Unforgettable - Part 3

               As I slowly got out of the hospital bed to test my sea legs, I was feeling good. It had been the first time I had stood without nausea in about 2 days. I walked around a little, and then it hit me in a ginormous wave. To say that I was surprised would have been an understatement equal to saying that Hugh Jackman “might not have been the best pick” for the main singing role in Les Miserable. I quickly got back down on the bed and regretted every mental process that ever caused me to stand up. Lying back down made the feeling go away slightly, but only in the way that scoring one goal in a soccer game where the score is already 0-10 gives you a slightly better chance at winning. Soon after this, it was the doctors’ turn to come in and tell me that, once again, everything was fine and dandy with me. Cue a feeling of misery.

               They told me that I couldn’t stay the night there. If you remember from the previous post, I needed to be admitted somewhere or face the “or else” from the Chinese government. My mind immediately went to being super sick in a Chinese prison where they serve me worse-than-gloop for the remainder of my miserable days. I was begging my relative/translator to beg the doctors to let me stay in the hospital or at least give me more magic stomach IV medication. Apparently, they said they could only give me one magic dose per day. They then told me to get up and try walking around so they could see how “well” I was. I was prepared with a plastic bag for what I was sure to follow.

As I stood, the nausea came back more fiercely than before, but I wanted to show them just how sick I was. I staggered a few steps forward before another familiar sensation hit. As a child, I had many encounters with fainting. Seeing blood, overheating, you name it. I’ve probably fainted from it at one point in my past. I say this to let you know how familiar I am with the sensation. So, as I was staggering across the hospital floor and realized that my vision was quickly closing in, I made a quick decision. My options were to either really show those doctors how sick I was and probably end up with some broken teeth (I’m very grateful that I was a shorty as a child. The bigger they are…) Or, I could just get on the floor to avoid any further misery and pain. I chose the latter which in hindsight probably looked to them like a wasted driver trying to prove to the police how not drunk he/she is by walking a straight line in a zig-zag. I think (the details are a bit hazy when you’re about to pass out) that I fell to my knees and did a roll over backwards onto the ground. As I was lying face down on the infectious virus/liver diseased hospital floor, I expected doctors to come rushing to my aid. At least, that’s what happens in all the TV shows when the star patient collapses on the floor. Of course, I would have stopped them before they used the paddles. I’m not that much of a drama queen. However, much to my surprise after the few seconds it took for me to regain consciousness all of the doctors and nurses, my crack team, hadn’t even moved. They were smirking at me from behind their desks. At the time, I didn’t understand so much, but I guess after my “fall” they weren’t so convinced.

So, after having saved my teeth to sacrifice a chance at being admitted, I had but one choice: go back to my hotel. This meant braving another trip in a taxi through the stop-and-go traffic of Beijing, except this time, I was feeling about 10 times worse than my previous wonderful experience. However, realizing that my other option was a herd of scoffing doctors, I decided that a hotel might just be the best place to at least retain my dignity. God answered our prayers though. I laid in the back of the taxi and put my head on Hannah’s lap. She held my head to help stabilize it, and the amazing thing was that I felt much more comfortable in a jerky taxi cab than I did lying still in a hospital bed. After making it to the hotel, I half crawled into a cold shower to help with the nausea. Plus, I hadn’t showered for days at this point. I then crawled into bed for what I was sure would be another night of restlessness.

I can’t remember if I explained this symptom before or not, and I’m too lazy to go back and read my own writing, so I’ll just explain it now. No matter how tired I was, I was unable to sleep. I would fall into that state where your thoughts are mixing with your dreams. However, right at that point, I would feel a sensation in my stomach I can only explain by thinking about the dropping sensation you get on a roller coaster. If that weren’t bad enough to startle me awake, my heart would also start racing. It apparently didn’t want to be left out of the fun. The combo was enough to startle me awake every single time. (This is why they did a CT scan of my brain, but of course everything was normal which I was happy about. You don’t want something wrong with your brain after all.) After the 10-15 minutes it took me to calm down, the process would repeat ad nauseam (pun intended) throughout the night.

Here’s where God did another miracle. For about an hour, I was being startled awake, and Hannah had been noticing (or maybe I woke her). After running to the bathroom for a false alarm, Hannah prayed with me that I would be able to fall asleep. Instantly afterwards, I was out like a light. (I’ve been told that the phrase “sleeping like a baby” isn’t very accurate and would more describe my previous symptom.) I woke up the next day having slept a bit, but after no sleep it was the most amazing thing. I wanted to cry when I looked at the clock and realized that I was able to sleep for 5 hours. During the whole ordeal, I (being the scientifically educated young man that I am) knew that the immune system does not function properly after not sleeping for a couple days, and I was worried that it would just spiral me down further and further. I’m sure it contributed, but this was part of why I wanted to cry when realizing I had finally slept. I might be on the road to recovery! There were still challenges to take care of though. For example, we still needed to be admitted to a hospital to get our visas extended, and it had to be done that day before 5PM when the office closed. I could put down a little bit of food, but not enough to keep up my strength. In the face of seemingly unbeatable odds, we had only one place to turn. We prayed.