To Beijing And Back Again

Micah's one month thyroid blood test was due.

I still had latent TB and no medicine to kill those little buggers setting up shop in my lungs.

And I had a sneaking suspicion that Sam had an ear infection.

Yes, there are hospitals in the city where we live that most likely could have handled each and every one of those issues.  But the time & energy required to accomplish them all easily would have sucked up at least 5 days and possibly my sanity.  So my dear husband gave us the go ahead to hop on the train to Beijing to the international hospital.  The international hospital where everyone speaks English.  The international hospital where you can actually make an appointment.  Ahhhh...the international hospital!  

Micah traveled in style through the huge train station they just build in the western part of our city, through the bowels of the Beijing subway system, and right to the doors of our good friends' apartment.

Sam was just happy to be somewhere where he could continue to eat, drool, and sport a serious Mr. T impersonation with that amazing head of hair.  That's what he does most days.  And occasionally crawls too!

All our medical drama was more of less resolved in a mere 4 hours.  We took the boys to the pediatrician first.  I had to leave after about a half hour for my appointment in a different wing of the hospital to get my TB medicine.  I was trying to be resourceful by double-booking our appointments but instead I left leave Kevin alone in a tiny doctor's office exam room with two little ones full of lots of pent-up energy from a morning of travel and no naps.  Left him alone to hold Micah down while they drew his blood (which ended up being a terribly harrowing since the nurses couldn't find a vein in his dark skin).  Left him alone to answer a zillion and one questions about why the boys did not have immunizations when they were born.  Poor Kevin!  Poor Micah!  Poor Sami (who, in fact, did have not one but two ear infections)!

Meanwhile, while I was at my appointment, I found out that I was going to have to have my blood drawn for a liver panel to make sure that this TB medicine wouldn't destroy my liver.  I skipped back over to pediatrics, only to find a very stressed husband.  I took Micah back with me to hopefully reduce some of Kevin's workload.  Micah dug through medical supply drawers and wore the blood pressure cuff as a hat as the nurse dug through my forearm to find a vein.  Twenty minutes and several sticks later, I finally left.  Micah was thrilled that we both had matching Winnie the Pooh bandaids.

We spent the rest of the day Friday and Saturday morning with our wonderful Beijing friends and then caught a late afternoon train home on Saturday night.  A quick but very worthwhile trip!