Day 74: Should've bought a face mask

I woke up numerous times throughout the night, having both cold and heat flashes. This isn't the first time this has happened to me while being in China, so I figured I was just experiencing something I had before. I feel as though I have been getting sick at least once a week recently, typically landing on Sundays. Each sickness feels very new and foreign to me, yet each one I've gotten, I felt a new kind of misery.

Today, I woke up with a hoarse cough. imbedded deep into my lungs, aches and pains all over my body, lightheadedness, etc. I would typically think I just caught a bug, but since I had just come back from Beijing and the H7N9 bird flu has been spread all over there, I was in somewhat of a panic. I had most of the flu symptoms, minus nausea, so our coordinator Gloria and my head teacher Amanda took me to the school clinic to get checked out. The nurse there took my vital signs, but advised me to go to the off campus clinic to get looked at more closely.

I went into the clinic and it was a painless and efficient process, nothing like I'm used to back home. I was in and out in a matter of maybe twenty minutes. The nurse diagnosed me with a respiratory infection and gave me four different medications to treat it. Now, I am sort of kicking myself for not wearing one of those horrible looking face masks that I saw everyone wearing in Beijing. I just couldn't get myself to wear one, they were wretched. However, I would now choose wearing a mask over having this painful infection.

After the clinic, I went home to take a quick rest, only to wake up for my next doctors visit. This time, however, the plan was to take me to the hospital to get my ankle checked out. It is still a little disfigured (from rolling it months ago) so Amanda and I thought it would be wise to have someone finally take a closer look at it, rather than just assuming it is, and will be, ok.

The hospital was huge, full of people, and very organized. All I had to do was get an ID card, give my name, birthdate, and gender, and then I saw the doctor within a matter of minutes. He told me, well Marine translated for me, that my bone was not displaced, but the muscle in my ankle was really injured. He showed me a few exercises to do to restrengthen it, and prescribed me a few more medications to help the recovery process along.

I walked away today with three separate doctors visits, six new prescriptions (that I don't know what they are or what they do) and a Chinese medical ID card all for under 20 USD. Three cheers for cheap health care.

Pictures:
1: The screen informing different patients that their prescription is ready. Can you find my name?
2: Drugs on drugs on drugs