I had a chest infection at the end of May / beginning of June - it was totally unexpected and wholly unpleasant, starting with a two day fever, before I decided enough was enough and a doctor must be sought. I won't bore you with too many details but Chinese hospitals are complicated and I swear if I didnt have a friend I wouldnt have had a clue what to do (and if other people in there didnt have friends and family around them they would just be lying dead on the street, you have to go back and forth so much, if you were unable to move you wouldnt stand a chance). Long story short I was registered and saw a doctor who ordered chest X-rays and a blood test; of course you have to pay for all this (the insurance will hopefully reimburse me when I'm home), I am not used to paying for treatment or appointments, why can't everywhere have an NHS style system?

On the basis of these tests I was given antibiotics (intravenously, the Chinese are in love with IVs for anything), as well as oral antibiotics and some herbal medicine stuff. 3 days on azithromycin drips and I went back to see him for a follow up, feeling much better; he tried to give me more drips as part of the treatment but I refused, and instead he gave me lots of oral medicine and told me not to come back if it all cleared up. Azithromycin, by the way, is apparently on the stronger end of the antibiotic range (according to my Dad a UK GP for the last 40+ years), reserved back home for people who have not responded to other treatments. Joy of joys, they were really raping my body with the drugs.

All was well until the weekend just gone; I had been to the gym Thursday (brief session to make sure my cardio felt fine because I'd had some breathing trouble the day before) and tidied the house just before, which had resulted in lower back pain from the short broom handle. Friday I'd pulled an all-nighter, drinking with friends. And Saturday I'd done not-very-much. Coming home from a Korean restaurant I suddenly had the worst upper back pain imaginable. It spread right across my upper back, round to the edges of my ribcage. I couldnt sit, stand, or lie down (any which way) without severe pain. Popping a couple of neurofen and a paracetamol (that's ibuprofen-based medicine and tylenol for my Americanised readers) did NOTHING, which is rare, because I never take pills and when I do they normally knock me out in a fuzzy happy style and I get better ... after 5 hours in agony, unable to sleep, I bit the bullet and took myself to hospital. It was 0300 on Saturday morning.

The docs in the ED were really patient and listened to my explanations (all in Chinese) and went through what I needed to do until I understood it. First, more X-rays and blood tests. X-ray, clean. Blood test showed raised white blood cell (WBC) count, damn it. So more drips of course. Azithromycin (the aforementioned antibiotic) and Rabavirin (an anti-viral medication, commonly used with Interferon in the treatment of Hepatitis - says the internet - and also "high powered", says my father) ... so, guessing as to the cause they pumped me full of both major types of drugs. Fun fun. 3 days on the drips (which are just a short metal needle into your vein by the way, there's no cannula placed because you're not an in-patient with needs for repeat or emergency infusions), repeat blood tests and a close look at my X-rays, revealed I am now healthy. I have some cold medicine which will last until I go home, but the upshot of all this has been I've had to rearrange travel plans with my Mum and am now heading home with her next week. She gets a few days in China at least.

One final thing about the hospitals - it really is unlike anything I've seen. First, there are counters for everything and you go from counter to counter having things done. But remember to go to the payment desk/s first and get receipts or they wont do anything for you at the counters! I even heard of one woman (foreign) in a good hospital in Beijing being asked to sign a form saying she would pay all costs after giving birth (of course she did, she had insurance) or the doctors would do nothing. And this is a woman in labour! It's a horrible situation, I don't even know if there are free clinics like I've heard in the USA, or if it was an absolute emergency if the docs would do anything even. I don't know if they take an oath or anything. Their nurses are not helpful either, and no medical staff seemed to do any patient lifting at all - if someone came in in a wheelchair it was family members who did all the moving while nurses looked on. The medical staff don't seem to CARE, this is a big thing. And in the UK you would get your own bed and people come to SEE YOU. Here, you queue up to see overworked docs in their office, and, being China, no one really queues, and it's common to have three or more patients in the office all vying for one doctor's attention. I will not miss many aspects of the hospitals, but at least their drip-clinic nurses are damn good at finding, entering, and leaving veins with relatively little pain and almost no bruising.

I'm healthy now. That's the main thing