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Arabella is sick again11 Nov 2008
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On Saturday evening we took Arabella to the doctor as she had a fever for 48 hours. It was at a Hospital which was supposed to have a section where doctors spoke English, according to the Lonely Planet guide anyway. Thank goodness Darren’s friend came with us as it made it all an easy experience. We went to the emergency section, paid 5.50 yuan (AUD $1) to see the doctor and were told that if need be they would call an English-speaking doctor. Then went to the paediatric section and waited in line, only behind two others. Saw the doctor with Ji translating, who prescribed antibiotics and anti-vomiting tablets; and asked what else we wanted. There was much discussion we told the doctor that she would not have tablets and needed suppositories – they didn’t have any. So, we got the liquid antibiotics and were told we could get anti-nausea and paracetomol suppositories from any chemist. Turned out the chemist I went to would not give me anti-vomiting suppositories for children, kept telling me to go to the doctor. I said I had and was told to come here. They refused to even tell me where the adult ones were, even when I showed the Arabella’s patient book which had details of the trip to the hospital. This was all in broken English and ending with not getting any.
She developed a large red mark the next day and we stopped all medications just in case.
Today, she woke up with a rash all over both cheeks and so we went to the hospital again. Turned out the section with the English-speaking doctor would only see adults so we had to go back to the paediatric section. We were escorted from place to place and got to see the doctor, and put ahead of many others and didn’t even pay. The doctor seemed to understand English but couldn’t speak any. Listened to our symptoms, wrote some things down and wrote out a prescription and showed us where to get the medication. I had to stop the doctor from running away from us to ask what was wrong with Arabella and what the prescription was for. She couldn’t tell us because of no English, so we translated it all through Darren’s friend via mobile phone. The doctor said the rash was environmental because of the dry weather in Kunming (which was very strange because it has been raining since we got here) and the prescription was something for a cold. We thanked her and decided to forget about anything for a cold as we already had cough mixture and other things from home.
Anyway, we are waiting to find out whether we can re-book our trip to Dali and Lijung which we cancelled this morning, thinking Arabella’s diagnosis would be more serious and we would change our tickets to go home instead.
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We can go! we are leaving in 2 hours.
