Kenaz is in the hospital

Saturday morning, Kenaz didn’t wake up until 11. He was up since 2 am and went back to sleep 6 am. I thought he was tired. After Kenaz was up, he was very mellow. He did not cry. He was not even hungry. I tried to nurse him, but he was not interested in. He had no appetite. He was still coughing, but his sound of cough was very weak. We waited till 1 pm and decided to take him a local hospital.

[Jesse] We took him to the Mother / Children’s Hospital which is an “adjunct” of Suzhou #2 People’s Hospital, which is supposed to be the best hospital in Suzhou for non-specialty care. [/Jesse]

I saw a woman at the elevator in the hospital who was wearing a doctor’s uniform. She looked at Akiva and she did not give him smile. I got not good impression from her. When our turn came at the VIP clinic, I saw the same woman who did not give Akiva smile was our pediatrician. I thought it is going to be bad between Jesse and her. She looked at Kenaz and listened his lung, she diagnosed he has lung infection. She said he has three significant symptoms; 1 no appetite, 2 speed of breathing very fast, 3 noise from lung. She said Kenaz has to say in the hospital at least a half month.
Jesse was very upset of her diagnoses without any test. First he wanted her to take care of Kenaz’s dehydration because he had not eaten for a half day, then he wanted taken further tests to determined the possibility of lung infection.

In China, doctors usually determined diagnoses based of their experiences. Then the test will process to back up the diagnoses. Maybe there is high possibility of misdiagnoses.

[Jesse] In any case, I wanted the doctor to proceed with tests, start treating the immediate serious symptoms (possible dehydration), and then later tell us how long a hospital stay is required. To me, saying that Kenaz will need a ½ month hospitalization without doing more tests sounds like she is just trying to make money for the hospital. Furthermore, I wanted to explore the possibility of treating Kenaz through out-patient services. I think hospitals are the best and worst place to get more sick. Best because the medicines are right on hand. Worst because there are a lot of other sick people around that can spread infectious diseases.

There is another thing I did not like about this doctor… and most doctors I have seen in China. Doctors in Chinese hospitals talk like this: “I recommend you to do this course of action. (that course of action is usually rather expensive and/or seemingly overly extensive and based on limited initial evidence, like specialized ultrasound heart scans, hospitalization, etc) You don’t have to do it, but that is my strong recommendation.” All the doctors in the US I have talked to in my life…including my father… say “It looks like you have this problem. You need to take this course of action. We know this because of this evidence. It is possible that this other thing is happening to you, but at this point, there is not sufficient evidence to suggest that lower-possibility problem. What this problem means is that in your body, at this point, these thing are happening. We need to prescribe this course of action, which should hopefully get to this result. This result is likely to take this amount of time. And if it does not get to this result, then we will look and see about doing this or that. We could start with this or that, but right now, at this severity level, we should start with this.” Even when I saw doctors in the US that I didn’t really click with, they gave me confidence that they know what they were doing and I never considered not doing what they told me to do.[ /Jesse ]

However I went to local hospitals for 9 months and had a baby there, I know it does not work the way Jesse wants like a hospital in the U.S. At the local hospital, the facilities are all over like a school campus. We went to take Kenaz to the other building for blood test and the other building for X ray. It was cold and windy out side. I was very frustrated between Jesse’s idealism and reality of local hospital. Kenaz was getting weak in my arms.

[Jesse] To clarify… we knew at this point that Kenaz would have to go on intravenous nourishment and medication because he was too weak to eat. While I wanted to understand what was going on and if he can be treated out-patient (including reporting to the hospital for intravenous) we were walking all around the hospital grounds, instead of getting the attention he needs. [/Jesse]

Meanwhile, we called our nanny and took Akiva back to her house. Kenaz cannot be treated unless we agreed to hospitalize him. Jesse’s frustration was at the peak and his adrenalin was so high. He was yelled the nurse at VIP to treat Kenaz’s current situation. She said back to him, “Give him some water!”. Jesse almost put his arms around her neck and shook her.

[Jesse] I think Covners are born with some demons that will come out in certain circumstances. And I was not thinking about shaking her. I was more thinking about breaking her nose, front teeth, and lower rib bone. Its like the world becomes a tunnel and at the other end of the tunnel is this despicable thing that I HATE with all my soul. I can destroy that thing…but that would be following a dark path. BTW, That nurse stood for everything I hate about China. She has seniority and is probably a CCP member. She said lots of things to people without investigation. Things off-the-cuff. She expected respect because of her position and age, yet, while we were waiting, the more I heard her talk, the more I realize she really didn’t know anything. I have a good bull-shit detector…I say a lot of BS while I’m selling services to customers. I don’t want BS when it comes to the health of my son. Anyway, when my normal non-demonic speech voice came back, I said in a calm, yet still probably somewhat psychotic way, “If we could get him to drink water or milk, the situation would not be very serious. Please call the doctor and ask her to hurry up.”

Anyway, on the out-patient issue, the doctor said that Kenaz cannot get intravenous in the “normal” way because he is only 10 weeks old…he needs a special machine which will more precisely measure the dosages of liquid. Then there was confusion about where these machines are. The doctor said that the VIP clinic has the machines, but no trained nurses or doctors. The children’s ward in the main hospital has the machines, but no beds are available. I believe now that Haga understood (correctly)from the beginning that the doctor was implying that to get the use of these machines requires medium-term hospitalization. But the doctor did not explicitly make this clear, and so I felt we were getting a run-around. The doctor said that the more average intravenous methods could be used, but that there was danger in that. But we could use that method if we wanted to. But I was thinking…if that is dangerous, why are you even suggesting that course of action? I don’t understand what she is saying and I don’t understand what she is thinking.[/Jesse]

The doctor came and took us to the Geriatric ward. It was not pediatric ward. The nurse there saw Kenaz and said how small he was. I asked her if she has any experiences to treat babies. She said none. I was so afraid. The doctor told me there is no room at pediatric ward . I or Jesse have to stay with Kenaz and monitor him. If his condition gets worse, we have to tell geriatric nurse to call a pediatric nurse. [Jesse] And just how the fuck are we able to tell if the condition get worse?!!! [/] I was very uncomfortable with the idea. The doctor told me we have 2 options; 1 stay at the Geriatric ward and we monitor him or hospitalize Kenaz at newborn section, where there are pediatric nurses monitor 24 hours
however we cannot stay with him. We decided to put Kenaz at newborn section.

[Jesse] I think that newborn section is for speci
al newborn care…not just the regular newborn section. Usually newborns are able to stay with the parents unless they are pre-mature birth or have other medical problems. The regular pediatric ward is in #2 Hospital. The new-born special care ward was in the newer maternity / baby center. The doctors there seemed younger, yet a little more … I don’t know… confident? Communicative? Non-communist? [/Jesse]

There must be a lot of babies at newborn section. I heard their crying behind of wall. The newborn section is very strict. We cannot even see Kenaz. The nurses took Kenaz behind of the wall. I was almost crying. On the other hand, I thought it was a little bit funny. The newborn section is for less than 1 months old. Most the babies are premature. Kenaz is almost 2 and half month old. He has over 16 pounds. He most felt like he is a sumo wrestler sitting on the economy class seat at the newborn bed.

The doctor from newborn baby came out. We had so many concerns. However the doctor said “Calm down, his condition is sever but it is not life threating”. That is what I wanted to hear all day. The pediatrician kept repeating us how sever Kenaz’s condition is. I wanted doctor tell us do not worry, we will take care of it. Jesse and I felt we can trust the newborn doctor more than the pediatrician.

We did not eat anything since our breakfast. We went to a hotpot rest rant close from the hospital. We haven’t eaten hot pot for long time because it is too dangerous to eat around Akiva. It was so delicious at the cold night. We order a beer. We talked about it is not bad to send Akiva to a nanny’s house once a while. After dinner we went to pick up Akiva. Jesse and I held hands together. Without kids we can eat hot pat and even be able to hold hands.

Akiva was completely happy at the nanny’s house. There was the nanny, her 21 years old daughter and her brother’s wife…all there to adore him all day. He had almost forgoten us. He called me auntie. We are so happy Akiva was happy.

[Jesse] I always say that our baby-sitter / domestic helper is very ghetto. She does not listen and a lot of her ideas are very old-school. But she has a big heart and when she takes care of Akiva all of her attention is on Akiva. She lives out in the boonies in one of the many weird half-finnished / half under-construction / half abandoned suburbs of Suzhou. But her complex had a good feel to it. I am starting to see neighborhoods with more Chinese eyes. We will definitely be sending Akiva to Auntie’s house more often.

When we got home we lit the Second Night of Chanuka candles, and then went to sleep.[/Jesse]

We miss Kenaz. We hope Kenaz gets better soon.

[Jesse] We are having him stay at that hospital on Sunday and moving him to Kowloon Hospital on Monday. Kowloon Hospital has open beds so we can stay with him in the same room. There pediatric staff is less than at #2 People’s Hospital, but we shall see if it is enough. I called United Family Medical and Worldlink in Shanghai. Worldlink this time were not that friendly on the phone because Kenaz has never been a patient there. UFM was very helpful. I talked with an Emergency Room nurse. I told her we have no insurance and that staying in the Chinese hospital will be sort of expensive… could be $1000USD for a two week stay. She said UFM was about $950 PER DAY. But that nurse is from Suzhou and she said to call her and she will help out if I have any questions communicating with the medical staff here.

I called the hospital at 4am. The doctor said that Kenaz was sleeping. He had some bottle. He is still coughing though. Situation is the same. I called back again at 1PM. Doctor said coughing a little less and is drinking from a bottle as well as intravenous. This is a very good sign. I will try not to worry. [/Jesse]