Hate to start the blogging out with this type of news but " it's just life happening". As most of you know (and for those of you that don't, we apologize), I had a spill on my bike (Linda) on aug 20th, the day after our return.... I had a Smith frax of my left (thank God) wrist and had surgery on Aug 22. Since I landed on my head and was unconscious for a time, they did a CT scan which was negative. Very little road rash. I must've landed hard on the head and wrist and no skidding. I was in the hospital until Tues am mostly for IV antibiotics and pain meds and for the dr to chg the dssg. It was a learning experience but not a bad experience. I had 2-3 great doctors that speak fair English and met a couple darling nursing students that live close to us. Since the hospital depends on family to provide food, we had many friends that helped Jim with that. We ate very well! I go back to see the orthopedic surgeon every 2-3days for a dssg chg up to 2 wks when the stitches will be removed. No work for at least 2 wks. The college has been very kind and supportive delivering a fruit basket and a case of whole milk for healing bones! Jim will need prayers right along with me. He is so patient and understanding and has learned (kinda) how to put my hair in a ponytail! The pain is not bad now, just using tylenol and ibuprofen. There will be plenty of time for reading, praying, and preparing for class. I can now have empathy for all my friends that have had disabling injuries. You really don't know until it happens to you. I have thought some of Karl and some of what he went thru.
Jim will add more with pics of the hosp rm and dr and student (and his "bed" that he used when he stayed with me). Thanks for all of the prayers. I can definitely feel them! And also the emails, they are keeping me going. I will not be able to answer all of them. one handed pecking is..............not fun!
James
It sounds like the punchline of a bad joke - "the day after they returned from vacation." Linda's comment when I came over to read what she wrote and add some of my own thoughts was that it wasn't very funny. Well, no its not very funny - it was pretty scary. I don't consider myself real cool under pressure. I really almost lost it when I looked back to see Linda lying in the street not moving. She was unconcious for a time but really we don't know how long. It seemed like a long time to me.
I must make a couple of comments about the kindness of the Chinese people. If you don't know it, whenever there is any kind of accident or public fight in China a crowd of people gather to watch. They don't offer help, they just watch. So when Linda began to regain conciousness and I looked up I was not surprised to see a crowd of people around. Three of them had cell phones to their ear and someone said that there was an ambulance on the way. When the ambulance arrived, someone made sure I had the bag of groceries, someone made sure I had Linda's purse and 2 or 3 people made sure our bikes were taken off the street and someone showed me where they would be parked and assured me that they would be locked. All of these things happened without much mutual language being spoken ( I didn't speak Chinese and they didn't speak English) but we got the concepts across and I understood them.
At the hospital there were people who spoke English - not on every shift and not every person, but we had what I consider to be very good communication with the hospital staff. I was able to get a CT scan done on Linda in addition to the xray of her wrist.
the orthopedic department was full so we had to wait for a bed on another ward. We were put on the Interal Medicine floor. We had a private room with a private bath and I had a cot to sleep on.
The doctor who took care of Linda was very concerned about Linda's well being and suffering. She spoke good English and is a graduate of our school (Tianjin Medical University). The care that one receives in a Chinese hospital is very different from the care that one receives in a hospital in the US but for us the outcome does not seem to be any different. Linda was in the hospital 1 week - primarily for IV antibiotics after surgery. We got home yesterday morning and have begun to get our lives back to "normal". They won't be really normal for several weeks and maybe months but we are back at home and doing all the home things that feel so familiar.
I have 6 classes this semester which will keep me busier than last semester. I will probably have more than 200 students. I'm going to have to learn to do things a little differently this semester than last but at least I have a semester under my belt so the adjustment will be to more students and a different class - not too bad.
Linda wants me to put pictures on the blog. I am a little hesitant. I have to download them and see what we have.
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