After one hour on the road we arrived at Tangdu Hospital, at 3.45H we entered the main building.
I was looking for the reception, but what seems to be the reception, was deserted. So, I wandered further until I found a sort of lab, which had a reception desk with bars in front. A lady doctor was busy with a microscope and totally ignoring me. I decided to call her and ask her where I had to be to be treated and I showed her the papers the doctor of Xijing wrote, but she insisted to get that information from the deserted reception desk we passed earlier. While waiting and shivering from fever we could see through the tiny opening of the door behind the desk. A bunch of doctors and nurses, like an entire football team, were busy with someone totally wrapped up like a mummy. After 15 minutes someone appeared, but had to phone first.
Finally ready to serve, the nurse gave me a form to be registered. Than we had to go to a payment counter in the back of the hospital to get a piece of paper to take to another counter, down another hallway.
There, we had to ring a bell to call for someone to register you for a room. We had to ring five times before a sleepy headed women came out the room from behind the room register corner. It took her 15 minutes to type everything in the computer. I was getting cold, although it was more than 25°C at night then, but the fever was still screaming for treatment.
After, again "finally", receiving another receipt, we had to return to the payment counter to pay at least 2500元for a start. If your stay requires more payment, you add it as soon as possible when the time comes, or they wait before adding medication and treatment until you have. And if your treatment price doesn't exceed the initial 2500, you get back the difference.
Now after getting more receipts with a authentic, red, imperial, Chinese stamp, we were redirected again to the reception where we got a minimalized description of where to find my room. Tangdu Hospital is like an entire city, with lots of buildings for different medical expertise. So, we had to wander around until we found a building where the entrance was lit. When we arrived at the door, it was locked with several chains.
Luckily, we quickly found a door bell and rang a couple of times. 10 minutes later, but for me it seemed like 30, a little man came while dragging his plastic green slippers and ready to pick one key of his huge set of keys, hanging on this gigantic iron ring, like twice the size of a bracelet. The man let us in and guided us to the elevator to go to the third (Chinese) floor. The place at the third floor was completely dark, except for the mid-section hallway, which was closed too with chained flap doors. Our little guide had to call a nurse to open the door and to lead me to my room. And after waiting a while in my room, finally a doctor came to examine my case. His first diagnose was that my testicles grew so large because I was wearing loose shorts instead of tight underpants. Suddenly, my despair gained over my fever.
During my week of treatment, the nurses said that they were putting my medication on hold, because the costs of the upfront payment had been reached. Luckily, Deborah was there with me all the time to get food, because this was not included in the costs and makes part of the self-service policy, and so she was able to queue once more in the hospital's bureaucratic maze to pay more, in order to get my medication treatment continued.
After I was released from the hospital, I could only enjoy a couple of days of being back home, because a new fever attack and a lot of red spots on my body.
As if my first bureaucratic adventure wasn't enough, I was bound to replay my sickbay trip. This time for measles, which I caught from those children at the local doctors practice when we had mumps.
And so I returned to my second home: Tangdu Hospital. I might as well ask them for a gold membership card. I rarely get sick, but when I do, I do it in style! this time it was more exhausting due to the fact that it was more itching and irritating due to the red spots, accompanied with heavy pneumonia, and still exhausted by the first strike of illness. Again, it was a great help to have had Deborah by my side for food and payment, especially while laying half dead on a pneumonia machine.
What if a solitary person needed help? If his/her medication exceeded the costs. But I guess, Chinese culture is all about family connections. If you have no family or friends, you would never make it to the hospital in the first place and probably die alone in Xi'An. Unless you're a fat wealthy Chinese and a real vulture magnet.