Finding a Burns Hospital

The day after being burnt, I returned to the school hospital. This time, I was just accompanied by a western friend who could only speak some Chinese. This did not turn out to be a problem and the nurse redressed my wound. The next day, I was to redress the wound myself as that part of the hospital would be shut so she gave me the appropriate materials. This also went to plan. The following day, Monday, I returned to the hospital and the same procedure whet forth. At the time she expected me to be healed in about 2 weeks. A few days went passed following the same pattern. On the Thursday of that week however she scowled at my gamy leg and sent me to see a doctor who said I had an infection and that I would need antibiotics. They then redressed my wound and gave me a prescription to take to the drip room, a room full of sick people connected to drips hanging from metal hooks in the ceiling. It went on like this for a few days.

In the meantime, I was not going to the lab as I could not concentrate very well and I was still shaking from the shock. I was eating okay and have a few friends who were eager to take care of me while I was less inclined to walk. To avoid staying in my room all the time I went to a few relaxed places around Hangzhou and went on my first boat ride there. I was so ill at the time that I spent most of the trip sleeping or at least in an immobile state.

After 3 days of penicillin, I decided it might be a good idea to search for a English speaking doctor at a different local hospital. This proved an interesting effort because although when I arrived at the hospital I was was seen to immediately ahead of the other 20 or so people waiting for attention, I was not led to see someone who actually spoke English. Instead I was taken to a doctor experienced in another area who could speak about 10 words of English. He said that the previous hospital had been using a drug that was too weak and gave me a stronger antibiotic. He also prescribed something he called microwave treatment. This involved placing something like a griller near my leg. It then made my leg feel really hot as though it was re-burning it. I think to some degree this is what it was doing but I think the object of the device was to dry the wound. As well as this I was asked to stop walking on that foot. So the hopping began. At any rate it hurt quite a lot and that evening I called people from the lab to ask if they could accompany me the next day to ensure we were all on the same page.

At the same time I had told my parents and started they had contacted a few doctor friends. I had sent a few pictures home and they had been comparing notes. No-one seemed to know anything about this microwave thing but they said medicine in China was older than the most western medicine so perhaps it was quite an effective method. I also heard from the supervisor of one of my friends from UTS that when she she scalded her foot in China a few years ago, she was also given this microwave treatment.