November 19, 2007

Dear Friends,

Greetings from the China Pharmaceutical University in Nanjing, China. Having broken my foot in late September, been on bed rest for a month and then no-cast-but-no-walking-except-on-crutches for three weeks, I was finally released from this captivity on Monday by the Chinese doctor who has followed me through the healing process. I am now limping along on my own two feet—and utterly thrilled to be doing so!

I did not intend to learn more about the Chinese medical system through firsthand experience, but thus it has gone. From water leaking on the floor in the casting room to multiple patients crowding into the examination room (utterly no privacy) to having an X-ray taken without any kind of lead apron protection, I have experienced non-invasive Chinese medicine.

I say non-invasive because I have had no blood work done. I’ve required no surgery. Instead I have had four X-rays and two casts, lots of pain, and a very good dose of the kindness and sincerity of Chinese hospitality.

On Monday I told the doctor that I had refused to walk until I had the okay from him to do so. This had to do with the fact that I did not want to do anything that might result in my being sent back to bed for four more weeks of bed rest. The doctor told me that I am a good patient. He said most of his patients throw the prescriptions that he has just written into the garbage can on the way out of the appointment! I was shocked and asked him why they would do that when the prescriptions are for their own good. It has to do with Chinese skepticism and mistrust of doctors. He also said that it could have to do with educational levels.

I have learned that people whose work connects them with a university or college have their medical care paid for. This makes working for an educational institute appealing, and the competition for the positions in a college is fierce. On the opposite end of the scale, I was told that people in rural parts of China could spend their life savings on medical treatment. I can see some parallels to the U.S. medical system.

I have contemplated some of the different aspects of culture that I have learned about in several countries in terms of support systems and infrastructures that are based on relationships. Since China has opened itself cautiously to foreigners—and therefore to modernity—the culture is changing. In the past, families and friends who have had a sick relative or friend would make sure that the ill person was not left alone. There would always be someone present to comfort and reassure and minister to that person. Visitors would never arrive empty-handed, but always with gifts of food. China is now becoming more Western in terms of relational structures. No longer does everyone know everyone who lives next door—people go out to their jobs, come home, go inside, and shut the door. Someone could be sick and it is possible that no one around him or her would know it.

In Palestine, the relational infrastructure is being dismantled by the Israeli occupation. This Arab culture is often no longer able to function as it has traditionally because many families are cut off from each other by the occupation wall. The occupation wall and the Israeli checkpoints that disrupt movement from one Palestinian town to the next also make it very difficult to reach hospitals for professional medical care. In China, my hospital is two blocks away, and I can easily reach it by taxi.

In the United Kingdom I found that while relationships may not play a key role in the infrastructure surrounding illness, the socialist medical system does. Through the tax system the government provides for all citizens to receive medical care, and I saw firsthand that when a person did not have transportation to their appointments the medical system provided for their needs.

This has been an interesting, provocative, and eye-opening experience. It has been frustrating in some ways because had I been receiving care in the United States I probably would have had a walking cast for most of my recovery. Getting around both in my apartment and going from place to place would have been much easier. On the other hand, I have had the experience of receiving five weeks of paid sick leave after working for only three weeks as a teacher in my college here. I continue to marvel at this.

I have had the support of the Amity Foundation whose offices are here in Nanjing. Other Amity teachers have visited me and run errands, such as grocery shopping, for me. My students were organized to visit me each weekend so that I would not be alone, and for the October 1 week-long holiday they came each day of the week to accompany me in this journey of healing. Colleagues—both other teachers and Foreign Affairs Office staff—have seen to it that I have gone to my doctor appointments, have run errands (getting money from the bank, putting money on my cell phone) and come when things have broken in my apartment that I could not fix because I couldn’t move well enough on the crutches.

I thank God for a time to slow down and a time to accept help. And the next time I encounter water on a laundry room floor I will remember to walk on it and not slip on it!

In Christ,

Debbie

The 2008 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 99