Sometimes you have a kick ass day; sometimes you have an ass kicking
day. That's all I could think of at 9 pm Thursday night as I started
scooping toilet waste water from the flooded small balcony outside of my
kitchen and carrying it by the bucketful to my bathroom toilet. It was
not poetic nor particularly clever but that's about all I could come up
with after a really rough day.
This story is written three days after the fact, one, because I had no time on Thursday, and two, I guess the story is better told with some time and distance (for example, I've now convinced myself it wasn't so bad).
My Thursday started off at 4:20 am or so in the morning after Jovie, our helper, fainted in the bathroom and came into my bedroom crying out that she felt really weak and nearly collapsed in a heap by my side of the bed. She sat on the floor, her face leached of all color, crying as she realized that she had hit the back of her head and was bleeding. I think she was in shock.
That is a very daunting way to wake up, let me tell you. We called for the ambulance, and it wasn't long before 3 EMTs showed up at our door. Michael stayed behind to feed Lola and put her back to sleep. As I launched myself into the back of the ambulance, I realized that I hadn't been in one since eighth grade, when I had been bitten by a dog. So I guess there's that to be grateful for, at least - my rides in ambulances are to date few and far in between! In the inky blur of early morning, everything seemed so surreal to me as we proceeded to Queen Mary hospital at what felt like a snail's pace.
I left the hospital emergency room around 7:30 am while Jovie was getting stitches, to run home to pack her a bag of clothes. The doctors told me she would have to stay for further observation, a standard procedure whenever anyone has syncope (faints). At home, I stayed up with Michael to watch Lola until our nanny showed up. Then I headed back to the hospital to check in on Jovie, make sure everything was okay, and then returned home to shower and get ready for work. The hospital ward was insanity - just a dizzying gray maze of hallways with electronic doors that swung open into rooms full of hospital beds stacked side by side, row after row.
That was a lot to have happened before 9:30 am. I also immediately arranged for our nanny to stay for longer and to also come on Saturday, her day off.
At work I had a big client pitch in the afternoon that I had been working on for a while and had a lot to prepare for - it was hard to look and feel pulled together when I was feeling pretty wrecked and anything but. I also got on a call for a separate matter that confirmed that I would be heading to Tokyo next week. Thankfully, the client pitch went better than I expected.
Rushing home to relieve the nanny, I kept checking in on Jovie to see what was happening. She didn't leave the hospital until after 6 pm that evening - and when she came home, it was without any diagnosis or explanation. I was rather peeved at the hospital for sending her home like that - I like answers! She had gone to the hospital with nothing but her phone and octopus card and then had the change of clothes that I provided her, so I had to arrange to meet her exactly as her taxi pulled up in order to pay the driver's fare.
Finally, after getting Lola settled and having a quiet dinner (it was without a doubt a takeout night!), *that* was when our bathroom pipes decided to explode and flood our balcony. We have been having crazy rain and thunderstorms here the past couple of weeks, so I don't know if it had anything to do with that but it was a truly massive amount of water gushing out of the gutter. That resulted in frantic calls to our building management and multiple trips well past 10:30pm from the maintenance men trying to figure out how to stop the water from seeping into our kitchen.
Sigh. Having typed all that out, I guess it's clear why I felt so exhausted on Friday after all!
One note about the hospital experience - Queen Mary is a public hospital (in the U.S., all hospitals are public). I think Michael has gone to a public hospital to get some stitches or blood drawn, but this was the first public hospital I've set foot in in Hong Kong. I have avoided them thus far because the wait is so long (probably 2-3 hours at a minimum depending on the time of day), and we have insurance coverage so I don't mind paying the premium to forego the wait. That said, I have no doubt that the doctors and nurses in the public hospitals are first rate - the sheer number of cases, variety, and speed and efficiency with which they have to work give me a lot of confidence in their abilities. They may be a bit bureaucratic, and it's easier to get around with Cantonese, but you can definitely make do with English.
The public hospital experience in Hong Kong is eye-opening. Like any hospital around the world, the emergency room is a never ending stream of people flooding in and out, stretchers loading and unloading, and lots of people sitting and waiting. But the cost for someone with a Hong Kong ID is HK$180 (that's approximately US$23), and you can pay for your hospital visit with a tap of your Octopus card. Yes, for $23, this covered the following for Jovie's visit: the ambulance ride to the hospital; in the emergency room: check-in, registration, being checked by a physician, local anesthesia and stitches, and a CT scan; and in the general hospital ward: a half a day's stay, multiple checks of vitals, a blood test, meals and constant monitoring by nurses and physicians in the ward. The only other charge was a HK$120 payment for some medication upon being discharged. That's pretty incredible, no?
This story is written three days after the fact, one, because I had no time on Thursday, and two, I guess the story is better told with some time and distance (for example, I've now convinced myself it wasn't so bad).
My Thursday started off at 4:20 am or so in the morning after Jovie, our helper, fainted in the bathroom and came into my bedroom crying out that she felt really weak and nearly collapsed in a heap by my side of the bed. She sat on the floor, her face leached of all color, crying as she realized that she had hit the back of her head and was bleeding. I think she was in shock.
That is a very daunting way to wake up, let me tell you. We called for the ambulance, and it wasn't long before 3 EMTs showed up at our door. Michael stayed behind to feed Lola and put her back to sleep. As I launched myself into the back of the ambulance, I realized that I hadn't been in one since eighth grade, when I had been bitten by a dog. So I guess there's that to be grateful for, at least - my rides in ambulances are to date few and far in between! In the inky blur of early morning, everything seemed so surreal to me as we proceeded to Queen Mary hospital at what felt like a snail's pace.
I left the hospital emergency room around 7:30 am while Jovie was getting stitches, to run home to pack her a bag of clothes. The doctors told me she would have to stay for further observation, a standard procedure whenever anyone has syncope (faints). At home, I stayed up with Michael to watch Lola until our nanny showed up. Then I headed back to the hospital to check in on Jovie, make sure everything was okay, and then returned home to shower and get ready for work. The hospital ward was insanity - just a dizzying gray maze of hallways with electronic doors that swung open into rooms full of hospital beds stacked side by side, row after row.
That was a lot to have happened before 9:30 am. I also immediately arranged for our nanny to stay for longer and to also come on Saturday, her day off.
At work I had a big client pitch in the afternoon that I had been working on for a while and had a lot to prepare for - it was hard to look and feel pulled together when I was feeling pretty wrecked and anything but. I also got on a call for a separate matter that confirmed that I would be heading to Tokyo next week. Thankfully, the client pitch went better than I expected.
Rushing home to relieve the nanny, I kept checking in on Jovie to see what was happening. She didn't leave the hospital until after 6 pm that evening - and when she came home, it was without any diagnosis or explanation. I was rather peeved at the hospital for sending her home like that - I like answers! She had gone to the hospital with nothing but her phone and octopus card and then had the change of clothes that I provided her, so I had to arrange to meet her exactly as her taxi pulled up in order to pay the driver's fare.
Finally, after getting Lola settled and having a quiet dinner (it was without a doubt a takeout night!), *that* was when our bathroom pipes decided to explode and flood our balcony. We have been having crazy rain and thunderstorms here the past couple of weeks, so I don't know if it had anything to do with that but it was a truly massive amount of water gushing out of the gutter. That resulted in frantic calls to our building management and multiple trips well past 10:30pm from the maintenance men trying to figure out how to stop the water from seeping into our kitchen.
Sigh. Having typed all that out, I guess it's clear why I felt so exhausted on Friday after all!
One note about the hospital experience - Queen Mary is a public hospital (in the U.S., all hospitals are public). I think Michael has gone to a public hospital to get some stitches or blood drawn, but this was the first public hospital I've set foot in in Hong Kong. I have avoided them thus far because the wait is so long (probably 2-3 hours at a minimum depending on the time of day), and we have insurance coverage so I don't mind paying the premium to forego the wait. That said, I have no doubt that the doctors and nurses in the public hospitals are first rate - the sheer number of cases, variety, and speed and efficiency with which they have to work give me a lot of confidence in their abilities. They may be a bit bureaucratic, and it's easier to get around with Cantonese, but you can definitely make do with English.
The public hospital experience in Hong Kong is eye-opening. Like any hospital around the world, the emergency room is a never ending stream of people flooding in and out, stretchers loading and unloading, and lots of people sitting and waiting. But the cost for someone with a Hong Kong ID is HK$180 (that's approximately US$23), and you can pay for your hospital visit with a tap of your Octopus card. Yes, for $23, this covered the following for Jovie's visit: the ambulance ride to the hospital; in the emergency room: check-in, registration, being checked by a physician, local anesthesia and stitches, and a CT scan; and in the general hospital ward: a half a day's stay, multiple checks of vitals, a blood test, meals and constant monitoring by nurses and physicians in the ward. The only other charge was a HK$120 payment for some medication upon being discharged. That's pretty incredible, no?
What a day! Glad you all made it through and hope your helper is feeling well again.
ReplyDeleteThank you! Yes, she seems to be feeling much better and we are going to get a second opinion to make sure she is ok.
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