The Long Day

So today was packed full, but overall a good day. I have had more symptoms with my transverse myelitis, so the doctors here had me go for another MRI to rule out that it is MS. So, back in the US, getting to the hospital to do an MRI is not too involved. Here however, it is always a different story. I dropped Danny off at school as fast as I could and Tom and I left with about an hour before my appointment. Normally, this would be plenty of time, but today it is raining. Actually it has been raining here for a little over two days. Quite frankly, I feel a little like Forest Gump where he is in Vietnam and he says one day it began raining and it just keeps going on and on. Traffic in Shanghai is typically not good, but any sort of rain, makes it crazy.

The greatest part of the traffic here is that while there are two lanes, this really means nothing, if you can get your car in front of the others, then they will. On our way to the hospital we had people passing in the lane for oncoming traffic. Also, anywhere that the road widened beyond a single car (i.e.--there was a shoulder or just bend in the road), they tried to push their cars in before the others. Then there are the places where the road went from two lanes to one under a bridge of sorts (where they are doing construction for an elevated road). If you thought merging was bad in the US, you have no idea. Basically, each car just keeps trying to go in front of the other, until they either are blocked by a guardrail, or the actual bridge. Of course, all this crazy behaviour just resulted in it taking longer.

We finally arrived at the hospital fifteen minutes late, but as this is a new MRI machine, I am one of the first to have an exam (this may be good, or bad who knows). I had one done this summer, so I was expecting something similar. Unfortunately, while in the US, they pull you out and do the contrast part and you can sort of move around at that time, here in China they did the contrast through an IV. So, instead of breaking it up into two 30 minute sessions, I had an hour of just lying as still as possible, with nothing under my legs to support my back. By the end I just felt really out of it. (Mostly due to the loud noise of the MRI machine).

From there Tom and I joined the traffic back home to pick up a friend's daughter. She is sick, and both her parents are out of town (her grandfather is staying with her, but he does not speak English, nor understand how the clinic works here). When I arrive they are eating lunch, so I have Tom drive me to the clinic to set up an appointment. We have a little time before getting my friend's daughter, so I grab a bite to eat and then head out again. We pick up my friend's daughter and head to the clinic, then we drive them back, and then Tom drives me home. (The guards at the two stations between our two communities must have wondered what on earth we were doing).

After the clinic I get home and my ayi shows me that where Dustin and I heard water in our masterbedroom ceiling the night before, the drywall has fallen and water is dripping into his closet. My ayi and I move all Dustin's clothes out of the closet and I go and call the office to send someone to come fix it.

Just as the "engineers" (what the office calls the maintenance men here) arrived, Josh woke up from his nap. I bring the men into the bedroom and then run and get Josh. Two engineers look at the ceiling and then need to call a third man who comes and cuts open the ceiling. Inside, to no surprise is a lot of water. They clean up the water and tell me that they will be back tomorrow to fix it. Thankfully, the rain stops. Praise God!! I was envisioning how we would catch the water that would now pour through the large hole they cut. Now I do not need to worry.

After they leave, I head over and pick up Danny from school. I get him down for a short nap and then we all go out for dinner at the clubhouse--we even order dessert. :-)

Whew...what a day! Glad that I can say it is not a normal one. Looking forward to tomorrow when I do not have to set foot into a clinic, hospital, and most importantly...a car.