Kung Flu

After about a week of coughing, sneezing, huffing and puffing, I went to the hospital.

Where I come from, we don't go to the hospital just because we have a cold. That's how you go bankrupt. Around here, people go to the hospital for every little thing. An ER visit in the United States can eat up both your day and bank account. In Hong Kong, you can be in and out of the ER in about an hour, $5 poorer.

Going to the hospital for a cold still seems strange to me, but I could not stop coughing, so I whipped out a few dollars and spent ten minutes on the MTR.

This is cold and flu season, so I had to wait another ten minutes before I could see a nurse who did all the little preliminary things that nurses do before you can see a doctor. The hospital was busy, so it was a whopping five minutes before the doctor came around. After pressing his ice cold stethoscope against my coughing chest, he wanted to look at some x-rays. That was another five minutes down the drain.

After looking at the chest x-ray, the doctor wanted to swab my throat. As a woman, I should be used to men wanting to put tiny tubes inside me, but I have never been a fan of having my throat swabbed. Fortunately, it rarely comes up. The swab would have to go to the lab, wherever that is, but in the meantime, they gave me some pills that supposedly keep my head from catching on fire, and some of that sweet opium liquid for the cough.

About three hours after leaving my apartment for the hospital, I was back home. I could have been back in a little over an hour, but I had to do some grocery shopping. I may be coughing enough to fill the Hindenburg, but laundry soap does not just magically appear.