Sunday, December 11, 2005

Jay's Big Ouchy


(This photo was taken one week later. It looks so much better here. OUCH!) On Tuesday, I got a call from the school nurse. Jay had injured his finger. Apparently, a large rock had fallen on his finger. Ok, it hadn't fallen, it was thrown. He moved out of the way, but couldn't quite move his pinky in time. Wow did it look sore! It was about twice it's normal size, and dark purple. The nail was very injured and is already partially off. Anyway, I was pretty sure it was ok (other than being sore), but the nurse wanted me to take him to the clinic to get it checked. The doctor wanted us to go have an x-ray...which is the reason for this story. We went to the military hospital. The nurse (who is Chinese, but trained by our Western Doctor) rode in our car with us. She took us down so many halls. We sat for a moment in a room full of people waiting, then they took us right in for the x-ray. I felt so bad going in front of all of those people. The hospital was very plain, and very cold. It didn't feel like there was any heat, at least where we were. But, they had nice equipment. The nurse had to bring her own lead apron for Jay. They didn't have any there. The doctors didn't seem very important at all. They were not given decent offices, or quarters. Inside the "x-ray diagnostic" area, there were metal desks, wooden chairs, and some of those wall light things they look at x-rays on. And...no heat. Jay's finger isn't broken, so we are really glad about that. It was a very interesting thing to see inside the hospital. And I think we were very interesting inside the hospital, as well. So it all worked out! The most shocking thing was the bill we paid...80.00 US. And that was probably the VIP Foreigner rate. Not Bad!