Okay, so you’ve probably heard of pneumonia before. It’s nothing special if you get it when you’re young, but it can cause complications for AIDS patients and the elderly, since they have weakened immune systems.  In fact, it is sometimes known as an “old man’s friend” for that reason.  Basically, it is an infection (and then inflammation) of your lungs. Some symptoms include dizziness, high fever, chills, night sweats, coughing, fatigue, and green/yellow mucous.  It is quite the unpleasant disease.

And of course, I had it.

The best part? I had it while I was a college student doing research at a hospital…in southern China. It was not the best hospital in the region, but they did have a state of the art neuroscience wing, along with some fantastic doctors.  One day, I will talk more about this hospital and my experiences there, but for now, know that I worked there one summer, doing research, and suddenly contracted pneumonia.  So, more than likely, I probably contracted this while conducting research in the facility.  Oops.

When I first realized something was wrong, I was sitting in an air-conditioned office, talking to some nurses. Mind you, it was about 97 degrees Fahrenheit on the outside world, the humidity was, luckily, staved off by the closed windows in this part of the hospital, and I was relaxing after following some doctors to other non-air-conditioned parts of the hospital.

So, it was strange for me to be shivering.

More than once, I got up out of my chair in the office to walk out to the non-AC’ed hallway just to see if it was just me, or if there was something wrong with the temperature in the hospital.  And of course, I realized – it was just me.  Something was wrong.  I ran back into the office to find the nurses and asked them, in Cantonese, “So, I’m feeling really cold, but I know it’s at least 75 degrees in this room right now…what’s going on…?”

We checked. 103 degree fever.  They told me to take the rest of the day off and rest.

When I got home, I said my “hellos” to  the “uncle” and “aunt” that I was staying with (we have extremely large “extended families” a.k.a. family friends in China) and passed out on my bed.  Then came the night sweats.  Those were THE worst.  The tossing, turning, coughing-up yellow sputum. The incessant sweat pouring out every pore in my body.  I could not sleep in my bed because my room had air-conditioning and I was feverishly cold, so I would attempt to sleep on the couch in the living room with the windows open and the humid breeze of warm air drafting through the window.  No avail.  Blankets on? Off? Fan on? Off? Sit up? Lie down? Oh, I would never wish that level of intolerable nuisances on anyone.

When I got back to do research in the hospital the next day, it was pretty obvious that I was sick. So, we ran the tests – blood samples, x-rays, listening for the distinctive crackling noise on the stethoscope – bingo. Every time I breathed in, the doctor heard a distinct crackling noise in my lung.  The only thing left was to make sure it was not tuberculosis.  Thank goodness it wasn’t.  When I told my parents (who were happily hanging out in San Francisco), they nearly had instantaneous heart attacks.  TB is not something you play around with.

Now, in the states, if someone has pneumonia, we give them a prescription and send them home on their merry way with a prescription.  Oh, not so in China.  I was on an IV for seven – yes, seven – days.  Additionally, I was also on prescription medicine.  I had to stay IN the hospital to get treated, then go home and take the medication (and drank some sort of tea that my “aunt” brought over).

The disease is not what I remember most from my experience, but it was more the recovery period.  How is it that even at a reputed hospital in China, I still had to be on an IV for seven days, whereas in the US, all I would have done is gotten a prescription for – probably – azithromycin for 5 days and have continued working/going to school? Think of how this would affect an average Chinese citizen.  If he/she contracted pneumonia, he’d then have to take off work for seven days, lose seven days’ worth of pay, just to hopefully get better.  Now, I don’t like to brag, but I’m a relatively healthy individual.  What about an older Chinese person, or a younger one with a less developed immune system.

Disease is pervasive.  It knows no social bounds, and its effects will not only affect an individual and his/her family, but will expand towards other facets of society.  Will we be able to do that?