A Stitch in Time

Last week a classmate of Em’s collided with her in PE class.  The girl classmate’s teeth/tooth cut into Emily’s eyebrow area and left about an inch and a quarter long gash.  5 hours later and 3 different hospitals, she was finally stitched up – 7 stitches.  I had heard about hospitals here – they are quite the ordeal.  There are many, many hospitals here but not enough for the 23+ million people in Shanghai.  So hospitals are busy and waits are very long – you take a number.  I wasn’t able to go with Emily to GET the stitches last week  (so hubby went) but today I was available to go with her to have them removed.

I have never been to a public hospital in China . . . and hopefully today was my last.  The expat hospitals I’ve been to here are all very similar in look and style to Western ones.  When I walked into the public one, I was taken aback by the number of people everywhere and scurrying about.  Then a man turned around who had a bandage around his head from chin to the top of his head but with a gigantic Texas-sized grapefruit lump protruding from his left lower cheek.  I suddenly felt like I was transported to a circus freak show of odd humans with three arms or two heads.  I had to make myself stop looking around but there were quite a few people with bandage/gauze wrapped around their eyes and well, it almost looked like a war zone but without any blood.  Thankfully Emily's school nurse went with us to the hospital to help us translate (although she could only translate into our level - kindergarten - Chinese words as she knew very little English).  

Such an interesting experience though.  You take a number to see a doctor.  After we waited and waited, we finally saw the doc.  The doc okay’d the fact that it was time for the stitches to come out and then sent us to a different doctor that actually would remove the stitches.  First doc does nothing but look.  The unstitch doctor as I’ll call her, she snipped them away and gave the following instructions:

1.     Do not expose the wound to sunlight.  (ok, got it)

2.     Don’t eat spicy foods.  (uh, what?)

In fact a friend of mine’s ayi, who knew what had happen to Emily, gave me some unsolicited advice on taking care of the cut initially.  She listed off a few things and then said, “Oh, she can’t eat soy sauce!!”  I looked at her quizzically and with a slight look of, ‘uh, oh we just ate sweet and sour ribs flavored with soy sauce last night’.  She looked at me panic stricken and said, “She ate soy sauce???!!!  She ate soy sauce????”  I didn't say anything . . . I was too scared to tell her we had and too scared she might faint.

Anyway, so we had pizza tonight . . . gasp!  It had pepperoni on it . . . uh-oh . . . does that count as “spicy”?