Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Always Darkest Before Dawn


Rough night last night. I looked after Wren so Shana could get a few hours of sleep. I counted down the hours until we had to go to the medical appointment. (seems like I am doing a lot of counting down lately)
 
We ate at the buffet and the view was spectacular. The restaurant is on the 30th floor and is a circle. (like Spindletop in Houston) It is called the Carousel and you can walk around and get a 360 degree view of the city. I'll get some pictures later, I have to be cool for the first couple of days. Not too touristy. I wouldn't want to stand out or anything. 9^)

The van picked us up and we met another family from Wisconsin who had also recently adopted. (they used the same agency as us) We began the Bataan Death march. (audience yells- ...and it was hot) We entered the medical center.

Now, if you are a Beatles fan (or not), then you may or may not know about the White album. Play Revolution #9 as loud as you can, and layer in some extra tracks of children screaming. and I mean screaming. then mix it in with one of those hot yoga classes. Then step in the shower fully clothed and get really wet. Now, hold your scared child and get pulled into a room with a doctor who does not speak English, and puts a stethoscope up to your child's heart, gets a mortified look on her face and immediately calls in a second doctor who then repeats the same gesture-all the while you can tell something is up, but they won't tell you (or can't because of the language issue)- head shaking as if, damn! that's a problem. Only to finally read her chart to find out that she has not had her surgery yet. then act like it is ok, no big deal, don't panic. Ah, yeah. You just panicked and you are a doctor.- We know what she has is bad, that is why WE ARE HERE TO HELP HER. I felt my index finger at the ready. someone was getting a poke. The doctor gave up on checking her ears and she would not give him his tongue depressor back. (she's a tough little one)

On to the EN&T. Seemed to go all right. Now we wait for the last part. The vaccinations. We thought we might get a stay of execution because of her condition, we have a doctors note from back home saying that the stress would not be good for her. They decide that since she is not dead that she can still get the shots. Only 4 though, and a TB test. Now we wait for about 30 minutes. There is one small cool air blowing thing, I will not call it an air conditioner, because this contraption aspires to be one, it however was not. Anyways, I centered us in front of it. One by one I saw the line get shorter, calm kids go in, hysterical ones come out.

XIA RUN LE! XIA RUN LE! At first, I didn't recognize her name (the one the orphanage gave her- the Xia is for her province), I held her so mommy could be spared the worst of it. She was not happy, that I was holding her, but there was no way out. I watched in horror as they jabbed and squeezed and jabbed with nary a word of comfort. Just a cold, assembly line mentality. It was worse for me than for her. I was thinking-come on! she's 2.5! I was outraged and there was not a damn thing I could do about it. She was screaming and hollering in such pain. Helpless. I felt like the lowest of the lows. First I take her from her family, all that she knows and loves, put her with strangers, take her back to see her old family seemingly almost as a taunt, move her to a new city, overstimulate her with people/chaos/planes, exhaust her, and then give her shots. Talk about breaking somebody. She was weeping in Shana's arms and I leaned over and said (this is what it sounds like) "Doy Boo Chee" which means "I'm sorry" and she looked up at me and then buried her head in Shana's shoulder and cried harder. I was sleep deprived and exhausted, and hopefully that would be the end of it.

We went back to the hotel that afternoon and I fell asleep for 3 hours. When I got up, I played a Chinese CD of Children's lullaby's I got in Nanning. She was looking sad with her head down, and as soon as she heard it she instantly perked up. She sang and danced and acted silly, much like the happy child we had only seen glimpses of. I had also bought some DVD's of a popular cartoon here called "Pleasant Goat", and we all watched them together. With momentum on my side, I decided to take the girls to the pool. We thought it might be an "iffy" situation, but much like bubbles and ice cream, pools seem to have a positive effect on children...and yet again it worked. Things were on an uptick. When she came back from the pool we went to dinner and she let me feed her. Once we got back to the hotel, she took her shoes off, as if to say, ok, I'll stay.

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