RSI, Four Doctors, Sticky Plaster, Electric Shock Therapy, Microwave Cooking Bob

November 24^th I had an appointment with Huan this morning, her timetable gave her some free time. No walks though because I also had to go and visit the doctor about my wrist. We went through the usual palaver, grilled at the main entrance then told to go to the cash desk to make an appointment. There they told us we had to see a one particular doctor. When it was our turn to go in I noticed the sign outside his door said “Neurology” so I told Huan it was the wrong place. In we went, the doctor did his bit and then told us we were in the wrong place. Back to the cash desk we went to make another appointment, no paying this time though, in fact we even got ¥2.00 returned to us. Outside the next doctor’s office the sign said “Neurosurgery” and “Urology”. However, Huan had already been told that this doctor knew everything. He certainly understood what my problem was and even talked about other musicians, violinists, cellists, bassists etc. having the same problem. He prescribed two sets of medicine, one western and one Chinese then sent us up the road to see another doctor in the old part of the hospital. He was a Chinese Medicine doctor, he also understood the problem and proceeded to shave my forearm, badly, then tie me up with some kind of stretchy plaster. It’s infused with something, smells a bit like menthol, and I have to keep it on for two days then decide whether to return to him or not. As always, Huan took some pics of the occasion. The second one was taken when I realised what I was doing in the first one!

We managed to fit the weekly shopping in before lunch, not so easy carrying the bags, but it’s not far from the car to the lift. That was the end of our busy day apart from a short five kilometre walk after dinner.

November 25^th Last night I felt a loose bone in my neck and by some process similar to osmosis I was able to remove it through my skin. Perhaps it was one of my cervical vertebrae. It was a dream of course, brought on by the two doctors yesterday feeling around in that area and asking whether I felt any pain. I didn’t and didn’t think too much of it at the time but perhaps it worried me more than I thought. I didn’t sleep so well after that. Consequently I had another lazy morning, not an Onslow one though.

Not having walked in the morning I took an afternoon one when there are less people. I was looking for creatures again. The first creature was human, this lady was collecting something, Huan suspects it could have been rubbish or plastic bottles.

Forgetting to put my camera back to colour, the next creature was a dragonfly. Colour wasn’t a big problem though because it looked like it was black.

This next photo is the view from where they should have put the riverside park benches; it’s a darn site better than watching the traffic going in and out of town.

You may remember the two little ‘piers’ jutting out into the river just up from here, when I showed them to you I wondered if they were going to join them with a small glass bridge. Today I found out that they’re not, maybe they are fishing spots?

Another creature was spotted just by the local school with a bunch of young students playing with it, the boy generally trying to terrify the girls. When I asked them what it was, the translated answer was “an insect” which seems a little generic. Google wasn’t much use either giving me “Green Caterpillar”. It may be for a moth and not a butterfly.

And finally for today, a dead creature. I stopped to talk to the mutt you can see, and the gent with him insisted on showing me his catch, quite a whopper! How did he catch it? Well the second photo shows a reel on his wrist and the third a catapult. He uses a small steel arrow on the end of the line and then aims for this fish with the catapult, the line releasing as it flies. This is not the first time I’ve seen people fishing like this but it is the first time I’ve seen such a good catch. He’ll be feeding the whole family tonight!

November 26^th Overcast this morning but no problem for us as it was another hospital day. The sticky plaster on my arm had to come off this morning, the two days were up. I had also noticed no improvement whatsoever. Arriving at the Chinese Medicine part of the hospital the doctor we had seen last time was not there so the lady who was there said I could see her instead. Being the trusting fellow that I am I agreed. After a couple of questions she told us she knew exactly what was wrong and attacked my inner elbow asking me “Does that hurt?” I doubt she needed the answer she could see by my reaction that I was definitely feeling pain. She decided I needed five days of two different kinds of treatment, so Huan went off to pay and the doctor practiced her English on me. She wasn’t bad, all she needs is what they don’t get, and that is more practice!

Once Huan came back I was escorted to my first treatment. This turned out to be some kind of electro convulsive therapy; I had to sit for twenty minutes with various pulsing sensations around my elbow, quite relaxing really.

From there I moved to the next little room where I had to cook myself with a hand held microwave for fifteen minutes, I could certainly feel my arm heating up. Of course I didn’t know that until I got home and researched the machines they were using.

As we were leaving the hospital Huan asked me if my arm was any better now! She is a patient woman at times and at other times has not patience whatsoever. We had paid for five days of treatment so I didn’t expect to see any improvement for at least a day, never mind immediately. At home I didn’t try stretching my arm at all, that can wait until tomorrow, but I did feel a tingling in my forearm for the rest of the day so something must be happening.

November 27^th Huan was off to choir practice this morning so my hospital trip was a solo one. The doctor signed my treatment slip and I had more of the same as yesterday, the only difference being I didn’t have to hold the microwave transmitter today. When I was ‘done’ the nurse told me I had to go back and see the doctor before I left. Being a dutiful patient I did as I was told. The doctor asked me a couple of questions again and then promptly proceeded to pulverising my arm. She started with my elbow again, “Does this hurt?” while she was squeezing both sides with a lot more pressure on the inner elbow. She then beat it a few times before giving me a ‘rolling massage’ from the mid forearm down to my elbow. While this was going on the chap across from me had acupuncture needles in his face and I was praying that I wouldn’t be next. Once the beating was over, the doctor unlocked a cupboard and took out what looked like a battery operated drill with some kind of silicon rubber attachment. “At least it’s not needles” I thought as I waited with some trepidation. It turned out to be a massage machine and it wasn’t bad at all, much more bearable than the previous beating. Once that was done I had some more sticking plaster applied, a different colour this time and less of it.

I arrived back at the apartments to find the ‘band’ having a practice session so I stopped to take a short video. It was horrendous! As I was walking home I did hear a couple of other tunes that sounded much better, almost presentable in fact. Here’s the gang in all their glory.

They did ask me to join them with my guitar but I told them that, as per doctor’s orders, I had to refrain from playing the guitar for possibly the next two months.

After I had made the C-in-C’s lunch it was time for my daily walk, quite a few twists and turns today but I did hit the river at one point. Remember the black and white photo last week? Well today they were all in costume; perhaps they are rehearsing for the New Year as well.

I couldn’t find any creatures to photograph so here’s another panorama to finish the day with, this time composed of eighteen different photos.

November 28^th Third day at the hospital, seeing Dr. Li before the treatment today. She was a little kinder to me than yesterday, all I had to endure was the hairdryer style massage machine. Just like yesterday I was alone, Huan had keyboard lessons today, but Dr. Li and I managed to communicate well enough. The treatment was more electro-convulsive therapy and cooking my elbow by microwave. After the treatment I was ‘allowed’ to leave.

Yesterday I had seen some tents up in the town square so I headed there first to check it out. The tents were still there, but also still unoccupied.

There was something happening on the stage though. I didn’t stay long because the whole time I was there I was being interrogated and photographed by a bunch of precocious girls in make-up, obviously part of the show. There are no photos of them but I did get two of the acts and a little prize-giving.

As usual, I managed to find a little four legged friend.

Being Saturday, my next destination was the riverside market, where I looked for things I haven’t shown you before. I didn’t find much but I thought you might be interested to see that Chinese children definitely know where their food comes from.

Not far from these poor souls was this stew bubbling away like mad. I have no idea what was inside, it looks a bit too oily and spicy for me though.

Our friends from Xinjiang had their stall set up selling their flat breads so that was lunch sorted out. I did pop in on the ladies at their keyboards but, duh, forgot to take any pictures.

After lunch it was cooking time again, stew with a difference. Onions and garlic went in first, followed by carrots and radish, Chinese yam (Dioscorea polystachya) next, then parsley followed by green beans and almost last, celery. Once the vegetables had cooked enough it was time to add this week’s ‘difference’, two tins of fish in tomato sauce. Why tinned fish? I hear you ask. Well, it’s got no bones! Once the fish was in and all heated through I took a spoonful of the juice for the Executive Chef to taste and appraise. “辣的 (Là de)” was the response. That means spicy, hopefully not too spicy. I denied all responsibility as I had presented the tinned fish for approval while we were shopping! As it happened, it was ‘Goldilocks’ spice, just right.

November 29^th Fourth day of treatment starting with Dr. Li and the small massager again. I do believe I’m starting to feel an improvement but whether the five days treatment will be enough remains to be seen. For a change I was cooked today before I was electro-convulsed, the latter of which was the strongest yet. I could still feel phantom twitching in my arm some minutes after I had left the hospital.

Today I decided to visit the sausage man. Last year he operated out of a very small room and only made pork sausages and chicken sausages. This year he has found himself bigger premises and expanded his produce range. I had hoped to join these photos together to make a nice long panorama but I didn’t have much room to move around so you’re stuck with four pictures. The sausages are in the first one, I’ll leave it to you to decide what is in all the others. Suffice it to say, almost everything you can see is either eaten now, or was before, in the UK.

Carrying my four sausages and twenty baps home put a little bit more strain on my left arm than I had planned for but I forced myself to do it, for the sake of our lunches!

After lunch I took another walk, just around the town, and I cut it short due to feeling a bit chilly, I was one of less than half a dozen people who only had shorts on. Still, arriving back at the apartments early gave me a chance to go and take photos of the ‘musicians’ union’. Here’s one of them all trying to stay in synch with each other and one of Huan enjoying herself.

Neither one of us wanted to go out in the evening, Huan practiced and I watched my latest binge series, “The Sandbaggers”.

November 30^th Day five of my treatment, the last day of this portion. I still don’t really know if the treatment is working or not. Sometimes I think t is and then I stretch my arm and recoil with the horror of the pain. Dr. Li will be ‘off shift’ for the next few days so tomorrow I start the next five day session with Dr. Gao. I wonder how much pain she will inflict one me! At least the scenery outside the hospital window is pleasant enough, I can think of far worse places to spend thirty five minutes hooked up to machines.

Before leaving the hospital I paid for the next five days of torture, only £20.00, a bargain really. I then met the ladies from choir school and walked them home, oh what a good boy I am! Huan was out again after lunch at Hulusi school. A couple of the other ladies shot some videos but the screen shots I was able to take were nowhere near good enough to share on here.

Unusually, in the evening, I managed to get Huan to go out for dinner. Our first choice was a new burger place that opened where one of our friends used to have a similar place. That was closed. Our second choice was a spicy soup restaurant, choose your own ingredients and pay by weight. We must have been too early as the vegetable choice was not so good. We gave up then and went to our normal buffet restaurant. Here’s a picture of me on the way there, you might notice that I am wearing shoes, long trousers and a hoodie. Why? Because it’s getting chilly here!

And so we come to the end of another week of pain in my arm and pain in my ears. I can still hear Hulusi scales as I write this. I can’t even attack back with some guitar practice! Maybe I should try just singing instead, what do you think? See you next time!