Family Tales

*Mom*

Wendy is recovering from bad job city in Hong Kong, and although her stomach is still a bit queesy at times, things are looking up. In answer to a question from Holly earlier, no we didn’t travel with phenagarp (sp?), but we definitely will next time. Oddly enough, some chinese remedy stuff that I bought at the local 7-11 seemed to do the trick for the nauseau in short order. I’m not really sure what it was, but my best guess is that it was a sort of “plop, plop, fizz fizz” type of thing. The main ingredient seemed to be a form of aluminum (sulfate?). She’s eating immodiums on a daily basis as well.

*Dad*

I’m coming down with a sinus something or other that might become a cold. I’ll probably end up with a sore throat just from the drainage alone, but I’ve put myself on a regimen of aleve cold and sinus that should hold the line for the short term. The smog here in Guangzhou is truly unbelievable. We have seen neither sky, sun or moon since arriving6 days ago becauase they’re smothered at all times by a chalky, yellow haze. The cars all look like they’ve been muddin’ they’re so filthy. At breakfast on Monday, we were trying to figure out what the really large cranes across the river were being used to build. At breakfast on Tuesday, the smog broke a little bit and we realized that our cranes were actually the support posts for a major bridge across the Pearl. Nasty.

*Betsy Ye*

Betsy’s in pretty good shape considering where from where she has come. At the clinic on Monday, they found about 5 or 6 boils on the left side of her head that had become infected and were yellow and scabby. That sounds really awful, but they didn’t look that bad to us … sort of like ant bites that got infected. Anyway, they gave us some topical stuff that smelled for all the world like the good old standby from my youth, mercurachrome, except that it was more brown than purple and didn’t stain nearly as much. Heck, it might have just been betadyne for all we know. Anyway, we scrubbed them good to get the scabs off and dosed them with the magic liquid for a day or two, and they were getting a little better. Then we took her to a doctor who was travelling with another group of adoptive parents, and he tracked down some prescription ointment that one of their families wasn’t using. I think that it’s bacuban or something like that (Holly please help with what it might be). Since starting her on that two days ago, they’re mostly dried up now. They probably won’t even be noticeable at this rate when we finally get back home on Saturday.

In addition, she began with a slight runny nose Monday night, so we started a course of Zithromax just in case. She fights it, but it is helping her. Most of the children from the Maoming orphanage, like Betsy, are in very good shape. Half of our group received their children from an orphanage in the next town over, and they have tended to be a little sicker with rattly chests and general listlessness. On the whole, it’s nothing that seems to be beyond the range of good antibiotics that we’ve all travelled with over here. Honestly, you could start a small pharmacy with the leftovers from the arsenal that each family tends to bring with them.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 31st, 2005 at 12:45 am and is filed under betsy ye. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.