Morgan's Hospital Visit

As I said in one of my earlier posts, Morgan had been sick all week. Twice I made and subsequently cancelled a visit to her pediatrician. Morgan would have a rough night and/or morning but would seem to be better in the morning. But, after three days of a fever over 100 degrees, I thought it was time to go in. Unfortunately, there were no pediatric appointments on Saturday and the family doctors were booked, too. We also checked another western facility nearby, but they needed a passport since we hadn't visited before and ours were at Bob's office so they could be turned in to the local police station for the mandated updating of residence visas. With the impending visit that night of four of our friends and their four children, we needed to get Morgan looked at. So, off to the ER!

This was nowhere near our first visit to the ER in Shanghai - with accident prone Melissa and a small child, we've had our fair share of emergency runs. Oh yes, let's not forget the time two months after we first arrived when Bob thought he would be funny with Melissa's exercise equipment and snapped a trainer bungee into his eye! Getting back to topic. . . I had high expectations of a good visit to the ER and was not disappointed. We were ushered immediately into one of the fever triage rooms (one of two), separated from the rest of the small ER. A nurse immediately took Morgan's temp and said "Oh my - take her clothes off!" Apparently, it was 39.7 degrees, about 103.5 F. Plus, this was 30 minutes after her last Motrin dose - so the nurse gave her some more and we waited for her temp to come down. Five minutes later, in walked the doctor, a local who could speak English and a tech from the lab to take blood. After her blood draw, during which, of course, Morgan screamed the entire time, the doc listened to Morgan's chest while she freaked out some more, screaming "Mama, Mama!" the whole time - I'm surprised he could hear anything over her uproar! He thought it was bronchitis but wanted to wait for the blood test. Within ten minutes, we had the results - a bacterial infection - so antibiotics and cough medicine were prescribed. We would have been on our way, but with Morgan's high fever, they wanted me to keep her around until it came down. In came the nurse - 39.0 (102.2) with a lecture about making sure Morgan was well hydrated. That's usually the only problem I have with the hospital - the nurses always project this attitude of condescension, an "I know better than you" so you should listen to me demeanor. Now, I appreciate nurses - in my family both sisters are nurses, my mom is a nurse, my brother and stepbrother and both of their wives are nurses. Believe me, if I didn't appreciate nurses, I'd certainly hear about it from someone. However, I always feel the Chinese nurses take it one (or five) step/s too far in telling you how to take care of your child. We had the same problem when we were in the hospital for Morgan's birth, but I digress, so I've made Bob promise he would post those blogs. Anyway, I KNOW that if Morgan has a fever, she should be hydrated. Every 10 or 15 minutes I offer her something - anything - to drink or eat. But, come on, she's a toddler - she likes asserting her own independence. If she continues to say no, then I'm not forcing her as long as she takes something occasionally.

15 minutes later the nurse took Morgan's temp again and it was finally down to 38.7 (101.6) so we were allowed to leave. All in all, the whole trip including drive time took about an hour and half. If we were in the US, we'd probably still be in the waiting room after that time! I guess if you've gotta get sick, the western hospitals in Shanghai aren't necessarily a bad place to be.