THE DENGUE FILES - Reinforcements

Read Part Two Here

WED-THURS 

Alex didn’t sleep at all that night. The fever had seeped throughout his body into his joints, muscles and insides.  He didn’t sleep so I didn’t sleep but at least he was alive and complaining the next morning so I took that as a good sign.

Ruijin for all its superficial lackings, sprung into action with assigning a slew of specialists to Alex’s case. He had a lung doctor, a generalist doctor, an internal doctor, a respiratory doctor, a contagious diseases doctor, the list went on and on. The medicine was working and while he was still on oxygen, his fever had broken and remained so.

Then the emails came in - Alex's and my dad would be flying in on Friday.

It was both a relief and a blow to my pride that my dad was coming out.  It's a humbling revelation that after over a decade of living independently, major crisises still sent me running straight for my parents.

The next two days passed by in moments:
1. Friends bringing us food and supplies (at a Chinese hospital, they provide you with the meds, you provide everything else including food, towels, soap and toilet paper) DIY Hospital!

2. A fight that ended in me yelling, “Do you think I enjoy helping you pee?!” – a ridiculous statement when reviewed in hindsight because neither the helper or the helpee enjoys the experience. It’s the gift that gives to nobody.

3. The panic feeling of realizing that I forgot to call the nurses when an IV drip ran dry.

4. Feeling guilty for not being more watchful.

5. Nurses coming in, doctors coming in, nurses going out, doctors going out

6. Listening to mechanic bleeps and breathing in a silent room

7. Watching the numbers move up and down on the EKG machine

8. Repeat 1 and 3-7

There were some high points during that time including when I realized I could hire a hospital ayi to do many of the things hospital staff in the West would do – change bed pans, sheets, keeping track of the drips, nighttime patient monitoring, straightening the room, etc. I had a China problem, I threw money at it, instant solve. Thank you wallet!

Fan Ayi was a thin woman with a ruddy face and crooked front teeth. She looked after Alex with a dogged determination that I appreciated especially as I was still having trouble controlling my crying. There's really nothing more unattractive than someone holding a bedpan with tears silently cascading down.

Towards the end of the week, the doctors were making headway in getting to Alex’s diagnoses. In the slew of visitors coming in and asking the doctors about Alex, the doctors let it slip that they narrowed it down to Alex having Dengue. In China, it takes a village to get to a diagnosis and everyone’s invited to participate.  Hopefully no one catches anything embarrassing here because the whole world will know.

Dengue is known as "breakbone fever" which precisely describes how it feels.  This shed a whole new light on the aches that Alex had complained of during the last few days.  Apparently it's actually very painful so all the while I secretly thought Alex was just experiencing "man pain" he was probably in quite real pain.  Ops!

Read Part Four - Dengue for the Holidays