Phil and Red's Excellent Adventure

Today is a very sunny day, however, it is chilly. First period went well. I have pretty much gone thru all the lessons in the book, so Lily told me to go through the word lists in the back of the book for review. Great...this is gonna be terribly boring. It turned out that it wasn't that bad. Strange. My second class went well. I headed out for lunch at a place I have eat many times before. After eating I headed home. Throughout the next couple hours I felt kinda gassy and noticed something was wrong. By the time I got back to class I noticed even more that something...was awry. I had to head home inbetween classes to do God's work.
I must tell you that the 6th grade kids today were terrible and I yelled at them. I think some of my anger from the fact that I realized I had foodpoisoning was misdirected at them. But they are in 6th grade and their english, I know is far better than all the other classes but they would answer any of the simple questions or participate. I was getting livid.
So, by the time I got to the second class, I was noticing I was a bit woozy and there were times I needed to stop and get my bearings. In this class, they weren't as bad, but I was getting more and more frustrated. Kids were doing homework from other classes, they were writing notes and doing what not. Also, another reason why they were acting like this is the fact that May was not in the classroom. She was busy wasting time on the interenet in the teacher's office. About 10 minutes before the class was over, I had enough. I just left. And went down to the office and told May about what was happening. She grabbed some stuff and went up there. Maybe if you did your job, I wouldn't be doing this. Thanks for nothing. I then left school to meet up with Owen before Kindergarten to tell him that I got food poisoning.
So, I sat down and waited for him at the No. 3 Kindergarten. The little kids that were passing by were unable to cheer me up that much either. I hoped they would and I tried to be in a positive mood, but my body wouldn't allow it. I told Owen what had happened and he got worried. I asked if there was a way to cancel class. He said, "Sure". He then convinced me to go to the Hospital. I didn't want to go because I knew that they would prolly just give me some placebos. I have had this before once back home, the only way to get through it is to let it run its course. Plus, I was sure the hospital would overcharge on medication and the visit.
There is another reason I wanted to stay away from the hospital. I have heard bad things about them. They try to milk you for as much money as possible and misdiagnose things. For example, Susannah has had a kidney infection for almost a month now and they either haven't given her enough medicine or the right medicine. I am sure that this would be cured in at least a week back home. Another example, One of the older foreign teachers in ShiQi went to the doctor because he was having stomach pains. They diagnosed it as stomach cancer. So, on top of the physical pain, there are huge emotional pains that come when someone finds out they have cancer. So, he flew home to get surgery and undergo treatment in Canada. When he went to the doctors..."Oh, its just a stomach virus. Here are some meds." It cleared up 10 days later. Why he came back is beyond me. I woulda given China the middle finger at that point.
And its not just to white people this happens too. The chinese get ripped off too. My friend Ben's father in law has what most likely is emotional stress (to a number of reasons that only China can pull) and his heart is giving him trouble. He saw 3 doctors, 2 said he was fine, the 3rd has him in the hospital and running tons of tests and keeps changing the diagnosis. They want the money. And this is one of the #1 hospitals in Guangzhou.
On the way to the hospital, I stopped by a wall and threw up. There was a lot. Of course, immediately I felt better because I just kicked out alot of poison. But I still went. And by the time I left I was feeling a bit better but I could definitely see the pain coming back. We went to the Internal Medicine area where I was diagnosed and the doctor said the good news was that it wasn't food poisoning. Ok. So what was it. I ate some food and then 2 hours later I was sick. Sounds like food poisoning to me. She used Owen as the interpreter. She told Owen and Owen said, "Good news. Its not food poisoning. The Eusophagus and the stomach are not connected properly". Riiiiiight...I never heard of that condition. I don't know what is worse: Misconnection between the eusophogus (or whatever that tube is) and the stomach or food poisoning. I would think food poisoning is the lesser evil. So I believe still that it is food poisoning. But I couldn't help but laugh when Owen asked me, "How is your shit?" completely serious. I couldn't help but giggle. No, the medical/technical way would to say that would be, "How are your bowel movements." So, I instructed him of that later. "Shit" is a curse word not used during medical practice. This made Owen blush and giggle.
So, this is what they were gonna give me: An injection, and 3 sets of pills. I thought it was overkill. I never thought an injection would be used for this. So, we went to the receptionist who we pay. Only 33RMB. That is pretty reasonable. Not expensive at all. Has to be placebos. We then went to the pharmacy desk to pick up the meds. While I sat there waiting, there was this terrible music video of Chinese boys and girls trying to act like white people acting like black people. "Owen? What is this crap? Its gonna make me even sicker! Why are they playing it?" He laughed.
Then from there we headed over to the "Injection Room". We grabbed a nurse, and she knew a bit of english. But not alot, because it sounded like she knew just enuff to repeat constantly. So, I rolled up my sleeve and got my arm ready to take the shot. She looked at me, shook her head and said, "No no..." And pointed to my butt. "WHAT! You are gonna put a shot in my butt? I haven't had one of these since I was a kid." So, I tried to figure out how much of ass I needed to expose. I could tell she was liking this. So, I prepared and she stuck me. "OOOOW! That friggin hurts!" I could feel the needle penetrate and tear through my skin. OW! She pulled out and apologized. It hurt but it was like this sharp pain that lasted for about 5 seconds. It was wierd.
After that, Owen and I headed back to the Big House so I could pay him back the money he fronted since I didn't have 33 RMB. I took the pills. 4 every 4 hours, 2 every 4 hours, and 2 every 4 hours. Great.
So, I went to bed to rest and let the medication work on the poison. Of course, every 20 minutes or 30 minutes I needed to get up and do God's work. My tummy still aches and I haven't eaten anything for dinner. I don't want to throw it up again. I had a bunch of water and that just goes right thru my system.
Right now I just took the second dose. Hopefully this starts helping more. Then Lynn called. I am sitting at the computer cause I am not tired enuff to go back to bed. She wants to know if she needed to cancel my classes. I told Amy to tell her to cancel them and then if I feel better tomorrow morning, I will go to them. If not, they will be cancelled.
My next dose needs to be taken at about 2AM. I will let you know how I feel tomorrrow. Hopefully much better. Good nite.