Dearest Diary

How are you? It's been a while but I thought I'd drop by and fill a few more of your pages with insight into the ways of the world from the eyes of your chubby little Limey pal.

Never get sick in a foreign country - trust me.
I assumed I was just tired from long working nights and little bitty sleeping days. My candle had indeed burned down from both ends, all the cheese was gone from my cracker, my game had stopped at 4th and 99, there were no more beans in my grinder. I had a pain in my head. Not a little twinge, not an occasional stab, but a full frontal attack that felt like an ice-pick lodged behind my left eye. Not just an ice pick - but one that had been carefully sharpened and heated until it was glowing.
I could neither keep my eyes open, or shut, I couldn't move them, I couldn't lie down, or sleep for the searing spike that felt like it was carving a message into the inside of my skull, and a rude one at that. My entire left eye socket was sore to the touch and the eyeball felt like it was ready to pop from my head like the cork from a shaken bottle of champagne, but without the cheering and the only clinking of glasses would be a result of it ricocheting around the room and knocking something over.

I have to wonder if the word pain translates into Chinese - because everyone I asked for a painkiller gave me the internationally know bemused look with a slightly raised eyebrow and a muttering sound commonly pronounced 'Uuurgh?'. I'm not too proud to say that I begged and whimpered like a puppy wanting attention to try and explain my agony - after all I had been awake for nearly 30 hours straight thanks to the constant throbbing. (And I had worked my shift - what a hero! - There is something wrong when people in a factory in China, who make worker ants look like snails, tell you that you work very hard)

The hotel staff - apparently not trained to deal with red-eyed crying Limeys - called the house doctor whose knowledge of English was only rivaled by my knowledge of nuclear fusion. She gave me eye drops, which in the history of medical aid ranked up there with selling band-aids to the French aristocracy after they had been through the guillotine. She called the Duty Manager, who did know a reasonable amount of English, but hadn't reached the 'P's yet as he also gave me an 'Uuurgh?' when I begged him to take the pain away. Somebody called my boss (It could have been me - there are blurry parts in the day - figuratively and literally) - who was helping to hold down the fort at the factory - and the next thing I know I am being bundled into a taxi with the three of them in the back, heading to the Peoples Hospital of Zhongshan.

So we arrive at the Eye Treatment centre and I am shunted hither and thither until a small, old, and incredibly sadistic nurse takes over dealing with me. Initial attempts at diagnosis basically involve her jabbing her thumb into my left temple and watching me jump up and down in tears and cries of 'Owwww!' Entertained by this reflex action she shuffles my weary form into a seat in front of a height chart and sees how high I can jump with each jab of the thumb. Other doctors are asked for their opinion of my condition and in a weird moment of clarity my addled brain was able to translate their conversations perfectly as "Watch how high he jumps when you press right here. See - Now you try and beat my score."

Via translations through nurse to hotel doctor to Duty Manager to boss to me (Hey look - real Chinese whispers), they decide I either have either:-
(a) something in my eye,
(b) a nerve problem,
(c) something going horribly wrong in my brain.

Before I travel any further with this tale I must point out a couple of quirks of this chubby little Limey which you must bear in mind:-
1 - I am deaf in my right ear - I was born that way, it cannot be fixed, it is hereditary and comes from my fathers side of the family - (There are associated tales of mirth and merriment from my misunderstanding of things said which I will share another day)
2 - I cannot focus on anything with my left eye - I kid you not, medical care being a tad hit and miss in Britain it was never spotted while growing up, and is too late to deal with now. Short of strapping a telescope to my left eye it merely helps me to see that things are out there. (Basically it could tell me that I would be run over by a car, but I'd be buggered to read the license plate)

Anyway…………

They have a most ingenious eye chart made up of capital E's facing left, right, up or down that you have to read and gesticulate with your fingers pointing which way up they are and which direction they are facing. So the nurse decides to check the vision in my useless left eye while the Duty Manager stands close by my right side and whispers instructions into my useless right ear.

Now I can just about see the wall and tell that there is a 5 foot high chart hanging on it, which I tell the Duty Manager while explaining to him that I cannot hear a word he is saying. Within seconds of translating this back I am surrounded by a sea of horrified faces.

The face of the nurse contorts with sheer terror as she is convinced I am suffering with option (c) and going into some kind of neural hemorrhage with all higher brain functions rapidly shutting down. The face of the Chubby Little Limey contorts with sheer terror as I realize I know what she thinks is going on and that she is getting ready to prep me and cut open my skull to try and save me from a full system failure. Self preservation instincts kick in and fuel my attempts to overcome language barriers and explain my quirks. Thank goodness that the Duty Manager had read past ‘D’ in his learning English studies.

So over the course of the next hour I am prodded, poked, and checked over in every room of the treatment centre before being discharged with enough drugs to make me a South American baron. (6 White round ones every morning with 2 orange ones, a blue one, 2 red ones, and a white one to eat with a meal - which I would leave till last as I was nearly full by the time I had got through the others) Basically I lived to tell the tale and came home.

Interestingly enough another attack a week later in Canada had me lying in ER waiting to see someone again. Although unlike my first visit this one took over 8 hours before I was seen by anybody – and when he did turn up he was Chinese!! (We must have been waiting for his plane to come in) - Following another round of ER frolics we find me having an MRI scan to see what is going on. I cannot say much of the MRI apart from the fact that I now know how a willy feels about a condom.

So I finally pluck up the courage and call my doctors for the results. The news was quite a shock. I have a brain. It is in good condition with low mileage, shaped like a donut but bigger and with no holes in it. My orbitals are fine too, which is good considering I do not know where my orbitals are or how to maintain them. I know that I am in possession of a couple of sphericals, but I am pretty certain that the scan did not go that low, so it must mean something else.

I officially have Trigeminal Neuralgia - (Doctors speak for loose wiring) it is apparently rare (which gives it a windswept and interesting quality) - although like most 'rare' things I now know of at least 2 other people who suffer with it. And when it flares up it is bloody painful - but it will not kill me. - that is unless I am hanging by my fingers on the edge of a cliff over a shark infested sea and I have to grab at my head to stop the shooting pain - that could probably kill me…….