A couple of weeks ago I had my first trip to a hospital in China. Idiot that I am, I'd fallen up the stairs (yes, UP) on my way to the computer room at the school. I didn't think much of it at first, but then it started hurting worse and worse when I got to the city that night, so the next morning my friend who was visiting from Japan convinced me to go get Xrays. We took a taxi to the best hospital in town (湘雅医院) and the driver told me to just go to the emergency room area because it would be quicker. He ended up being right about that, but not because he dropped me off at the ER!

We couldn't really tell where to find any information, but finally when we got to someone who looked like a nurse, she pointed in another direction so us, so we wandered in that general direction until we came to a big hall where everyone seemed to be bustling around doing who-knows-what... It was such a mess of confusion, but finally we found a big board that had pictures of doctors, listed according to specialty. Aha! Someone who works in a category that has the Chinese character for bone- that must be it! So we wandered around until we found the door with a matching sign on it (on the third floor!) and went in, feeling and looking confused.

Next ensued a long wild goose chase, where we had to run back and forth from desk to desk to get all of the documents that I didn't realize that I needed! First of all, I had to get a number from downstairs, and then I couldn't get a number because I didn't have my little hospital diagnosis notebook that everyone brings with them, and I had to go buy that. Then he wrote in my notebook that I should get an Xray, so they sent us to the Xray area, where we were told to go downstairs to the big hall with bustling people (: and pay and then bring back the receipt... Every time we got to a different "station," people asked my friend questions, and of course she didn't understand since she doesn't speak Chinese, and when I answered their questions, they just gave us a quizzical look, like "why does a Chinese girl need an injured foreign tourguide!?" In the midst of our maze, I accidentally went to the hematology counter, but I soon found out that this was actually a stroke of luck!

I noticed that someone was following my friend and me after submitting the receipt at the Xray desk, but I thought it was just out of curiosity. Then the woman approached us and asked if I remembered her... oh no! I feel so awful when people ask me that, but I meet so many new people every day, and no one sticks out quite as much as I do, so I'm easier to spot than they are... I couldn't make a connection, but she finally told me, "from Lankouwei! The swimming center!" Then I remembered that I had chatted with her daughter a month or two before that when I'd gone swimming. She proceeded to shout orders to the Xray technician, and immediately after my Xray (which didn't have one of those radiation protection coverings- kinda makes you wonder) she took my hand and led me back to the Xray reading room, where a whole lab full of doctors were analyzing different Xrays from stacks of folders. Thanks to my acquaintance from hematology, we sidestepped the 2 hour waiting period!
Ha! The overpriced entry fee to the swimming pools were worth it after all!

She took me back to the bone doctor and had him take a look at the Xray too, which ended up having no trace of injury (I'm such a wimp!), and he scribbled down a prescription in the universal code of sloppy doctor handwriting and sent me downstairs to the medicine purchasing counter. It was a bit of a nuisance because you have to wait in line for the western medicine line and then in another line for the Chinese medicine on the list. After the trip to the hospital, I was exhausted and decided that I didn't need the medicine for a bruised bone or sprained wrist or whatever it was, and a friend told me to buy some of this ointment that helps for aches and pains, which worked miraculously.