A trip, and to the hospital

We have four flights of stairs altogether. Like all the floors in the house, they are wood, mahogany, and highly polished. For some reason, the stairs are treacherous – whether it is because they are just slippery, or because the colour makes it difficult to determine the edge of the step, or whether it is because there is a different number of steps in each flight and we’re subconsciously counting, I don’t know – but we have all slipped on one of the bottom stairs at least once. And on Friday night, S slipped and banged his toe. By Saturday morning, his toe had turned purple and he could hardly walk. On Saturday afternoon, the host and hostess came back to tell us the piano tuner would be here next week. They were most concerned to see S limping and wanted to know what had happened. D managed to stage a dramatic re-enactment, which was much easier than trying to explain, or indeed easier than phoning James in Australia. The hostess insisted on having a look at the purple toe, then suitably horrified, disappeared out the front door. The host thumbed through our phrasebook to the medical section. “I am a Doctor”, he pointed out, gesturing at the front door to indicate that the hostess was the doctor, not him. How lucky we felt.

Some minutes later, the hostess returned with a large bandage, pre-smeared with some foul-smelling brown waxy stuff. We all gathered round to watch, fascinated, as the hostess wrapped this round S’s foot. I began to wish I’d recorded it. The host continued to flick through the medical section. “Traditional Chinese Medicine”, he showed us. “Ming tyen”, said the hostess. “Shur dyen”. Tomorrow, 10.00am, they would be back, to see if there was any improvement.

At 9.30am on Sunday morning, while I was still cooking breakfast, the host and hostess came back. The bandage was ceremoniously removed. “Eee-wen”, said the hostess. Hospital. I put the breakfast in the bin.

At 10.30am, S sent me a text to tell me they were just waiting for his X-ray results. The host and hostess had taken him to a normal hospital for Chinese people, rather than one of the Medical Centres that specialize in treating expats. S had to register and queue up with everyone else. However, as queuing is not something the Chinese are particularly good at – he who pushes in hardest gets served quickest - and presumably as Doctor Hostess got him some sort of preferential treatment, S didn’t have to wait too long. The doctor, the host and hostess, two small boys and a security guard all gathered round to look at the X-ray results. The hostess and the doctor argued for some time, but finally agreed that the toe was indeed broken, albeit a small break. His planned trip to Seattle on Monday would have to be cancelled, as a long-haul flight was not advisable, but apart from that, complete rest for at least 3 days was all that was needed.

As this was a normal hospital, and the normal hospitals are pay-as-you-go, like America, S had to pay for the registration and the X-rays. The cost was 120 RMB – about 8 pounds.