrating process but does not usually take long if you can navigate it successfully. At the ultrasound registration office (they have to input your records into a database) some lady behind the counter tried to fob us off until NEXT WEEK! Iris had managed to get an emergency ticket however and had to argue the case so we got seen more or less straight away.

However at the door to the ultrasound laboratory local people kept on just walking in. I asked Iris if we were doing the right thing, and she said, yes, don't worry we will get seen in turn. Sure enough some guy tried jumping the queue ( a common event in China) and had to come back outside and wait with the rest of us.

The ultrasound had inconclusive results however as I'd made the mistake of having breakfast, but no evidence of appendicitis was found. This was puzzling as clearly there was some issue.

The blood sample also showed nothing unusual.

We then saw a digestion specialist who was frankly useless and couldn't tell us anything, then we had to go to A&E to seek advice. The doctor we saw there did a physical examination with no clear conclusions.

Finally the physician called a consulting surgeon who spoke some English, and gave me another physical examination. This didn't reveal anything specific. He conferred with his colleague and Iris and they drew the conclusion that I probably had had a minor attack of my recurring appendicitis, but there was no significant medical problem and certainly no emergency. He prescribed oral antibiotics . During this time I felt like something of a celebrity as in addition to being seen by a top surgeon (apparently very rare) I was surrounded by a group of Chinese patients all curious to see what was going on!

I feel that these health issues are frustrating more than anything, and hope to be able to investigate further in the UK.