Strangeness Afoot

Last weekend, Jeremy had one of his weekly soccer games. I know it sounds nuts, but when he told me he'd be home around 2pm and he wasn't back yet, I felt like something was wrong. It's not far from our home and when he says he'll be done by a certain time, he always is. If he were to go somewhere afterward with his teammates, he would have called.

He comes in 30 minutes later, hobbling. He hurt himself again. Remember the last time? Except this time, he wasn't whiny. He was playing it off like it was fine. He had a business dinner to attend that night and he didn't want to gimp out on it, pardon the pun.

But this time, it seemed like he did much more than just sprain it. He hit his heel bone and detecting fractures there can be a bit more tricky. To be sure, an x-ray is needed. I tried my best to check him out, thinking of what my radiologist father would do. There was no swelling or bruising. He could rotate his ankle without pain. But if he tried to stand on the injured foot, he could not do it. I feared it was broken but told him that an x-ray would tell us for sure.

He went to the hospital alone, despite my pleadings to assist him. He didn't want me to be stuck in the unkempt hospital for an undetermined amount of time with Raelynn or Seoul. Lord knows that would have been a nightmare. So we waited at home for him to return.

After about 4 hours, he's back, with a plaster cast.

"So it is broken then?" I ask, feeling sorry for him.
"I don't know," he tells me.
"Um, but you have a cast on your foot. That generally means it's broken," I declare.
"No, they couldn't read the x-ray and then they wanted to charge me 300 yuan more to do some other scan and then..." and he keeps explaining but I'm stunned. I'm still stuck on the part where they couldn't read the x-ray. I say so and he agrees. "Well, that's why I got the plaster, because I need to stay off it anyway and if it is broken then I don't want to pay 300 more yuan AND get plaster on it. They're just trying to scam me by making me take more tests," he says. I completely agree.

In China, it's really very common for them to push useless tests, medicine or treatment onto you. I consider myself very lucky to have had Dr. Wang deliver both my children because she's one of the few competent doctors here. Too bad she isn't a radiologist. At the very beginning of my pregnancy with Seoul, I'd gone for a check-up on a day that Dr. Wang happened to have off. There was another doctor in there and we went ahead with the ultrasound. The ultrasound tech said the baby looked good and healthy. Here, they do not give you giant print-outs of your ultrasound like they do in the US. They print it very small on regular printer paper. So imagine our surprise when this doctor tells us, after briefly glancing at the tiny picture, that there's blood in my uterus and we need to buy this medicine for it.

She kept trying to bully us into it and scare us, but we're no fools. We didn't cave into her extortion and we did not ever, not even once, see her again after that throughout all our check-ups at the hospital. Thank goodness. I hope she was fired. We had briefly considered changing hospitals because of it but I wouldn't hear of having anyone but Dr. Wang deliver my 2nd child.

Anyway, back to Jeremy's foot. The most fascinating part of all of this was how they told him they couldn't read the x-ray. So I asked him to explain about that. And he said they told him it was too blurry. He'd need some other kind of a scan "to be sure." He was trying to tell me the name of the scan but he wasn't making sense. Sometimes, we get lost in translation. I'm thinking maybe he meant a CAT scan but whatever scan they wanted was definitely unnecessary. How is an x-ray too blurry? I've never heard of that before. Like ever. Perhaps this kind of bullshit works on the uneducated masses of China, but it doesn't work on my educated husband. Or his wife, the daughter of a radiologist.

So to avoid paying 300 rmb more to be told for sure if it was broken or not, he just got the cast. His thinking was that if it was broken, he's saved us 300 rmb because they'd just put a cast on it if it was. And if it's not, well, the cast will help him from putting pressure on it and causing him more pain.

The next day, we got some good news - it wasn't broken! The morons somehow figured out how to read the x-ray. I swear I'm not making this up. This kind of stuff could only happen in China. What infuriates me the most, I mean besides so-called medical professionals trying to fleece us for more money, is that they must do this to so many people who have no earthly idea what's what. And no one stops this. They just allow people who are supposed to care for the sick and injured to con them out of more money. What bastards.

Our story ends well - Jeremy got his cast off and his foot is feeling much better.

For Lord knows what reason, he brought home the cast after they cut his foot out of it. Maybe so I could blog about it.

Save My Weekend, Please!

I love my sweet husband. Very much. Except when he snores. But he knows this. There is very little I hate more than the sound of snoring when I am trying to sleep. Even when I'm wearing earplugs I can hear him! But you know what just sucks? That stupid World Cup is starting this weekend. GAH!

My husband played soccer in college. He plays on a team now, just for fun. Remember when he hurt his foot? Yeah. He fucking loves soccer. But, try as I might, I find it heinously boring. Unless I'm drunk. Oh alcohol, I miss you. You've been making boring sports less sucktacular for thousands of years. Now I'm going to be subjected to intermittent whoops and shouts, some that may occur while Raelynn and I are sleeping, and I won't even be able to drink to make it more bearable. The last time that damn World Cup was on was when we were in Seoul and it was so much more fun because we went out drinking with friends. Now I'm trapped in China and over 8 months pregnant. Sigh.

And I can't even complain because it's Father's Day this weekend and I should let my husband be happy. Stupid boring World Cup. Why can't you be more like American football? Urgh...

Cry Baby

It's a boy! What, you didn't know I had another baby? Well, I didn't actually. Jeremy and I have been talking about having another child, but that talk became reality on Saturday when my normally sweet and wonderful husband came home from his soccer game in the afternoon.

Here's a fun fact about Jeremy: he played soccer in college. He was good too. He could have gone pro but he wanted to further his education. That's when he left China and moved to Korea to get his masters degree. He doesn't regret giving up a potential soccer career but he certainly missed playing it for fun. Several months ago, he joined a soccer group and even found some of his old soccer chums. Honestly, it made me happy to see him happy. Until he came home this past Saturday.

"I'm hurt!" he croaked as he walked into our home. Raelynn and I stop our little tea party and go see what's the matter. He tells me he hurt his ankle very badly. He can barely walk. "I'll be alright," he tells me. Now, I know my husband and I know he can sometimes try to be a bit macho about things. I want to look at it and ask him some questions about how his foot feels so I can better help him. Of course, I'm no doctor, but my father is a radiologist, conveniently enough, and despite not following in his footsteps, I have a bit of a knack for handling these kinds of injuries.

Jeremy sits down on our couch and I take a look at his ankle. It's huge. His foot looks a bit like a ham, but thankfully, is not discolored. Judging from the looks of it and how he could still walk around, albeit in horrible pain, I felt that it wasn't broken. He started getting snippy with me when I asked him questions about his foot felt too, but I brushed his grouchiness off. I told him he needed to sit down and elevate that foot with ice on it. And so I began the process of rushing about the house, fetching him ice and a stool to leverage his foot up with and so on and so forth. And it was during this time that I found myself with not 1 temperamental toddler, but 2.

Now, before you tell me to give the poor guy a break, I will say this: I've broken my foot before. And I've sprained my ankles as well. I know what each of them feel like. And while breaking a bone is the worst suckage of all, spraining your ankle and having it swell up is quite painful in and of itself. It's frustrating too. You can't get around very easily and now simple tasks, like getting up and going to the bathroom, are now complex. I get it. I also get how disappointing it is to have to stay off your foot for a while, especially when you've got a lot of things to do. So understanding those things, I tried to smile while my husband acted like a total brat. Tried.

He kept getting up and hobbling around, looking for things he didn't need to use at that moment - a Korean book, some paperwork, etc. And then he'd consequently bitch about how much it hurt. Stay the fuck in bed and put your foot up and the pain will start to subside! Yeesh! He also got all crabby about using an ice pack. "It's cold!" he whined. Um, IT'S ICE. It's supposed to be cold. Der. Then, came the bitchy comments regarding where I should shift the ice on his foot. "Up more. NO! Down! OUCH! Like this! No! Like that!" I smiled as I imagined cramming that ice into his peehole.

Then, he'd call for me and order me around, like I was some pawn on a chess board. Now, I realize that I'm his wife and he's injured, and I need to help him. But he suddenly seemed to forget how to use "please" and "thank you." At one point, he got so surly with me that he chucked the ice pack across the room. It landed with a thud and skidded to a halt at my feet.

I had no time for that shit. I needed to make dinner for Raelynn. Dealing with her was slightly easier at least. By chance, I had to go back into the bedroom for something and now my husband was full of kindness and apologies. I scowled at him for a bit but eventually forgave him. And just like Raelynn, he was a good baby for a little while.

It didn't last.

Once Raelynn was asleep, he began with his bitching again. I did everything I could to try to make him comfortable but he was just determined to defy me. Then, he began to panic. What if it IS broken? And now, I begin to worry too, because he's screaming in pain. The sensible part of me knows it can't be broken. It looked like this, by the way:

This is not Jeremy's foot, but it could totally double for it in a movie. Seriously.

Anyway, while his foot remained quite swollen, there was no bruising still, which made me stand firm on my earlier assessment of it not being broken. Still, I couldn't remember howling in this much pain the last time I'd injured myself in this fashion. He couldn't sleep and now he was making sure I was miserable too. He started bitching at me about everything. I briefly contemplated kicking him in the other ankle. Instead, I told him that if he was in that much pain, he should go see a doctor in the morning.

When Raelynn woke up in the middle of the night, he moved into her room and set up camp on the floor where he could more easily elevate his leg. I offered him some assistance only to be sworn at in Chinese repeatedly so I left him there on the floor to have his tantrum by himself. Now I couldn't sleep and spent most of the rest of the night watching my precious daughter as she dreamed away.

In the morning, my 2nd horribly behaved toddler had vanished. In his place was my husband, almost good as new. His ankle was still swollen but he was in much less pain. Off he went to the doctor and came back even more chipper still. I'd been right - it was not broken. The doctor gave him some things to help with the swelling and pain, and it's looking much better.

Jeremy was very sorry for his behavior. I've been a bitch to him at times too. It's called marriage. And at the end of the day, we've got a pretty solid one.

Even after all this, I still want another child. Though not a boy. No way.

Make Room At The Louvre!

FIL's abstract art project that I wrote about yesterday is finished! Already! 11 days until Christmas and I honestly thought his little collage-thing would take him longer. Then again, that's pretty silly of me since this is a man who uses package tape to secure things to walls (see exhibits A and B).

I must tell you that it's absolutely breathtaking. Yes, that's right. As soon as I saw it, it literally took my breath away!

After my husband and I arrived home today, and after the head troll went off to resume her post under whatever bridge it is she crawled out from under, I was washing my hands in the bathroom before picking up Raelynn. My husband came in to wash his hands too. We were talking about something, which I can't even recall what we were discussing because FIL's art suddenly caught my eye.

"What the..." I say, trailing off.
"What the what?" asks my husband. And then his eyes follow mine and fixate on this with me:

Oh. GOD! Soccer?!?!?!? WHYYYYYYYYY?!?!? Urgh!!!!

My husband looooooooooooooooooooooves soccer. He will set an alarm for 3am on a work night just to catch some dumb game that's happening in Latin America. He played soccer in college and he found some guys his age around here that play soccer for fun on weekends. I am so happy that he loves soccer. But I don't. And to me, this is okay because I know there are plenty of things I like that he can't wrap his head around either, such as my adoration for word games like Words With Friends or my fascination with handbags.

But even Jeremy burst into hysterical laughter with me as we gawked at this eyesore. It's hard to tell from the photo, but this is a collage of soccer moments from a magazine page. He didn't make the collage himself. He did, however, rip a page out of some soccer magazine which he (and MIL) couldn't have been bothered with picking up off our fucking living room floor today. He only taped the edges to the wall, this time using a clear package tape. Oooh! How fancy! It is now completely obvious, to me at least, that FIL has no idea that water destroys paper.

That's not what mystifies me in all this. I live here too. This is MY house. Why are these morons messing up the things Jeremy and I have set up to our liking? Why in the world would FIL even think I would want a piece of paper with soccer players on it in my bathroom?!? It makes me think of when my brother lived in Moscow and he told me how the bathroom in his apartment had been decorated with stickers from the previous tenant in an order like this: car, lady, truck, lady, truck, lady, lady, car, lady, etc.

Now I'm almost afraid to ask what's next. I'll have to go digging through Pinterest to see if there's some sort of craft that can cover this disaster up in a practical (and pretty!) way.