Getting sick in China

2 weeks ago I made my first trip to a Chinese hospital.   I knew this day would be inevitable but I had still been dreading it.   In China when you need to see a doctor you go straight to the hospital and not to a doctor's office.  One of the staff members from work took me.

First you fill out a little booklet with your name and age, and pay $.35 for the initial meeting with the doctor.

The doctor is in an office at a desk waiting for people to stop by with problems or test results.  When she's not seeing patients she's reading a newspaper.
She said I needed a blood test and a chest x-ray.  First we had to pre-pay for the tests.  It was $2.50 for the blood test and $4.50 for the x-ray.   We went and got both tests done, waited for blood test results and the x-ray, and brought them back to her for a diagnosis.  From the blood test she could tell I had an infection.  She kind of winced when she looked at my x-ray but said my lungs were ok.  (I got to keep my x-ray.)

My throat was red and inflamed.  I was told to rest, not to drink alcohol, not to eat spicy foods, and of course to drink ONLY hot water.  They gave me 6 pills - 2 a day - to get rid of the infection.  If the pills didn't take care of it then an injection / drip was next.   She wrote everything in my little booklet:

The hospital was not bad at all.  There was someone smoking in the hall (typical Chinese) while we were waiting to get my X-ray so I was coughing a lot.  But there weren't any patients around with blood oozing or people dying in the hallway.  Overall it seemed as clean as I would expect in a Chinese hospital. 

Unfortunately the medicine didn't work and I still missed an entire weekend of work.  I decided to self diagnose and I think I have bronchitis.  Now I feel a bit better, my chest doesn't hurt, I can breath, and I'm able to sleep for the entire night.  My mom sent me some good old western drugs and I hope they are slowly getting rid of my cough. 

I didn't notice this girl when I was taking the pictures of the hospital.  From looking at her you would think it was a really cold day but it was 50 degrees.