Hospital or Not?

Stirling had a fever of 101.5 yesterday evening, the shakes, body aches, head ache, exhaustion. Cold showers and Aleve helped bring his temperature down over night, but this afternoon it was 102 again. Add to the earlier symptoms, cramps and all that goes with a stomach bug, and I started to get worried. He thought he had heat exhaustion because he had been out and about walking around in the heat and humidity yesterday. I figured that heat exhaustion wouldn't go on for so long, and if it did, he needed to go see a doctor.

One ex-patriate I called for advice, someone who has lived in China for decades, said that he would consider going to a Chinese hospital, if and only if, he were bleeding to death, and then only maybe. In all other circumstances, he would go to Hong Kong, even though he and his family live three hours from the border. He is married to a Chinese woman whose parents were both doctors. Their stories convinced him that the chance of something going seriously wrong were just too high, although it was likely one would get adequate care. He'd helicopter his two-year old daughter to Hong Kong before setting foot in a Chinese hospital. He recommended that, if we couldn't get Stirling's temperature down, we hire a car to drive from our apartment straight to Adventus Hospital in Hong Kong. At the border, Stirling wouldn't have to walk; he could just cower in the back of the car strung out on fever reducers to make it past the temperature check. He thought the private car service would cost about $100 and excellent health care in Hong Kong a couple of hundred more, even if Stirling had to spend the night. The big catch though is that my permanent visa hasn't come through yet, so I'd either have to send Stirling alone or with Sofia as they both have multiple entry visas. I don't. And, our cell phone probably wouldn't work in Hong Kong because it doesn't have an international sim. And, he might not make it past the temperature check. And, there is a typhoon dumping buckets of rain and flooding the streets.

Another ex -pat that I talked to, thought the Hong Kong idea was overkill. He figured there were good hospitals in Shenzhen, places where foreigners regularly went, where they were even willing to have babies, but he and the other ex-pat in the room didn't know what hospital that would be. They gave me the phone number of Liya Rong, a native Chinese woman who has lived for nearly twenty years in the United States, but is now in Shenzhen to be the assistant dean at the School of Transnational Law. She recommended Beijing University Hospital where she took her daughter last week because she had a cold. That is where she herself goes as well.

The good news is Stirling's temperature has dropped down to 98.6 degrees. He was able to eat a banana and keep down the Sprite I gave him. He looks extra skinny, having not eaten anything in the past twenty-four hours. I think, I hope, I pray his temperature has broken permanently. And that the rest of us don't get whatever it is. And that the typhoon passes before we do.