Matthew’s SOD Blog

Our China Journey – Hospital Living

November 18th, 2009

Many of our friends and those interested in our trip often ask us, “Where did you stay while in China?”, and also “Did you stay in a Hotel?”  This was not the case at all. We actually lived in the Hospital.  Floor eight and nine in the east wing of Qingdao People’s Hospital were designated for only Beike patients and their caregivers.  We had a designated elevator that only went to these two floors.  There were 32+ rooms set-up for patients and their caregivers.  These rooms were all occupied by Beike patients, with only a couple rooms empty at a time.  When one patient/family would leave, within a couple of days another one would arrive.  There was a constant turn over of people.  The length of a patients stay was from 4 weeks to 6 weeks.  The difference in the length of the stay was determined by the illness/disease that was being treated.

 In each room were a regular hospital bed and a double sized bed for the caregiver.  Also, some rooms were set-up with a baby crib or a roll-away. Sometimes the whole family would come and there were 4-5 people per room.  This made for very crowded rooms, as these rooms were the typical hospital room size we have here in the U.S.  A large bathroom that would accommodate a wheelchair was standard in each room.

 In our room was a microwave, a mini refrigerator, DVD player (of which ours didn’t work), and small sized TV that was centered about 8 feet high on the wall  I understand you could view Chinese TV in some rooms, but we couldn’t figure out how to work the one in our room. On the exterior wall of the room was a large operable window which made for great viewing of the surrounding area.  We did have air conditioning, which only was on in the day, turned off at night and sometimes off during the day for maintenance.  We also had an oscillating floor fan we used constantly.

In the center area of the wing, on each floor was a common area, where we regularly gathered for conversation and story sharing.  We would celebrate birthdays together here and during our stay we celebrated July 4^th. The nurses stations was here and whenever we wanted to leave the hospital we were required to sign-out the patient; caregivers could come and go as they pleased.  There was a common small kitchen for cooking.  This was a very limited facility with only two hot plates to cook on, no stove.  There was a microwave, toaster oven, griddle, and George Forman type grill.  A small sink was used for hand washing the dishes without hot water available. A common refrigerator and water cooler were off to the side where there was a dining room for seating of 10 or so.

 Also in the common area was a WII for entertainment, an area full of different kids toys, and a book shelf with lots of English reading material (books, magazines, newspapers – of which some were two years old), two computers with internet access for all to share and a small office where the interpreters could be found at almost anytime in the day or night (unless it was lunch time and then no one was to be found!) A doctor’s office and cleaning supply room were just down the hall.

 Other areas that were used daily were the Physical Therapy room and the Occupational Therapy room. Acupuncture and electrical wave therapy (Occupational Therapy) were part of our daily routine. Matt did not receive Physical Therapy. Also, on the 9^th floor was a recreation area, equipped with a ping pong table, a treadmill and stationery bike.  We spent very little time in this area, as it was usually crowded with the Chinese patients, who kept to themselves and took over this area.

Our daily routine would be to wake up early, sometimes with the nurses at the door coming in to check on their patient, Matt.  The practice was to take everyone’s temperature first thing in the morning, check the vital signs and give us our marching orders for the day.  If it was stem cell day, they would come back by mid morning to insert the IV port, if it was an off day, we would be heading out to the market, or a sightseeing trip, or as we mostly did, staying put and spending the day in the common area visiting with others, or staying in bed, as Matt had to do quite often.  We would have breakfast in our room, cooking in the microwave, oatmeal or scrambled eggs with maybe a roll or toast or fried potatoes previously cooked.  We would have lunch later, by ordering in from the fast food restaurants that would deliver to the hospital, or cooking (a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches) in the small kitchen, if we could get a place in line. Dinner was again a waiting game to get a spot in the kitchen, or order in fast food again.  We did go out to a few different restaurants, but in 6 weeks, I believe we only went out 4-5 times to do this. Bedtime was usually around 10-11 pm, depending on what was going on in the common area.  We often watched videos on the computer in our room.  We had taken several videos with us and also we exchanged our videos with others. Someone had the Season One Heroes TV program, which Matt and I enjoyed for a couple of weeks – watching all of the season’s episodes.

 Stem Cell injection days were quite exciting.  And you could feel the excitement in the air from the Doctors, nurses, interpreters, and the patients – especially when it was their day for treatment.  These days were very busy times for all, caregivers rushing around getting food ready. Patients had instructions to eat a certain amount of time before the treatment. Patients would attend to their own personal needs, especially on a day of the lumbar puncture, as they would have to be in bed 6-7 hours following the treatment.  The stem cells would arrive in a cooler (similar to how transplant organs are carried) around 2pm, and so we would ready ourselves according to this time clock.  These days were always full of hope and excitement, as we knew we were all pioneers in this treatment.

 As we gathered in the common area to visit and share healing stories, we often joked about our accommodations.  We liked to pretend we were on -  Survivor China. We also called it camping indoors, because of the inadequate kitchen, lack of hot water at times, and hot and humid air, when the air conditioner was not working.  We noticed how often the nurses sat in the dark at the nurses station, because of their need to conserve electricity.  We would be in the dark too, but some of the more aggressive personalities would defy the Chinese government and turn on the lights!  But these gathering times were ones of companionship, hope and camaraderie. We became family!

Our new family members were from Australia, England, Switzerland, Italy, China, Malaysia, Oman, Jordan, Libya, Ireland and from the United States; Montana, Louisiana, Texas, Michigan, Washington, Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, California, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Illinois and Iowa. We loved and enjoyed meeting all these wonderful people!

(Article was written for and published in our local newspaper – Lyons Recorder)

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