She called me up wanting to know all of my symptoms. Estelle claims she is a trained doctor and worked as a doctor in the British military. I don't know about it exactly and some of my facts could be not so factual as I'm never quite sure when she's telling the truth or not. Estelle has so many fantastic stories that it's difficult to know if she's pulling your leg. By the way, Estelle has citizenship in several countries, is a Jew, and she's about 6 feet tall. She's a very interesting person.
Anyway, I gave her all the medical details using my new medical knowledge from my own studies. That was fun as I rarely have a chance to throw around 4-6 syllable medical words in normal conversation. Estelle interrogated me and got all kinds of information out of me. So know she's more up to date on my condition than the Chinese doctor here.
She wanted me to come out to Kaifeng (a city about 1 hour away by train) to go to the hospital there to get treatment. She says it's very good and they even have hand sanitizer posts around the hospital. I've never seen that in China, so that's cool. I went to a dentist recommended by her when I needed a root canal and I was very pleased, so I trust her medical recommendation as well.
Estelle gave me all the details of what she wanted me to do, but I couldn't do any of it because we haven't been paid yet by the school. I told her maybe next week.
After I took some of the medicine from the doctor today, I began to feel slightly better. By 6 p.m. I thought I could try to teach class. I went out and was a little late getting there, but that's ok. I arrived and began a very easy lesson since it was a day to do the pronunciation tests. About 20 minutes into class, I realized that I had made a mistake. I was so tired and drained, my hands were shaking and I wasn't too steady on my feet. I ended up letting the students go about 15 minutes early. It's not too bad since we didn't take our normal 10 minute break.
I explained the situation to the students, so I think they'll be accommodating.
When I got home from class, I was extremely disoriented and tired. My stomach was hurting and I just wanted to sleep. But I couldn't. Colonel told me that our downstairs neighbor, Lanny, sent him a message from Estelle. It turns out that Estelle sent Lanny 3000 RMB to give to me. Estelle called me and said that she didn't have my bank number and she knew that if she asked me, I would argue with her about it, so she sent it to Lanny instead.
Now Estelle wants me to jump on a fast train to Kaifeng tomorrow night. It takes about 1 hour to get there on the fast train. She said she'll meet me at the Kaifeng train station and put me up in her spare room. Then she'll treat me like a queen. She's got several translators on call waiting to help us at the doctor's office. She also has plans for us to visit two hospitals. One is in Kaifeng and the other is in the capital city of ZhengZhou, which is about an hour away from Kaifeng (2 hours away from my home in Shangqiu). She's really got it all planned out. I was too exhausted to argue and I could barely keep up with all of her plans.
I got on the phone tonight and got my Chinese friend Jasmine to book me a ticket to Kaifeng for tomorrow night. I'm meeting Lanny tomorrow morning to get the 3000 RMB for my surgery, and canceling my classes for Thursday and possibly for Friday too. I'm not sure. At any rate, the surgery won't happen for another day or two. We have to meet with the doctor, get a few more tests done, and the get briefed on all the details of the surgery. After that, they'll book a day very soon for me to get it done.
Phew! After reading all that, aren't you glad you live in America? Haha. It's a hassle getting things done around here, but it does give you an appreciation for the simple things in life.