...bleeding...
Well, for the past four days, i've been in hospital for Gastro Intestinal Bleeding ... Of obscure origin... In all my adult life I've never been admitted into hospital. Not only was this my first time in hospital, I was also in a country that I do not see as my home...
It was a pretty traumatic experience, especially Considering that it was my fist time i've ever had such a serious problem. At first, the language was tough because they were using terminology and phrases which i've never heard of and not being a native chinese speaker at times, my translation program (my brain :P) couldn't keep up.
Anyways, they poked me a few times with pins and needles which uncovered the fact that my haemoglobin levels were dangerously low, after which they proceeded to transfuse blood to me (and for the first time I found out what my blood type was 
). Basically, for an average man, it should be around 13.5 to 17.5 g/dl, but mine was around 6... which according to this site means I was anaemic.
So anyways, eventually, they told me that i was bleeding somewhere inside my digestive system and said that i would need to go for an Oesophagogastroduodenoscopy examination (yeah, read that three times without pausing...). According to the leaflet i was given, this procedure ‘introduces’ (read forcibly shove down your throat..) a tube into your throat, which stretches down to your stomach. After much rummaging around, whilst I was fully conscious, with a gag to prevent my mouth closing and continuously gagging, vomiting and choking, I could hear the doctor telling me, "Sir, if you could please stop gagging, it's really hard to see what's wrong with you constantly gagging.”
Without being able to reply, my mind screamed, “BASTARDbastardBastard!! If you stopped wiggling that fucking tube in my throat, then i WOULD stop gagging!!”
After more rummaging around, the doctor then said, sounding quite perplexed, “I don’t see anything wrong... everything seems ok...”
And so ended my first examination. They removed the tube, whereby i gagged and vomited some more, then they wheeled me out, without so much as an explanation, nor a courtesy towel to wipe my face which had been drenched in my own bile. So yeah... that was not nice.
Back in the ward, the nurse came to me and told me that the doctor recommended going for a second examination to have a look at the intestines as they couldn’t find anything in the stomach area that could have caused me to lose so much blood. Then there was a short pause as the nurse told me what the next exam would consist of.
Moments like this, my brain freezes in translation. I think I know what she said, but I wasn’t sure.
“I beg your pardon?” says I.
“Yes, I said up your rectum,” the nurse calmly states.
Bugger.
I pleaded with my cousin to not let me go through with it, but as she argued (and rightly so of course) it’s better to be anally probed than to continue to bleed and die. So begrudgingly, I had to agree.
At this point I was feeling an all time low. Things were going so badly, it was my first time in hospital, I had no friends here, nobody to come visit me, my own father wasn’t even here for me (off gallivanting in China installing satellite TV for some peon). I felt so completely alone, until my girlfriend turned up. The bright shining light in the dark cavern of gastro intestinal bleeding hell. She didn’t really like being there though, as she is a clean freak and well, my neighbour didn’t look too clean and with him constantly flaunting his gross speckled and flaky skin about, it wasn’t very pleasant. I am just super grateful that she was there for me though.
So anyways, cutting to the next point of my trauma and skipping a lot of self-pitying crying in-between, the day of the second exam loomed. The Colonscopy (so much easier to pronounce than that first one....). I was literally shitting myself (they gave me laxative to clean my system out) before the examination. I was a complete nervous wreck and was almost ready to say “fuck all this shit” and run out the hospital. The wait was the worst thing, they had prepped me and i was ready for the probe, but ended up waiting in line for about 2 hours in the endoscopy waiting room. The exam itself wasn’t as bad as i had imagined. I didn’t shit all over the doctor, which was a good thing, as he did have a big tube and i did have my pants down... so that was ok. The experience was traumatic, but less so than before and I even got to see the inside of my own intestine as they probed my arse.... -_-;; whoopdeedoo.
Then the doc says, “I can’t find anything wrong” and my heart just shatters. “So i’m lying here with a tube up my butt, having come from an examination where i almost drowned in my own bile, just for you fuckers to tell me you STILL can’t find out what’s wrong with me??”
A tear then proceeded to trail down my cheek and somewhere, violin music was playing.
The painkiller they had given me for the examination went into overdrive at that moment and i felt completely dehydrated and drained of all energy. I fervently asked nurses for a sip of water, but they refused, telling me that i wasn’t allowed and so i had to continue to suffer through it all, as well as having fasted for 9 hours that day too.
I was on the verge of a breakdown in my spirit, i was completely drained of my will to live, all the pain, all the poking and all the bleeding had completely smashed my spirit to mush. It was at this point, whilst i was being carted back to the ward, that i saw my little angel. She floated slowly into vision, walking by my side nonchalantly, and in spite of all my pain, I smiled inside. I tried to smile outwardly too, but i don’t know if i managed it. When she saw the pain i was in and my outstretched out, she held it, and in that moment, all my suffering seemed worth it. I was alive and I had found myself an angel (albeit an angry one sometimes, as she had been throwing tantrums all morning on the phone, as she was a bit cranky that morning).
I found it difficult to talk, what with the dehydration and all, but after they allowed me to drink, I jumped right out of it. The doctor came and told me that they couldn’t find the cause of my internal bleeding and would like me to come back for an examination which involved taking a capsule which has a miniature camera inside that will scan my bowels (information here). It all sounds very sci-fi to me (Inner Space anyone? That was an awesome movie....)
So yeah, after four days of being stuck in hospital and constant poking and probing, I left with a complete sense of “what the fuck just happened” and no more answers to what was wrong with me than I had before. The aftermath was that my girl got all upset when we were leaving because I left with my dad and my cousin and she went off on her own, her journey taking about 2 hours to get home, while we were cosy in our car... 
my poor, poor baby....
Needless to say, she seemed really upset and I feel so bad, because she was the one that kept me sane throughout the whole ordeal. If she ever reads this, I just want her to know, I love you and I would be lost without you.
