MONDAY, 17-Dec
When you touch your boyfriend’s cheek and burn your hand, it’s a bad sign. It’s Day Four of Avis Fever Watch and what was once a bout of comically badly-timed illness had quickly turned into a nagging knot of worry. Alex’s fever had sky rocketed to 105 F (40.5 C) and showed no signs of breaking in spite of the cocktail of medicines given to him by the doctor. Feverish night sweats creeped into intense day time shivers in a never ending cycle of hot and cold.
After a quick consultation at Parkway – at which Alex nearly passed out climbing up the stairs at Shanghai Center - we were sent to United Family in Gubei. There we waited for an hour only to be told they had no beds. We were then told to cab over to Parkway Luwan near Xintiandi. So 4 hours later, we were effectively 5 miles down the road from where we started the day. Brilliant.
The Parkway Luwan in-patient facilities were in a word - gorgeous. Large, airy with a cushy couch, private bathroom, wifi and Element Fresh - even in the grips of impending panic at my increasingly pale and shivering boyfriend, I could process that the room was very, very nice. You have to take time to appreciate the finer things in life you know. We were told that we would wait here until we could get transferred to a local hospital as the doctors were starting to suspect Typhoid or Dengue as the reason behind Alex’s fever and, under Chinese law, the only proper facilities to support that would be at Ruijin or Huashan.
Huashan was contacted and refused entry (who knew hospitals could pick and choose who they help?) They said didn’t want a foreigner at their local facility. Looking back now they probably didn’t want a foreigner dying at their local facility. Dead lao wai’s are such bad press and in this economy a hospital has reputation to protect… So that left Ruijin.
2 hours later, we were told to get ready to leave for Ruijin Hospital. 20 minutes later we were told – never mind, they actually don’t have beds yet – try tomorrow. And so Alex would stay overnight in a ridiculously expensive room that he couldn’t really afford (his company cancelled his insurance without telling him) and couldn’t enjoy due to his body being on fire. Dangerously high fevers are such a drag like that. It would be another 24 hours before anyone could even start diagnosing him. That's the way China rollllllllls.
There was nothing more to do. Paranoia set in and determined not to inadvertently stumble into my own personal Contagion movie, I went home for the night and slept on the couch (germs obviously can't jump from room to room right?) hoping the next day would be better.
READ PART TWO HERE
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oh dan. so sorry you had to go through this.
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