It was China’s national holiday last week so we were out of town for a few days and we volunteered at an orphanage… there are pictures at my friend JC’s website — http://juiceworks.spaces.live.com/   It was a very good week though I did get a little sick and that is where the story turns for the worst.

Five days later I still had a strong case of uncontrollable diarrhea.  This created many painful experiences that I do not like to think or talk about.  In the process of the big-D I took many tablets of Imodium…and so as any normal person would do I read the back of the box and it warned me that if diarrhea lasted for more than 48hours that I should consult a doctor.  And so I thought on day 5 that I would actually take into consideration what the box told me to do so I planned to consult a doctor.  I asked my very sweet Chinese boss if she would accompany me to the hospital and of course she said yes and like that we were off on our journey to a Chinese hospital.  At the hospitals here in China you prepay before anything happens, so I paid the money and then we went up stairs and sat down to talk with the doctor as she asked me questions about my uncontrollable bowels (the room mind-you, was full of other patients and nurses all covertly listening to the white mans poop problems).  I told her through my boss translating all of my symptoms and off we went to get some lab work done.  The lady behind the counter hands me a small thin plastic container with a little wooden stick.  The poop container was a little bit smaller and equally cheap as a McDonald’s dipping sauce container for chicken nuggets.  The lab lady motioned me toward the bathroom (an unsanitary and a sorry excuse for any restroom) certainly a poop sample was expected from me.  Ironically the only time in 5 days that I did not have to go to the bathroom was the only time that I needed to go the bathroom.  So in a moment of self glory I scoop up some of my own feces and put it in my cheaply made poop container and I shamefully walked out of the bathroom with my feces in hand.  My boss was embarrassed as she motioned me back over to the counter so that I could return the container to the lab lady.  The lab lady is standing behind a big glass window with a round hole at the bottom of it (just like in the states) so I proceeded to hand her the tiny container as she was wearing plastic gloves but she would not grab it this confused me.  She laughed at me and then she said in good English, “open it.”  There I was standing holding my own poop container open for the lab lady while she picked up a small stick and started fishing my poop out of the cheap container and then she placed it on a microscope slide in-order to be inspected.  Always remember that this whole time everyone was standing around watching the big foreigner holding his own poop open.  The lab lady finished putting my poop on her slide and then she looked at a trash can and said, “throw it away.”   So that is what I did.  I got my results back 30 minutes later and the doctor said with a perplexed look upon her face that I had very rare bacteria in me.  She prescribed me with 4 different medications.  I only bought two of them because one of them sounded repetitive and the other was a traditional Chinese medicine so I opted out of that one.  In retrospect the medicine is helping and I think I am getting my strength back…so don’t worry about this poop holding boy. 

–You don’t need gloves… if it is your own poop… -Eric