Ironically, last summer my friend was mentioning how many times she has been to the hospital with her three children. And I realized, other than their births and a set of tests Genevieve went through when she was a baby, none of my children have ever gone to the hospital. And here's where I made my mistake....I said, out loud, to my friend and the universe, "Wow, you know none of my kids have ever been to the ER." And I'm pretty sure I jinxed myself right there.
So Monday night Genevieve is complaining that her right arm/wrist hurts. When I ask what happened she tells me she fell off our bed, which is actually pretty high, and she landed on the wood floor, which is laid over top of cement. So, in hindsight, I imagine falling off the bed and landing on your wrist would really hurt. But of course she's telling me this at the dinner table while complaining about the mushrooms in the soup I made and saying that it hurst to lift her spoon. I'll admit it, I had very little sympathy for her and basically told her to suck it up. We've all done this, right? Please tell me I'm not the only parent who has told their kids to suck it up, only to have it turn out later that it was the wrong call?
Right about midnight Genevieve comes in our room crying, she can't sleep because her wrist and hand hurt so bad. She can't move it without wincing and sucking in her breath, so out comes the ice and the ibuprofen. I feel awful. This is a real thing, she's actually hurt herself this time and I blew her off earlier. To partially atone for my bad parenting, I snuggle with her for about an hour in her bed, listening to her gasp and cry at every movement of her arm. I lay there realizing that we are definitely going to the hospital in the morning, and I need to figure out what to do.
Luckily I took a class at the Community Center (non-profit organization that helps foreigners in Taipei) about various aspects of living in Taipei. They thoroughly covered the medical options if you have to go to the doctor and/or the ER and they also covered payment. Taiwan has a national healthcare system and you are eligible to use it if you work in the country for a certain amount of time. If you don't use the national healthcare, you pay cash for the services (some places take credit cards) and then you bill your insurance later. We have insurance through Intel right now.
Anyway, I scrounge around, find the notes from the class and determine that we will go to Adventist Hospital. They have a Priority Care Clinic which costs a little more but offers appointments with doctors and specialists within the hospital, and they speak English. Seems like a good choice for our first visit. I call at 8am and get an appointment with an Orthopedist at 10am. I call/text around canceling all my personal plans for the day, pack Genevieve a bag with snacks and books and off we go. I am anticipating a long morning at the hospital, and I'm praying she didn't break her right wrist...the hand she writes with...the hand she needs to make the 14 strokes that make up one character in Chinese.
Joe had been taking meetings from home since 6am, so he was able to go with us to the hospital. We arrive and try to ask for the Priority Care Clinic but my Chinese fails. Seeing that we are white, the woman at the information desk assumes we want the clinic and kindly escorts us there. The hospital is beautiful, it's clean, bright, all signs are in Chinese and English, and people are going about their business calmly. (No idea what the ER looked like as we were in the main part of the hospital...)
At the Priority Care Clinic I filled out ONE 1/2 page form, then they took Genevieve to be weighed and measured for height. About 5 minutes later a volunteer escorted us to the Ortho doctor for our appointment. After a cursory glance at Genevieve's wrist and our comments that she fell off the bed and couldn't move it, he orders x-rays. We go back to the PCC and wait to go to x-ray. About 5 minutes later another volunteer takes us down to x-ray department. Genevieve has her arm x-rayed and we go back to PCC. Another 5 minutes later we are escorted back to the Ortho doctor who pulls up the xray on the computer and shows us that he doesn't see any fractures. PHEW! Looks like a bad sprain, but he cautions that there are multiple growth plates in the wrist and hand and if it still hurts after a week in a brace, we should come back for another xray. Sounds reasonable enough. Back to the PCC.
Our last step at the PCC was to pay for services. By the way, before we left our apartment I grabbed every single NT (new taiwan dollar) bill we had in the house, not knowing exactly how much this was going to cost but knowing I would need to pay cash. The receptionist totaled us up and it came to $2800NT...which is $95 USD. Joe and I were flabbergasted. We chose the more expensive option by coming to the priority care clinic, we had personalized help getting around the hospital, we saw a specialist and had xrays taken and it cost us LESS THAN $100 USD. Oh, and from the time we arrived till we left, was 45 minutes!!!
This is not a comment intended to start a political riot, so everybody just stay calm, but the US has seriously got to figure out how to do national healthcare. This is the second country we've lived in with a national healthcare system, and in both places it has worked well and been cheaper than we could ever fathom after dealing with healthcare at home. We commented that it's not even worth the headache of submitting the $95 bill to our insurance company for these services. It will take more time and energy to get reimbursed than it did for Genevieve to see a doctor, have xrays, and get diagnosed. Interesting, no?
So, now Genevieve is wearing a brace and doing only math homework with her left hand for the next week (can't do Chinese), and we've got our first visit to hospital under our belt. I am grateful that the injury was not more severe, and I'm even more grateful that the entire experience was good for Genevieve.
And with that, we head into this Thanksgiving holiday with hearts more grateful than ever. Happy Thanksgiving everybody.
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