Getting surgery in China has been quite possibly one of the worst experiences in my 8 months I've spent here.
Back in November, I tore my meniscus (a muscle in my knee) and despite knee braces, crutches, anti-inflammatory meds, and PT, there wasn't much improvement. Six weeks ago, I decided to get surgery to fix it. Here's everything that happened:
Wednesday
2:00 Checked in, found out my insurance might not be cover the whole surgery, despite what my boss had originally told me.
2:30 Pushed into room. Girl motions for me to take my top off. When my boobs are out, she starts giggling and starts saying something to another girl, who comes over to get a look. I am mortified.
3:00 Get settled into my room. Get asked questions via google translate such as “You have allergies?” or “You today shit yet?”
3:30 Random old man comes into my room and starts pointing at my boobs and speaking to me in Chinese. When I don’t understand, the google translate comes out and I get a “You underwear off yet?” I point to my bra strap. They nod, so I take it off in the bathroom. I wander around the hospital braless until I eventually get a chest X-ray.
8:00 Nurse asks to see my hands and feet, then tells me I must remove my toenail polish. Perhaps she disagrees with the color.
9:00 Roommate and her mother go to sleep in my room and snore ferociously. I try sighing dramatically and turning the lights on but the snoring continues and I get very little sleep.
Thursday
6:00 am I get woken up by a nurse after about 30 minutes of sleep to take my blood pressure for the 4th time since I checked in
7:00 I get my blood pressure checked yet again.
8:00 Nurses gather around me and continue to speak Chinese and use no hand gestures or motions to help me understand what they want. They start giggling and pulling in random people to look at me. I start crying. I get another google translate “You underwear off yet.” I nod, and they bring me into the surgery room.
12:00 I wake up from surgery and cannot breath, move, or talk for two frightening minutes. After I am able to breath, I realize I am very drugged up. Drugged up me is confident that I am fluent in Chinese and try asking questions about the surgery to the confused nurses who don’t know how to answer me.
1:00 I am still slightly drugged and back into my room. My leg is wrapped all the way down to my toe and I have a breathing tube, an IV drip, a heart beat finger thing, and a blood pressure cuff hooked up to me. I am told I cannot leave my bed for the rest of the day. Now I have to pee, so I ring a nurse in and she brings me a bedpan. She closes my curtains and waits for me to pee. I lay on it, but my body refuses to pee while I am horizontal. I shoo the impatient nurse away and lay on the bedpan for a few minutes until I can convince my body that if I don’t pee horizontally, I will not be able to pee at all. I ring for the nurse and hand her the bedpan. She slides it under my bed and walks away. I am confused – is my pee just going to stay there? A friend arrives to visit and I have him ask in Chinese. She instructs him where to deposit my pee. Mortified, I ask my friend to empty my bedpan because the nurse refuses. More friends arrive, and more pee arrives, and I have to ask another unfortunate friend to empty the bedpan before I go to sleep. Thankfully I never poop.
Friday
They take my blood pressure for at least the thirtieth time (not exaggerating). After some hand motions, I figure out I can leave. I hobble on crutches out of a taxi while a friend carries all my stuff and I get frustrated from all the stares. Not only am I a foreigner, but also I am a crippled foreigner, and Chinese people will not stop staring and gaping at me. I get so flustered that I lock myself out of my apartment.
Next few days
I rest for six days total, four of which are weekend or Chinese holiday, so I only miss two days of school. I come back to school and limp/hobble everywhere. The two incisions on my knee look like eyes so my friends use a sharpee to make a mouth. I go back to the doctor to remove the stitches, but no one speaks any English and I have no idea if I'm healing normally or not.
Six weeks later
I get the insurance money back and find out $900 of the $1100 surgery was covered by my insurance. I can walk with only a slightly noticeable limp. I jog lightly on treadmills for a few minutes with minimal pain, though I bounce up and down when each leg hits the treadmill because my right leg muscles are so much weaker than my left leg muscles.
Back in November, I tore my meniscus (a muscle in my knee) and despite knee braces, crutches, anti-inflammatory meds, and PT, there wasn't much improvement. Six weeks ago, I decided to get surgery to fix it. Here's everything that happened:
Wednesday
2:00 Checked in, found out my insurance might not be cover the whole surgery, despite what my boss had originally told me.
2:30 Pushed into room. Girl motions for me to take my top off. When my boobs are out, she starts giggling and starts saying something to another girl, who comes over to get a look. I am mortified.
3:00 Get settled into my room. Get asked questions via google translate such as “You have allergies?” or “You today shit yet?”
3:30 Random old man comes into my room and starts pointing at my boobs and speaking to me in Chinese. When I don’t understand, the google translate comes out and I get a “You underwear off yet?” I point to my bra strap. They nod, so I take it off in the bathroom. I wander around the hospital braless until I eventually get a chest X-ray.
8:00 Nurse asks to see my hands and feet, then tells me I must remove my toenail polish. Perhaps she disagrees with the color.
9:00 Roommate and her mother go to sleep in my room and snore ferociously. I try sighing dramatically and turning the lights on but the snoring continues and I get very little sleep.
Thursday
6:00 am I get woken up by a nurse after about 30 minutes of sleep to take my blood pressure for the 4th time since I checked in
7:00 I get my blood pressure checked yet again.
8:00 Nurses gather around me and continue to speak Chinese and use no hand gestures or motions to help me understand what they want. They start giggling and pulling in random people to look at me. I start crying. I get another google translate “You underwear off yet.” I nod, and they bring me into the surgery room.
12:00 I wake up from surgery and cannot breath, move, or talk for two frightening minutes. After I am able to breath, I realize I am very drugged up. Drugged up me is confident that I am fluent in Chinese and try asking questions about the surgery to the confused nurses who don’t know how to answer me.
1:00 I am still slightly drugged and back into my room. My leg is wrapped all the way down to my toe and I have a breathing tube, an IV drip, a heart beat finger thing, and a blood pressure cuff hooked up to me. I am told I cannot leave my bed for the rest of the day. Now I have to pee, so I ring a nurse in and she brings me a bedpan. She closes my curtains and waits for me to pee. I lay on it, but my body refuses to pee while I am horizontal. I shoo the impatient nurse away and lay on the bedpan for a few minutes until I can convince my body that if I don’t pee horizontally, I will not be able to pee at all. I ring for the nurse and hand her the bedpan. She slides it under my bed and walks away. I am confused – is my pee just going to stay there? A friend arrives to visit and I have him ask in Chinese. She instructs him where to deposit my pee. Mortified, I ask my friend to empty my bedpan because the nurse refuses. More friends arrive, and more pee arrives, and I have to ask another unfortunate friend to empty the bedpan before I go to sleep. Thankfully I never poop.
Friday
They take my blood pressure for at least the thirtieth time (not exaggerating). After some hand motions, I figure out I can leave. I hobble on crutches out of a taxi while a friend carries all my stuff and I get frustrated from all the stares. Not only am I a foreigner, but also I am a crippled foreigner, and Chinese people will not stop staring and gaping at me. I get so flustered that I lock myself out of my apartment.
Next few days
I rest for six days total, four of which are weekend or Chinese holiday, so I only miss two days of school. I come back to school and limp/hobble everywhere. The two incisions on my knee look like eyes so my friends use a sharpee to make a mouth. I go back to the doctor to remove the stitches, but no one speaks any English and I have no idea if I'm healing normally or not.
Six weeks later
I get the insurance money back and find out $900 of the $1100 surgery was covered by my insurance. I can walk with only a slightly noticeable limp. I jog lightly on treadmills for a few minutes with minimal pain, though I bounce up and down when each leg hits the treadmill because my right leg muscles are so much weaker than my left leg muscles.