Our Trip

I mentioned a week or two ago that Avril had an infection causing her nasty diaper rash. Actually we have an infection (If you want to know specifically what was wrong, e-mail me and I will fill you in eastasiabrowns@pobox.com). I have had this very painful infection, which is associated with breastfeeding, for 2 1/2 months which makes nursing almost unbearable and manifests as a stubborn diaper rash on babies. Last week our insurance gave us permission to go see a Western doctor (insurance pays for the whole trip), so on Monday we flew to a city with an approved hospital. The approved hospitals are approved because they are good hospitals...and therefore also quite expensive. This hospital is staffed by foreign or foreign trained doctors and they speak wonderful English.

They gave me a bag full of different medicines that I will be taking for 3 weeks, and I also learned that I am not pregnant - we were not trying, they just made me take the test because of the medication. I do not know if I am alone in this, but I always think I could be pregnant. This is partly because breastfeeding has many of the same symptoms of being pregnant, but also because I am a bit of a paranoid person. So when the doctor asked, "could you be pregnant?" I knew I was probably not, yet I jumped at the chance to take another pregnancy test. Negative. AB also received another injection that I did not have to give her - yea!!! We were able to visit a dentist for a grueling teeth cleaning and KB got a crown replaced.

I have grown to love Western-style hospitals. In the US I complained that hospitals annoyed me because of all the sick people talking about what was wrong with them in the waiting rooms. Then I moved here, where a good hospital is a plane flight away. At first I wondered how bad the local hospital could be, but after seeing a kid use #2 in the trash can beside me in while I waited to see a doctor, I knew. I also knew after I read in the newspaper that a local hospital infected 64 people with Hepatitis C (they often "clean" needles, re-package them, and use them again). We do not go to local hospitals. Now, I get excited to go to a good hospital. I don't mind spending all day at a good hospital. They are so clean; the people are friendly, and most of them have a Starbucks in the lobby. Why would I want to leave?

Since our insurance paid for us to fly to a hospital city, we decided to take a couple of vacation days and enjoy our time there. The food is always a big hit for us, but in this particular city we were able to go to H&M. We have never been there before, but I had read that the clothes were good quality and inexpensive. We spent like 2 hours there. They even had real fitting rooms - so exciting!

This is how AB spent her time at H&M, chewing. She either chewed on KB's sunglasses, Cherrios or the price tags (we did not let her do this after we noticed it).

Here is KB modeling his new shirt and jeans. He was so excited to find jeans that fit. I took this photo because he said he wanted to see my perspective or whatever. I think he looks like a cutie, so I am posting it.

KB took this photo from the reflection in a mirror. That other head you see with the same hair as mine in the bottom left-hand corner is the backside or my head.

Later that night while packing AB played on the bed with our new clothes. She managed to find the tag for each piece of clothing and chewed on all of them. I don't know if you needed to be there to think it was hilarious, but we laughed and laughed at her tag finding and chewing skills.