Welcome to China

We FINALLY arrived in China last Saturday after three straight days of flying. We were all only half conscious when we learned that we weren’t actually staying in Kunming until our homestays began. Instead, when we landed, we had another three-hour bus ride to a town called Tonghai before we were done with our travels. The whole ride, the bus was dead silent and we were all passed out.

In Tonghai, we began our Chinese lessons! It hurts my brain so much. I really think that I was born without the ability to make these sounds. So far, I know how to say hello (ni hao), bathroom (ce suo), and a few foods. We’ve found that if we try to speak the little Chinese we know to real Chinese speakers, they don’t even understand us anyway. We have lessons almost everyday the whole time we’re here, so hopefully I’ll get better. Regardless, I’m going to get really good at speaking through gestures.

Unfortunately, for me the big event in Tonghai was an emergency trip to the hospital. Disclaimer: if you tend to get queasy, do not read any further.

My stomach had been unhappy ever since the food poisoning, and I had been having strange digestive issues from the time we arrived in China. Some vomiting and weird saliva and burping, but nothing that was too major. Then Tuesday night, I got a stomachache, so I decided to stay in bed while everyone else went to dinner and asked Lauren to bring me back some food. Pretty much the minute they all left, my stomachache turned into a vicious monster sent to torture me to my death. All I could do was lie on my side in fetal position. On top of that, I was getting strange acid reflux symptoms—it felt like I had a pill stuck in my throat and there was acid burning my chest and esophagus. First I started throwing up. Then I got diarrhea. Walking to the toilet was horrible. Well, I don’t think you can even call it walking. It was more of a fast shuffle, my head and torso bent over between my knees. Between some of my heaves, I remember looking into the mirror. My face and lips were pale white, my mouth was chalky, and I was shaking and convulsing. When I blew my nose, chunks of food and throw up would come out. Between throw up sessions, I’d go lie back down on the bed and moan. But then the throw up that was still stuck in my sinuses would mix with snot and form this horridly disgusting ball, which would come down into my mouth. Then I’d have to get up, hobble to the bathroom to spit it out, and repeat, all the while not being able to breathe because it hurt my stomach too badly.

I honestly thought I was having a reaction to the medicine I was taking for my food poisoning, like an OD or something. I had no idea what was happening to me and I was actually pretty scared because NOTHING I did provided relief. We were given a 24-hour emergency number where we could reach someone from TBB back in the states so I tried to call that a few times, but it wouldn’t go through. I reverted back to fetal position and writhing. It was one of those times where you know what’s happening, but just can’t really control what you’re doing. I kept saying “help me, please help me” over and over again. Even though I knew no one was there. I just was not my normal self.

Finally, everyone else returned around 7:30—an hour and a half after the whole fiasco started. The leaders took action right away. Jessie and Loren stayed with me while Scott went to get a doctor and Chinese speakers. It seemed like ages before anything actually happened though. Waiting is the worst. Finally some random doctors came up to my room and quickly checked me. I’m not really sure where the doctors came from, lbut a few minutes later I found out that they had called an ambulance. I got tired of waiting in bed for the stretcher to come up, so I ended up running down to the lobby. Then they rolled me out to the ambulance. It was my first ambulance ride ever. When we got to the hospital yard, the ambulance suddenly stopped. Apparently, there was some back up, so they took me out, lifted up the stretcher, and carried me to the entrance. I was conscious enough to look around at the hospital. It was probably four rooms—actually, they were more covered medical areas than rooms. I don’t think there were doors and you had to walk outside to get between each. The walls and floors were crumbling cement. I sort of felt like I was in an opium or some other sort of drug den, especially when they told me to go to the IV room, where people were just lying silently, hooked up to tubes.

I got a shot in my butt, then an IV. My stomach kept hurting, but I managed to fall asleep about halfway through. When I woke up, the pain was mostly gone. Shannon and Charles (who work for our partner organization) had come along to help us out. They were so great. Shannon bought me a hot water bottle while I was hooked up to the IV, and they helped translate my medicines and talk to the doctors. Shannon also went out to buy me some rice congee, some of which I was able to shovel down.

When we got back to the hotel, I found all of my things (which had been strewn everywhere before I left) packed into my bags by Lauren, Hannah, and McKinley. It was the sweetest thing ever.

It was definitely an adventure, to say the least. Let’s hope things become—and stay—more mellow!

P.S. I can’t actually post any blogs from China because the government blocked blogspot along with Facebook, Youtube, and other similar sites. So I emailed this home and had my parents post it. Thanks Mom and Dad J