Some days are better than others, no matter where we are in the world. And for most expats, myself especially included, one way to ensure comfort within our new surroundings is to seek out a familiar escape to some representation of our former worlds, which, during the stressful work week, seem so very far away. Some of us choose to carouse around the city, enjoying its exciting nightlife; others write to friends at home or read an interesting novel. Personally, I chose to join China's only expat softball league, which has been successfully founded right here in Shanghai.
Our Sunday games in either Hongqiao or Pudong New Area are a welcome respite from the congestion of everyday life here, and on this past Sunday morning, I awoke with a smile on my face, ready to strap on my cleats and enjoy a relaxing but competitive day playing the middle-age ex-athlete's version of America's Pastime. I had not a care in the world.
Which is why it was bound to happen - that is, my first stroke of bad luck in Shanghai. To begin, our league is a six-team compilation of émigrés who are sponsored primarily by Western restaurants and pubs here in the Big City. The one notable sponsorship exception is a Japanese organization, which has fielded its own team to combat a slew of Americans and Canadians. This past Sunday, my team, the Red Guard, was scheduled to play the 5th and 6th games of our 20-game season. The first contest was to be against this same Japanese team, and when we arrived, I realized why everyone on our chartered bus ride out to suburban Shanghai had been poking fun at them.
Generally speaking and in my limited experience, the Japanese take life very seriously and go "all out" with each and every endeavor. Softball, as it turns out, is no exception. The Team from the Land of the Rising Sun was decked out in sparkling new blue and white embroidered uniforms, complete with ball caps, jerseys, and even tight little pants. Of course, the effect was quite humorous. Imagine a group of aging company guys, none of whom are in very impressive physical condition, putting together a crack squad of the MLB standard 25 players and four coaches. Among those coaches was (and I really would not make this up) a pitching coach. This is, of course, slow pitch softball, just to make it clear. So as the Japanese team prepared for its game against us with some synchronized calisthenics and games of pepper, the Red Guard and I ate sandwiches and chatted about the previous evening's goings-on. Game time arrived.
My positions are third base and outfield, and for this opponent, which boasts a stacked lineup of five right-handers and four lefties, I was assigned to right field. We really took it to them right from the start by putting up eight runs in the first inning. Their team never came back, and with the 15-run mercy rule that our league has instated, there was plenty more softball to be played. With the score 13-3 in the top of the seventh inning, which is the final inning in softball, our team was up to bat for the last time, and I was up second in the order. My teammate before me grounded out, so I was batting with open bases. I singled. The guy that came up after me, my friend Dave, hit a pop fly into left-center field that looked to me to be the second out in the inning for sure, so I stayed on first. Somehow, though, the ball dropped onto the field, and the center fielder pursued. I broke into my best version of a sprint, and I was still confident that I could make it to third base, despite the short throw from left-center. As I rounded second base, I realized that, in fact, no one from the opposing team was on third at all. As it turned out, the short stop had run back in attempt to catch the pop-up, and the third baseman was in a sort of no man's land at least ten paces from the third-base bag. I knew the throw was coming though, as I could see the center fielder in the middle of a skip-step, raring back to throw. It was going to be a foot race. The throw was on line, so the only question was who would beat whom to the bag. For the next second or two, I ran as hard as I could and then, about two or three long strides from third, I realized that the third baseman would not be able to make it to the base in time to beat me. Nevertheless, he was close, and in his mind, complete with a go-all-out, never-day-die, win one for the Gipper mentality, he was going to get me one way or another.
He lunged headlong and arrived to crash into me at about my waist level. There was no chance of jumping over him or otherwise averting him, so I decided to run through him. Unfortunately, the collision was worse than I had anticipated, and I went down hard. He also went down hard, right onto the inside of my left leg. In a dusty flash, my attacker had dropped the ball, and I found myself in excruciating pain. I had somehow also bitten my lip during the entanglement, and I felt the first pain in my mouth, as the acrid taste of blood welled between my teeth and tongue. But I saw that the ball was on the ground, so I did my best to jump up and get to third base, which by then was only six or eight feet away.
It was at that point that I realized that there was something else wrong. My ankle really hurt, and though I called a time-out and attempted to walk it off, it wasn't getting better. I called for a pinch runner and hobbled back to the dugout. There, I sat down and rested, putting ice on both my ailing ankle and searing mouth until I felt well enough to stand and at least cheer my team on. Promptly after standing, though, I felt a cold sweat on my brow, and the teammates around me all became fuzzy to my vision. I sat back down and realized I must have sprained my ankle pretty badly, so I began dreading the impending walk back to the bus after the games. The pain did not go away, and by the end of the contest, I had to ask two of my friends on the team to help carry me back to our coach. Crappy day, right? Well, the next one was worse.
That evening, after finally making it home and slowly and painfully ascending the three flights of stairs to my new apartment, which is in an older, low-rise building without an elevator, I went to bed and followed the typical twenty minutes on, twenty minutes off ice pack routine until I fell asleep. Upon waking, my foot had doubled in size and turned the disgusting shade of purple that is usually reserved for gangrene patients waiting for amputation. Obviously, my next stop would have to be the dreaded Chinese hospital, so before that, I went to the school at which I teach to find out which one to choose. The administrators graciously accompanied me, and we went first to a local facility within a short hop (at this point I could not even touch the ground with my foot) of my school. There I received an x-ray exam, and quickly my worst fear was realized. I had fractured my left fibula in two places just above my ankle.
That first hospital refused to treat me. For one thing, I am a foreigner, and there are special hospitals designated for us. Secondly, the nature of the break was such that there was real risk for complication. The doctors waved me off and recommended the Shanghai Number 1 hospital. I thought we were headed there immediately, but to my surprise, the institution, with its allegedly high reputation for service quality, was closed for lunch from 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM! At that point I was just a little irritated, as you might imagine, but my first concern, believe it or not, was still that I might have to wear a hard cast around this city, which, to put it lightly, is not disabled-friendly. I had implored the first hospital to give me an air cast but could not find a literal Chinese translation for the term, so they didn't understand. I was sure that the next place would.
We arrived at a massive building, located in the heart of Shanghai, precisely at 1:30. The place was bustling with invalids being carted around outside. After my colleagues assisted me to stagger into the lobby, a nurse brought me a wheelchair, and my headmaster wheeled me through the double doors and into the main ward. I gasped.
Lining the walls of this seemingly formidable hospital were hundreds of sickly, even dying, people who were propped up on folding chairs or lying motionless on makeshift beds. Beside them were praying family members and, for a few patients, crooked, rusty inoculation stands with half-empty IV bags that attached to lifeless limbs. As I have learned, though the Communist Party in fact provides some level of health care to everyone in the country, the level at which that care is administered varies according to several factors. One thing is certain, though. Commoners, who make up around 95% of the Chinese at my most unqualified estimation, are guaranteed only that they will be admitted into the hospital. It is basically up to the luck of the draw and the number of people who happen to be sick at any given time as to whether they will get a room and/or be treated. Even getting a room is not that appealing. While it might be customary for Western hospitals to have one, two, or maybe three patients per room, the three open-doored rooms I observed as I traversed the internal medicine ward at Shanghai #1 had an average of at least ten to fifteen per unit. I was too appalled to make a precise count.
At this juncture, my foot started feeling better, and the pain moved quickly to my heart. Imagine the guilt I felt by being rushed in for treatment while the rest of the world of the Chinese sick sat patiently watching as I was wheeled by. I covered my face. When we arrived at the treatment room, we were turned away again. Evidently, there are two sections to the hospital - one for the Commoners and another for wealthy people and foreigners. So if it wasn't bad enough that I had to be strolled past the pallid faces of the ailing and envious leering of concerned relatives once, I had to do it again en route to my third hospital visit of the day.
After a bumpy and painful wheelchair ride across the parking lot of the hospital, we reached our destination, a squeaky-clean establishment with the expected institutional emanation of a Western hospital. While this smell used to be one of my most despised, in this case it was welcomed, since I had endured only minutes before the rancor of body odor, stale urine, and fear, which suspended from the ceiling of Shanghai Number One's first ward as if it were being emitted by so many hanged corpses.
At first I was happy that my doctor spoke English. But when I heard what he had to say, I would have preferred that he stuck to Chinese. After reviewing my x-rays from earlier, the doc made the diagnosis that my fracture was an "instable" one with a real risk of both infection and what he termed "splintering," meaning a piece of bone could very well completely sever from its home on my fibula. He recommended an immediate operation, and my lightheadedness from the day before quickly returned. This was completely beyond my wildest expectations for the day. I had gone to the first hospital expecting treatment for a sprain, and I had come to this doctor with hopes not only that he would understand the English term "air cast" but also that all of this bother over a simple softball injury would be over.
The doctor explained that I needed a metal plate in my leg in order to ensure optimal bone regeneration and healing. Of course, at that particular juncture, I could not mentally suppress the horrors I had just witnessed in the adjacent building, so I was having some serious issues with the idea of being cut open anywhere within a 5-Km radius of that internal medicine ward. The first thing I decided to do was to look into the eyes of my orthopedic surgeon and ask if, in the event that his son or daughter was injured in this way, he would send them to Shanghai #1 to be treated. The doctor fervidly insisted that he understood. He then nodded his head compassionately and assuredly and replied in a very definite and decided manner, "I suppose."
Shocked and even a little amused by his apparent misinterpretation of the word "suppose," I immediately called two of my dearest friends here, Katherine and Kate (incidentally, I met Kate from the softball team) and asked each for their advice. Both insisted I get a second opinion, which I had of course already thought of but had no idea about where to go. Katherine mentioned a clinic in the Portman Ritz-Carlton complex called WorldLink that had been established for the sole intent of treating foreigners. At that point in my day, these sweet words seemed like some aural mirage that had no chance at being true. After all, I had been advised earlier in the day that the "foreigner hospital" was Shanghai #1. Regardless, concepts like the Ritz and foreigner and leaving that dreadful hospital all encouraged me, and I insisted to my headmaster that we go at once.
Katherine met us there. For that gesture I will be eternally grateful because all that I would consider to be sound reason had by then been stripped from me by the shocks of the day's events. She welcomed me with a smile and some comfort food - an actual American-canned Coke, a Butterfinger, and some chips and salsa - and I forgot about the mirage. I had actually encountered an angel.
We met with the orthopedist at WorldLink, and he told us much of the same news I had previously heard from the other doctor. The difference was that this doctor gave me two well-described and explained options: surgery or a fiberglass cast. I had long since abandoned the idea of a soft, non-permanent encasement, so with the help of my kind, beautiful, and brilliant assistant/friend Katherine, I reluctantly agreed to a cast covering my foot and extending up my leg nearly to my knee.
This brings us to the present. It's Tuesday, the day after the fateful day I just described, and I am at work wondering how I can manage to make the most out of this unfortunate debacle into which I have managed to place myself. In two weeks I get another x-ray to determine if the operation will be necessary after all. Apparently, the possibility exists, though I could not get a direct answer regarding the actual probability. So we will just have to wait and see. For now, I leave you with a word of advice:
--- If you're playing around with someone new and, by a stroke of luck, you reach second base, think long and hard about trying for third - you may not only not make it home; you might also end up needing a metal plate to hold up one of your appendages. --- |
