I have been debating about which blog I should post this to, because this blog is used for recounting the exploits of our life and my personal one I use for sharing my thoughts and opinions, but since this is mainly going to be a story about a trip to the hospital for this McCombs family, I figured it can be on this blog.

So once upon a time I got a stomach ache. Now if you know me, this isn't really something of note, I get stomach aches all the time. My body for some reason just is really sensitive to what food I eat. My usual protocol for problem resolution is always a nap. I don't know why, but just laying down and relaxing for a little bit usually makes it go away.

This time however, after my nap I got up, walked around for a minute and then puked my guts out. Fun times for me... anyway, I figured it was just something I ate, since while we are here I feel like I am always gambling any time I eat anything. 

Fast forward a couple hours and I have thrown up again. I think "well if this keeps up, how am I going to teach tomorrow?" I contemplate asking our liaison what the process would be to cancel class, but decide I can tough through it all.

Then Chad turns bright red.

We still aren't sure what happened, but all of the sudden he turned bright red and started to swell all over his body. His wedding ring is usually a bit loose on his finger- it was tight. He said he was breathing alright but there was definitely something wrong, some sort of allergic reaction.

So I called our liaison and asked her if she could take us to the hospital. 

(For you die hard conservatives here's where I start to expound on the socialized medicine)

So we show up to the hospital and I'm a bit nervous. Not because we don't speak the language (that's why our liaison was there!) but because like any person raised by conservative parents, I have been told the stories of socialized medicine, hours and hours of waiting. People dying because they had to wait so long. 

For Chad to see a doctor we had to wait about 2 minutes. We went in, the nurses looked at him right away and listened to what happened. They took his blood pressure and temperature and then we paid the registration fee. It was $0.66.... yep, less than a dollar. He then went right in to see the doctor. 

I had to wait a bit longer to see the doctor. We decided since I felt like I was going to faint and throw up again, it would be a good idea for me to see a doctor since we were there. The "internal doctor" (the translations get a little rough) was "in an emergency saving someone's life" so I ended up waiting about 45 minutes to see him.

Now, you could argue that we get preferential treatment because we are foreigners and white, but honestly, everyone in the waiting room - not an actually waiting room but more of a foyer - was in and out. It wasn't just us.

The scariest thing ever happened while I was waiting though! Chad was off getting some sort of mystery injection to combat his allergic reaction with our liaison's husband. He doesn't really speak any English, but our liaison was with me and we assumed it would be easy enough for him to help Chad at that point. So we are sitting there chatting, when the husband comes running over shouts something at our liaison and they both go running off. I'm told to stay where I was. Yeah... of course I am going through all the worst case scenarios, imagining it's gotten worse or the medicine has done something absolutely horrible to Chad and I'm never going to see my husband alive again. You know being completely rational. After what feels like an hour (but was probably only about 10 minutes) the liaison finally comes back. Turns out that Chad had almost passed out when they were giving him a shot and he couldn't really communicate the fact that he was about to fall down.

A little scary, but not the horrible situation I was dreaming up.

Anyway, I got some blood work done and was told within 10 minutes that my white blood cell count was incredibly elevated and that he thinks I had an infection in my intestines. The time: around 11:00pm. We got to the hospital around 9:45-10pm. So in about an hour's time we both saw doctors, were diagnosed and about 15 minutes later we were both in the process of being treated.

So the breakdown is this: 2 doctors seen, 2 injections given, 1 blood test, an IV and a place to lay down while getting the IV (for Chad- he needed a shot and an IV) and 3 boxes of medicine to take home. Our total cost? About $42.00.

The IV took FOREVER though... we didn't get Chad discharged until about 1:30am and got home around 2am. 

This is the proof of life picture I sent to the parents after we got home since I leaked the fact that we were at the hospital. Chad was already asleep - he had kind of a rough go of it.
This isn't just the case for emergencies either. Chad and I have both been to the doctor here for sinus issues and the whole visit took about 30 minutes- from registration to getting our medicine. The total cost for all of it was about $6. That includes the prescription meds and the OTC ones the doctor recommended.

One might argue that it's a lot of money here still and it's true... the cost of a meal in our school cafeteria is $1.30 to $2.60. So let's use that as the scale... I looked and the FDA website says that for 2 adults of our age a low-cost meal would be around $4.87. We can say then that an average meal in the US is twice the amount of an average meal in China. SO that means if China's total cost for a doctor was $6 then in the US it should be about $12. $12 for the visit and the medicines (which btw you pick up right at the doctor and not at another location). Yeah I would love it if I could visit my doctor for a sinus infection and get cough syrup, antibiotics and a throat soothing tea all for $12. 

Socialized medicine now has one more supporter because of our experiences here.