I've got food poisoning! (Marcus)

Well, I did! This morning I feel infinitely more human - yesterday though? Blech, worst day ever! It all started around 2:30pm Monday night - the same night we got back from Shanghai. Courtney went to bed quite early as she was exhausted and still sick with the flu(or flu like symptoms) to which she is much better now. I had checked my email and found that about 5 more kids had sent me emails with the weekend seemingly being their only free time. Also had photographs and a short email from a guy I met on the train...a nuclear medicine reasearcher who was heading to Shanghai with his parents for his brothers wedding that night. Cracks me up how keen some people are to talk to Westerners. This guy seemed nice enough but i wasn't overly into the whole random conversation thing at that point in time. However the Mountain he recommended we go visit sure looks nice in the photos, and I think we will check it out!

So I am replying to the emails from the kids - i like to do it straight away so I don't forget. One kid told me that one of the three girls who had interviewed me early last week had gotten really sick, and I should be mindful of keeping them out in the cold air..kind of gently telling me off like a mother...erm ok! I told him that it was not good she got so sick(for 3 days apparently), but luckily i had avoided illness myself so far and hopefully that would continue!

It's about here where Karma stepped in and slapped me silly, as I was awakened around 2:30am or so with my stomach suddenly feeling dodgy and bloated. I went to the toilet and well, the rest is history. I was up and down all night vomiting and the other most pleasant of activities.

By morning I was still sick and Courtney called Mr Pan and told them I wouldn't be able to teach, and neither would she as she was going to look after me. She by her own rights should have stayed home anyway as she had spent the whole last week practically sick as a dog, and yesterday, while better, was still recovering. So of course Mr Pan and Raymen came straight over and I was basically taken to see a doctor as Mr Pan would be heading out somewhere that afternoon and wouldnt have been able to take us. I didnt have a choice basically, no surprise there. I didn't want to go, I just wanted to lay down as i was feeling very weak, very tender.

So we went to what Mr Pan said was 'not a very good hospital' but close, which I think was a few blocks away in our own Dongting district, and yeah he was right, the place was a shithole. As he queued up to a crowded counter, I just went and found a seat. I felt like absolute crap. The place was cold, open-aired. It was filthy. Doctor's were walking around with smokes hanging out of their mouths. After a short wait I was summoned into a small office which was packed with people. In there, I sat down beside a doctor - well she wore a white coat anyway, had my temperature checked, listened to my chest, and prodded my stomach to see if it hurt. I told her(through Mr Pan) that it was bloated, but the meaning of that was lost in translation, like most other things we say, period. That experience was interesting enough - kind of like having a doctors checkup with an audience.

So from here we went to another counter- well Mr Pan did, while I bee-lined for a seat. He came back with my medicine, which turned out being two bottles for an IV drip - great!

I quickly went to the toilet - which was feral as - even the train station had better toilets than this hole..i mean, hospital. I saw a room of people sitting on regular seats getting IV drips and I felt positively woozy. Not because of the IV - i have had them before, but the thought of just sitting upright for so long..when i needed to fairly often go to the toilet etc for either one of two lovely things.

Thankfully Mr Pan poked his head out from a doorway down a hall and there was a bed in there i could lie on. I lay down, the bed and floor being dirty, the room so cold I cold see my breath(ahh it was just like back home originally!) and had my first IV put in. It took bloody AGES. Courtney, the poor thing, waited with me the whole time, which i felt very guilty for as she was not well herself, but very grateful for too. Initially there was an old couple in the other bed, but they left when their drip finished to be replaced by a little girl and her smoking father. Yay!

So we were there for over four hours and god i could not get out of there quick enough. Next time - if either of us have to go to a hospital(here's hoping not) we will demand to be taken to the best one, no matter how long it takes to get to it. We paid a lot of money for insurance to cover against this kind of thing. I was sitting in the bed, this single bed with aqua doona cover that was dirty and some kind of cartoon characters on it, freezing cold, the smell of smoke in the room, the sound of other people throwing up out in the hallway, the drip was now actually dripping slowly onto the doona cover, making it wet, here i was in my ski jacket and just had to chuckle.

When I got home, for the rest of the night I felt absolutely drained, weak and worse, nauseous. While I didn't vomit again, I basically felt like i needed to, right up to bed time. I spent most of the night laying on the bed. I attempted to update the blog to distract myself but just didn't have the energy. Courtney looked after me all night which I was hellishly appreciative of.

God damn i HATE food poisoning. The worst thing is I don't even know what it is that could have given it to me. There was no actual meat style things(which is the usual culprit) eaten within the previous timeframe. It couldn't really have been the lunch we had in Shanghai from a street kiosk thing as that was too far away. I don't think it would have been the snacks..Collon's(how appropriate) I bought from the shanghai station and ate on the bullet train. Leaving only possibly the milk i put on my cereal for dinner that night and had in my coffee...but i was sure it wasnt off...who knows.

All i know is, whenever I get food poisoning, and I have seemed to have had it quite a lot over the years, it always makes me paranoid of food afterwards. Blah.