Feng Bao--The Crazy Swell

Whoa. What a crazy couple of weeks it's been. First, my apologies for not updating more frequently. I really need to tell you all what's going on with us. Here's a brief rundown. Amory and I have started teaching. We're working on our 2nd full week right now; 16 hours teaching a week, plus office time, lesson planning, and numerous meetings all keep us pretty busy. Life is good--we fortunately enjoy most everywhere we eat. We have fallen in love with jiaozi (dumplings), noodles of many kinds, tang cu li ji (sweet and sour pork), chao doujiao (stir fried green beans--sorry mom, your green beans are great, I promise, but I think these might be better), a tomato-and-egg dish, and yes, even eggplant! Those are just to name a few of the food items we enjoy somewhat frequently. Which brings me to the big story for Amory and I from the past couple of weeks. It involves what we like to call the "feng bao," which translates into English as the "crazy swell." Yes, I got the crazy swell. A couple weeks ago, we ate at a restaurant after fellowship. About 30 minutes later, I noticed my head started to itch like crazy, but I didn't really think much of it. Soon after, my side started itching. Since we were waiting for our driver outside on a busy street, I decided not to lift up my shirt to see why. I just scratched away. A while later, while in our apartment, I realized my waist was now very itchy. "Hmm. This is really weird," I thought. So I finally decided to look. Much to my surprise, my right side and all around my waist was all red and slightly swollen--not too unlike a bunch of mosquito bites, poison ivy, or hives. Being the prideful one I can be sometimes, I thought, "nothing to it. I'll just deal with it and not tell Amory." Big mistake. The itching and welps got bigger and worse. I finally told her, and she got a little worried. She made me take 2 Benadryl, and I did it right before going to bed. About 4 AM, I woke up itching like crazy. I took a look, and the welps were now on both my sides, my waist, and a little on my stomach. Not good. We called our team leader, and he suggested that we go to the hospital since the Benadryl didn't take care of it. We went to a place called the 2nd Tumor Hospital of Nanchang--it was now about 7 AM, and the hospital was dark. We find a janitor and ask her who to talk to, so she points to the desk area. It's completely dark. We knock on the window, and a woman climbs out of bed. Her hair rivals Don King's for volume, height, and wildness. She jabbers at us in Chinese, and apparently says they're closed, so we leave to go to another hospital. We go to the new one, and have to wait until 8 when the skin doctor comes. He shows up, and after about 20 seconds of looking at me, says, "This is a very common problem. Take these medicines." We get the medicines, halfway satisfied, and leave. I take the medicine that day. The rash spreads. By Tuesday morning at 5, the rash was on my chest and arms. My chin was swelling, my lip was swelling, and my eye had the rash. Not good. We call the team leader and the Foreign Affairs Officer again. We go to a new hospital. This time, we go up and see the doctor. When we go up, the doctor is seeing some older couple. They see us coming, and shoo out the older couple to look at me. Highly embarassing, but the couple doesn't seem to mind that much. They look at me for awhile longer this time, and with 5 doctors and some other bystanders, decide to give me some new medicines--4 bottles of things and an IV. I'm told to go down and get my blood drawn, almost pass out when sticking my hand through the window (think a teller at a bank's window--I stick my hand in, they prick my finger, and draw my blood), and then get an IV of antibiotics. That helps some, but later that night, I start having new spots on my back and forearms. They gave me 3 total bottles of IV fluid, one each day--so the second day I go to the university hospital and get my IV put in. I finish the book "Murder on the Orient Express" during my 2 1/2 hours getting the IV. The next day, my rash still coming up in new spots, I get my 3rd bottle of IV. I bring the book "The Chosen" and read 2/3 of it. When that night comes around, and new spots are still showing up, we decide to go somewhere else and find out what it is that's wrong with me. On Friday, we pack up and go to Bangkok, because there's a sweet hospital that's cheap and excellent. You can guess what happens next. Of course, now that we've gone to Bangkok, when I go to the doctor on Saturday, the symptoms are gone. We decide to get an allergy test anyway, and nothing shows up. I'm a little frustrated, but glad to know it's nothing serious. Apparently, I was allergic to some spice that they put in a dish, and they can't test for that spice because we don't know what it was or if they even have a test for that spice. Crazy times. Fortunately, my team was able to fill in for my classes that I missed (Thanks Emily and Amory), and was also very supportive while I was itchy and probably cranky from a lack of sleep. And now, I must go teach, but I will put more up on here about our days and our life. Thanks for reading my rambling.