My foot has been hurting, so I figured... lets go get it checked out. So Michaela and I head to the hospital on Friday morning. We went to the nicest hospital in Changsha, probably the nicest hospital in Hunan. I knew the moment we walked in this was a nice place, there was no one smoking and no chewed up betel nut on the floor. My second thought was that this hospital was built like a mall. There are registration kiosks for each section. You register, pay for whatever you need and go to the right section. You get a booklet which is your medical record, which you are responsible for. They don't really keep records, and they definitely don't believe in privacy. We were waiting in a room with a doctor and like 10 other people. They would call your number and you would sit down and explain what was going on with you, the doctor would look at you, write in your booklet where you should go and print out some tickets for you to bring to the next kiosk. I was sitting there with my shoes off and the doctor was asking Michaela questions and asking me questions, and there were 10 Chinese people staring at me. He gave me two tickets one for an Xray and one for something that I still don't know what it is.
People come from all over Hunan to go to this hospital. As I stood in line to pay for my Xray at the center kiosk, the man ahead of me kept turning around to stare at me. Then he would return to staring in front of him, then turn around to look at me again. 60 Kuai later I was standing in line at the radiology kiosk to check in. I was sent to room 4. Both of the rooms I visited were room 4, talk about unlucky! In Chinese 4 is a very unlucky number, 4 in Chinese is "si", which sounds like "si" which means death. So I got the death number twice! On the way to room 4, we passed by a man who was staring at me wide eyed, "Hallo" he said to us. Michaela and I smiled generously, "hello". As we are waiting for the xray room, a woman comes up to us. She looks really upset. In perfect English she says "I am having a terrible day, I hit someone with my car." Michaela and I just looked at each other. I think one of us managed to say "Oh.." The woman nods, as if we are being sympathetic to her. "She is making too much of it, I think she is fine" She says gesturing to a woman who is writhing in pain on a gurney. "That was nice of you to take her to the hospital." says Michaela generously. "I am supposed to." Michaela and I were very silent, then a Chinese man opened the door and in they wheeled the woman. We all pushed and shoved our folders at the doctor. Who took them all, and saw the foreign name on mine. So when the door opened again, it was my turn. I was xrayed, no doubt all over. They told us to come back that afternoon, the hospital closes at Noon for anything but emergencies, then reopens at 2:30.
We came back that afternoon, picked up the xrays (which I also get to keep). Showed them to the doctor, he said. "Oh it isn't broken" Then he looked at my tickets. "You didn't get this test?" "UH?" So we walked from kiosk to kiosk, asking where we were supposed to go. We got to the right window. And they said "Mingtian (tomorrow) Xiawu (afternoon)". So we go back today, and they said "Mingtian (tomorrow) Shangwu (morning)". Needless to say I won't be going back there unless I am bleeding. I will wrap my ankle and wear different shoes!
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