Just one of those weeks…

Nothing seemed to go right yesterday, or really much at all this week. I suppose it’s inevitable to have weeks (months? Please not!) like this, but knowing that doesn’t seem to make things any better.

Yesterday my friend slipped back into a rather deep coma here in Kunming. We’re really unsure as to what caused this most recent relapse (heck, we’re still trying to figure out what caused her last downturn…oh wait, we still don’t even know for sure what caused her original problem!), and it could be anything. One of the potential causes could have been the fact that the Chinese nurses last night stopped feeding her due to bad diarrhea but forgot to stop giving her insulin…in case she didn’t have enough problems, they thought sending her into hypoglycemic shock might be fun apparently. Unfortunately, if this were the only cause, she should have pulled back out of a coma as her blood sugar levels increased to normal levels. This did not happen.

Regardless of whether that was the cause, it seems like the only realistic option at this point if we want to keep her alive is to get her out of this poor facility (the best hospital in the province, btw). That meant that yesterday was spent for me mainly on the phone with people anywhere and everywhere. I talked with her family back in the US, called hospitals in the US and Thailand, talked with the evacuation service, etc, etc. Thank goodness for Skype!

After that, it was off to the hospital to actually see how she is doing. She looked like she was sleeping peacefully, and I remember when seeing her in this state seemed like an improvement, but she was so active on Sunday and Monday. We had not just smiles, but full facial expressions including raised eyebrows. Seeing her so good and suddenly so bad is, to use and already over-used cliché, quite the roller coaster ride! I feel like there should be a point where she just gets better, but we’re clearly not there yet.

After the hospital, I came home and tried going to my local pub for a happy hour, 5 元 (US$0.75) Gin and Tonic. As I ordered, I thought to myself, ‘wouldn’t it be just about right if for some reason this wasn’t on special today like it has been for the last year?’ I turned to pay, handed them a fifty and got forty back. “Shouldn’t it be 45元?” I questioned. “Oh, normally it is, but because Dali beer is on special today, nothing else is. Sorry I forgot to tell you…”

So now we sit, wait, and grumble through. SOS (the evacuation company) is supposed to be contacting us with a plan soon, so there isn’t much we can do until then. Let me tell you though, this has been a logistical and financial nightmare. If there is any lesson I get from this experience, it’s that you MUST MUST MUST get insurance! Seriously! Get it if you don’t have it!