The Great Wall of China27. The Third Hospital

The next day, I went to Queen Elizabeth Hospital. This was easier than Beijing Tiantan for a few reasons. I was in my town rather than a foreign city, I walked in fully conscious, and I was going to walk out the same day.

Lily came with me. Kevin has a real job and had to get back to work. Lily works nights, teaching Chinese children how to pass English tests. Her days are open for doctor's appointments and timing medications. I was happy to have her. At this point, walking was still a chore and I got tired too quickly. I walked to later appointments, but we took a taxi the first time. The driver thought we were confused about where we were going and tried to convince us that it was close enough to walk. Which it is, if your head is in one piece.

At the hospital, one nurse checked my vitals, took blood and did all of the usual routine. Another nurse asked me a lot of questions and I waited for the doctor. In Hong Kong, they always get to you right away, but then you have to wait around. Dr Li asked me most of the same questions the nurse had already asked and then sent me off for an MRI. At first, I was surprised that my records were not sent from one hospital to another, but I eventually realized that Hong Kong hospitals have little faith in Mainland hospitals. They prefer to do everything themselves rather than rely on what they think is probably faulty information.

After Dr Li looked at my MRI, he showed it to me. That was a new experience. Most doctors tell you what they want you to know. This one was actually giving me the same information that he had. I was also surprised by the technology. I was expecting to look at an x-ray on a lightboard. Instead, I looked at my MRI on a computer. That let the doctor zoom in, change colors and do things you are never going to do with an x-ray. He showed me bits and pieces of my brain I would have never seen with a pencil point at an x-ray.

Dr Li explained everything that happened to me and for me, and filled in the gaps that Dr Chen either never mentioned or that I never remembered. The plastic plates in my head were small, but clear as day. I was expecting one large cover, like a Bond villain with a steel plate in his head, but they were four tiny pentagons around the bone flap. I could always feel the bone flap and plates. There is nothing visible without the MRI, but you can feel a slight change in topography if you touch my head. Touching the plates while looking at the MRI was a surreal experience. It never really felt like the plates were actually in my head until I saw the images.

That they were made of plastic rather than titanium did not bother Dr Li at all. There are several benefits, but I think the one I appreciate the most is that I can use air conditioning. Apparently, titanium plates can get painful when chilled. I could not live in Hong Kong without air conditioning. Blow dryers are also supposed to be painful since they heat the plates, but I will have short hair for a long time. It's amazing how quickly it dries. Some people with titanium also complain about clicking noises or pinching when they open and close their jaws, but that is more about the bone healing than the plates.

Dr Li had low expectations from the Mainland China hospital, but when he heard that Dr Chen did the surgery, he told me that I had the best possible doctor. They knew each other professionally, and Dr Li confirmed that Beijing Tiantan Hospital was the leading neurosurgical center in China. Not including Hong Kong, of course.


The Great Wall of China part 1