100 Days in Beijing!

12th November 2013 

Well, here we are on our 100^th day in Beijing. That’s not actually true but I was in no fit state to write this Blog when the big day rolled around. Let me explain; on the eve of this momentous occasion Rory and I settled down for a relaxing evening of watching Homeland and eating niceys. Five minutes before the end of the show I started to feel really dizzy and my vision stared to go blurry. We paused Homeland (but we probably shouldn’t have as a snail moves faster than this new Brody-less storyline) and I became violently ill.

After all our travels I think I’m pretty cool with illness but this was unlike anything I have ever experienced before, so naturally I rang my mum. Obviously I was really calm and told her not to worry. NAT. I’m pretty sure I told her that I was dying. But I digress. At this point I wasn’t just feeling sick; I couldn’t see anything, my vision was completely out of focus and I had lost all sense of balance. The dizziness meant that I couldn’t even drink a sip of water so after some more general unpleasantness I thankfully fell asleep. 

But wait. My tale of woe doesn’t end there. I woke up, felt just as crap, fell asleep, woke up again and went to the hospital. Now, this was no ordinary hospital. It was a Chinese hospital! There was not a McDreamy in sight. There wasn’t a lot in sight because I could barely open my eyes and when I did the lights were broken. I was surrounded by family while I had my blood taken, unfortunately they weren’t my family and I don’t really know why they were all sitting in the doctor’s office with me… After that I got a CT which was really cool but not as high tech as it is in Grey’s Anatomy; I didn’t even have to take my shoes off as they had thoughtfully put some ripped cardboard along the table. They even gave me my scans and it only cost £18!

Maybe if we in the west took the Chinese approach of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it/even if it is broke don’t fix it” we wouldn’t spend so much on healthcare! In China, you have to pay for everything before they will give you it. If you pay, you can have it and unfortunately, if you can’t pay, you can’t have it. For £35 I had a blood test, a CT scan, some tablets and they even threw in an injection to stop the nausea/dizziness! They told me the injection would be in my bum and to pull down my pants but then they put it in my hip. I think they just wanted to see my botsy but again, who am I to deny the people of China their simple pleasures! After stopping to throw up beside a somewhat abandoned looking ambulance I went home and fell asleep! 

All jokes aside, it’s been several days and while the nausea has stopped I’m still very dizzy which is a lot worse than it sounds. I can’t go to work, I can’t tidy the apartment, I can’t cook food or go on nicey runs, basically I can’t do anything. A few days ago that would have been my idea of heaven but being sick in a foreign country is pretty rubbish. Rory has been great but being sick is only fun when Esther is there to provide ice lollies and Kelso is around for a sneaky cuddle! Moral of the story; the NHS is great, I hate being ill in another country and apparently being unable to walk from room to room is how it feels to be drunk!