Back to the Hospital...

Henri had an accident today. My friend Kat and her son had come over for a breakfast playdate. Henri was running around in circles, lost his balance and hit his face square on the corner of the wall. Since our walls are made of concrete I knew right away that this would do some damage. He cried really, really hard, so hard that he made himself vomit. His nose was starting to swell and there was some blood coming out so we decided to take him to the doctor to see if it looked broken who then directed us to the hospital.

The Taiwan system of going to the hospital can seem a bit bureaucratic. I pull a number so that I can register. I'm given another number and sent to an ENT doctor. The ENT examines Henri and gives us another number to go get an x-ray. We are then sent back to the ENT doctor to review the results who then writes a prescription with yet another number for the pharmacy. But first we go to the cashier in order to pay for the visit and meds where we also need to pull a number. (Grand Total $150 NT or about $5 USD) Then to the pharmacy to pick up the meds (our number had already been called!) and finally we are on our way. Thankfully Henri's nose was not broken. It was difficult to understand what exactly you would call it but basically he hit the snot out of his nose and broke up some tissue or vessels up there so is really just a really bad bruise. The ENT doctor informed me that Henri had a sinus infection so the drugs we received were for that and Henri's pain. This nose injury will be very difficult for Henri because he lives for Eskimo kisses.

I'm very grateful that Kat was there - she drove us to both the doctor and the hospital. She knows a bit of Cinese so she was able to help me navigate the hospital and she also was able to get us to the front of a line or two (of course babies get special treatment in Taiwan!). She also was able to stay with Henri a time or two while I waded through the aforementioned bureaucratic obstacle course that is the hospital... So Thanks, Kat!

Here's Hen once we got back home. The swelling is on his left side. I think the boo boo above his lip was from when he was fighting against the ENT doctor's examination (he used a couple tools - one to suck all the snot out of Henri's nose which I'm sure felt very strange and one to hold open his nostril - I had to physically restrain poor Hen because he was freaking out). After a large number of meltdowns this morning Hen has already returned to his sweet little self.