Both JD and Jiajia came out in a red rash yesterday, so we battled our way to the hospital this morning (40 minute queue just to get into the car park). Thankfully we have a good friend ("DL") in the hospital who took us straight to the skin specialist who said it was probably an allergic reaction to our local caterpillars(!) who are currently descending from the trees near our house in their dozens on thin threads which are all too easy to walk into. Whilst there, I mentioned my "tennis elbow" which has been a constant pain for well over a year now, despite two injections and a course of physiotherapy. DL whisked us straight off to the top bone doctor, who recognised me from 8 months ago. He confirmed that the only long-term treatment continues to be rest (not so easy with a toddler who wants lifting and a mouse on the right side of the computer!) though he said another steroid injection would give me 6-8 weeks with less pain, which would at least help me sleep, etc. And the injection was nowhere near as painful as I made out for the photo, either!

We were treated to a visit from Daizzy and her family this week. She was in Kunming for a couple of days from Qiaojia (5 hours away by car - used to be 13!) where she lives and works as an English teacher. I did a week of training there some 8 years ago and we have kept in touch ever since. The weather was hot and warm and her daughter, "Amber", enjoyed playing on the slides with JD in our local children's park. Unfortunately, the following day was suddenly quite cold and wet and, perhaps because of that, I found myself feeling quite dizzy throughout the day (something I suffered from a lot a few years ago, but have been free of since). Hopefully it's just a blip on the health front.

If there's one area where Jiajia and I have particularly strong and differing views, it's health and how to deal with sickness. This continues to crop up when dealing with JD. I guess I subscribe to the western view that medicine is to be avoided unless really necessary and then only used in sensible dosages until the problem is fixed. Jiajia has a more "Chinese" attitude which argues that waiting for illnesses to come along leaves it too late - people should take preventative medicine, and as strong a dose as possible for it to be effective (antibiotics are sold over the counter here and prescribed for even the most common of colds). Add to that the age-old conflict between "tried-and-tested" western drugs and "supposed to be good for you" Chinese traditional medicine (...twigs and ground up animals, if you ask me!) and we have an area of disagreement which is liable to run for some time.

Case in point: I caught a cold last week. I was told to wear a mask around JD and his room was duly sprayed with vinegar!? He's been taking Chinese "anti-cold" medicine for weeks now, a bitter liquid which can make him vomit, and yet when he had a few sneezes the other day it was my "western cold" that got the blame, not the obvious ineffectiveness of the "anti-cold" medicine or, indeed, the vinegar spray. He wears 5 layers of clothes beneath his duvet at night, but windows are then opened to let in the fresh air (and the bitter wind outside). My skepticism about Chinese medicine isn't helped by the packaging with its ridiculous English and wildly overambitious health claims [see above and below], plus my own experience with Chinese doctors and their "cures" - visits for 14 separate ailments to date with just 2 certain successes. But "popping into a local clinic to see my GP" just isn't an option here, so I try to turn a blind eye to most strange things that don't actively damage JD's health. I'm hoping that when I do need to put my foot down it will have more impact. That's the plan, anyway!

(Sorry, these pun titles are getting increasingly obscure!)

After 8 months of daily elbow pain, an injection of ozone(!?) and seven weeks of physiotherapy I went to hospital again last week, courtesy of "DL", a nurse friend of Jiajia's who arranged a "jump the queue and pay no money" visit to the top joint doctor there. He had a poke around and agreed it was "tennis elbow", but was concerned it had not improved over the months. He suggested the best way forward was a steroid injection to stop the pain, and a further 3 months of rest to solve the underlying injury. It's now a week later and the elbow pain has indeed gone. Quite a relief. Websites on the treatment suggest that such injections are only a temporary measure however, and I can expect the pain to reoccur in 4-6 weeks. Rest is the only long-term cure (barring an operation), so I need to remember to take it easy for some time yet. It's certainly good to be pain-free at last, though.

After 4-5 months of elbow pain and two unsuccessful visits to doctors, I managed to track down an English-speaking physiotherapist in Kunming a couple of days ago. He spent 40 minutes giving me a thorough test and came to the conclusion that the elbow wasn't healing properly because of a shoulder issue that I wasn't aware of. He "demonstrated" this by stretching my left shoulder - somewhat uncomfortable - and then doing the same exercise on my right shoulder - excruciating pain!

In fact, the whole session was really, really painful. At one point, I genuinely felt one of my fingers might be about to break and I was close to tears on occasions - much to Jiajia's amusement! After we finished, the physio suggested I return home and apply ice-packs to my arm to stop it swelling too much! That did indeed help, though I still felt totally bruised and abused for 24 hours afterwards! I've been told I'll need at least 2-3 further sessions, so in the meantime I'll do all my daily exercises and then grit my teeth as we get nearer the next session.

A Bangladeshi hotel. A year ago today. Jiajia's been sick all week and we've been blaming the local food. I mention casually that it could, of course, be due to pregnancy. An hour later I'm in a nearby chemist trying to mime "pregnancy test" to the amusement of a Bengali shopkeeper. I finally return to the hotel room and Ava does the test. A red line shows up. We can't read the Bengali, but red means "no", right? We're not sure if we should feel disappointed or relieved and we continue to blame the local food.

A week later, we've returned to China and Jiajia wants to check again, thinking that Chinese tests might be more accurate. We try once again but it's no more accurate. Still red. However, this time Ava can read the instructions and we soon discover a red line is actually a "positive". Gulp. Jiajia's got a baby boy in her. The rest, as they say, is his story.

At the risk of the blog becoming overly baby-centric, here's another update on 朱 品 修 's progress.

Approaching his fourth month, JD has more than doubled in weight, from 3 to 6.6kg (1 stone) and stands 62cm (2ft) in his favourite socks. He has a calm and increasingly cheeky personality with plenty of smiles and giggles.

We took him for his second vaccination jab again today (the first attempt last week was thwarted by flooding). Queueing amongst hordes of screaming Chinese babies (with their huge heads and patchy hair!) JD caused quite a stir with the nursing staff and other parents... "so cute!" and "so well-behaved!" being the favoured phrases from staff and strangers alike! He had a 5-second scream on being injected, but then settled quickly once again.

My 3-week summer holiday starts next week and Ava and I are bracing ourselves for 8 days without our Nanny (who deserves a holiday too!).

We decided to take Ma-in-law to the hospital yesterday afternoon as a friend of ours highly recommended a doctor in a hospital some dictance away. Ma-in-law has had a poorly shoulder for a week which she blames on all the "baby-holding" she imagines she does (and strangely not on the dance performances she took part in last week!?). At the hospital, we walked past the "Otorhinolaryngological Dept" in order to find the "Ache Dept" where our doctor works (I kid you not!). He examined ma-in-law and gave her an injection. Ava then mentioned the sore elbow I've had for three months now. Another examination and he diagnosed "tennis elbow", presumably from all the badminton I've been playing over the last year. Another injection for me. I assumed it would be a pain-killer or an anti-inflammatory, but it turned out to be ozone(!) and quite painful. Back home, I Googled it and found that ozone injections are a "Traditional Chinese" remedy for everything from arthritis to cancer, and not recommended by many mainstream doctors! We'll see how it goes.

On leaving the hospital we spotted a traffic policeman giving us a parking ticket despite there being no visible "No Parking" sign in sight. I asked him how we were supposed to know and he said we were two minutes late returning and there was a sign explaining it all some 500m down the road. Cheers mate!!

Less than a week to go now before our son appears and life changes dramatically for Jiajia and I. It's very exciting and, of course, a little nerve-racking. Jiajia will lose the use of the buses' comfier seats [see photo, left], though I think I'll still qualify!?

Jiajia will be having a C-section - more common in China and a sensible precaution because of her age and a small placenta problem - so there will be no mad "waters breaking" rush to the hospital! She should even have a private room, we're told, in the hospital's new maternity wing. In China, there is no thought of mother or baby returning home until at least a week after the operation and babies are often not even taken out of the house for the first 100 days. With no free National Health Service, we've also had to save up for considerable medical costs. But, all being well, I'll be a Dad by this time next week.

We have started to fill-in a Baby Book [see photo, below] sent by my
parents. I still have the one they completed for me as a baby...

As I was running this morning I was listening to Ultravox's latest album on my MP3 and the lyrics of their song, "One", suddenly hit me afresh;

I noticed this statue opposite my school the other day. I must have passed it 100 times without really looking at it properly before. It is smaller than it looks, to be fair. So, perhaps it's time for a blog update on our baby - due on April Fool's Day next year! Time is flying past.

Ava and I spent over 18 hours in the hospital, spread over four days, last week. Chinese hospitals are a frustrating mix of inefficiency, confusion and manic queues. Thankfully, we have friends of friends who help us to skip the odd queue, get fast access to experts and to phone for advice. Pity the poor countryside farmers who spend all day trying to work their way through the system - you queue early in the morning for a ticket to see a doctor, then queue to pay for the visit. Then queue to see the doctor and queue again to pay for any medicines. Another queue to hand in your prescription and a final queue to collect it. You get the idea. Ava's important 6-month scan took longer than expected too, as the baby wouldn't settle in a suitable position to view the heartbeat. It took us four attempts (interspersed with short walks, stair-climbing and jumping up and down, to try and shift the baby around!). Thankfully this test, as with all the others we've done, showed no problems at all. Ava was also keen to find out the sex of the child (for shopping purposes, you understand). Our doctor friend explained that in China it is forbidden to let parents know the child's sex (for fear of female infanticide), so technically she couldn't tell us HIS gender. We got the hint.

Ava went back to be scanned again today. After two attempts, the nurses said she may have to return again tomorrow as the baby was "jumping around too much" to get a good picture. Then suddenly it stopped moving and swung around to the perfect angle for a snapshot! After the first scan (a month ago) the nurses said they hadn't seen such a strong heartbeat for a long time. This time they said they hadn't seen such an active little baby for ages. Something tells me we have an overactive and overconfident child on the way! Anyhow, the doctor said everything looked good and healthy and we now have a hospital-free month until further tests are done. I just hope the tests are more accurate than the signage [see below]. 

(...and for anyone getting worried, this blog is definitely not going to dissolve into a "coochy-coochy", "lovely-dovey", "how cute", babyfest!)

Snorkelling is great fun, but scuba diving is something else. You're not just looking down on the fish, you are moving amongst them or looking up at them. It's also more intense (you only have about 30 minutes of air) and more dangerous (you need a guide and you can't simply stand up if any equipment malfunctions!). It was actually 15 years ago here in Cebu  that I qualified as an "Advanced Open Water Diver", so it was nice to return and dive here again.

Ava had only done one shallow dive in China before, but after a quick briefing, she bravely sank down 15m (50ft) with me and our two dive guides. We saw lots of sealife - starfish, seahorses, puffer fish, clown fish, parrot fish, green beltfish, lionfish and a majestic shoal of metre-long silver dolphin-fish swimming slowly in circles above us. We'd both like to do more diving in future holidays.

A mixed day today. Jiajia and I enjoyed another day of hopping between islands and snorkelling - if you hold a little bread  under the water all manner of fish swim up quite boldly to have a bite to eat. One large fish took this too literally however, and bit the end of my finger. Blood everywhere! 

However, on our return to the hotel, Jiajia and I realised we had been under the strong sun a little bit too long. We both had bad sunburn and struggled to walk to our favourite restaurant! But worse was to come. No sooner had we tucked into a fried vegetable dish than we both started to feel very dizzy. I nearly passed out and Ava said the room felt like it was spinning. After five minutes we recovered enough to leave and stagger back to our hotel room. We were told later that the local dish contains a bean which, if not cooked properly, can be quite toxic. Hmmm...!

Last week I asked Jiajia to help me book a dental appointment for my annual check-up and persuaded her to have one too (she hasn't been in years). My previous dentist is too far away now so we registered at a new clinic that boasts English-speaking dentists. Bizarrely, however, the very next day, I chipped one of my teeth and the day after that, one of Jiajia's fillings dropped out. So yesterday, instead of going for check-ups, we both ended up having work done.  It's as if our teeth were just waiting for a suitable moment to break. Was that lucky or unlucky?

Unknown to us at the time, Ava's Mum spent two weeks in hospital while we were in the UK with a kidney problem. And she returned to hospital again yesterday after a bit of a relapse. With Ava away on business in Shenzhen it fell to me to get her a bed and bring in supplies. Thankfully, she's not comatose or anything, so she's been able to do all the explaining, ward-finding and bribing herself. I've been in Chinese hospitals dozens of times before, but this was the first time when I wasn't the sick one! I'm so glad I've never had to stay in one, though. They really are tatty places; noisy, dirty, chaotic and falling apart. Her room is half the size of my bedroom, but has five beds sharing the space. There's hardly room to move. However, Ava's Mum seems to quite enjoy the hustle and bustle, the visits from concerned friends and, perhaps, the opportunity not to do all the washing, buying, cooking, etc.

Just when you think you've got a handle on the peculiarities of Chinese ways, something new and bizarre pops up. One of the foods I was asked to bring in today was a small uncooked potato. On receipt, Ava's Mum cut off a thin slice and applied it to her wrist. A kind of medicine, she insisted! So we are paying hundreds of pounds for western pills and a hospital bed ...plus a raw tatty. Work that one out.

Last night was really cold - very unseasonal - but it got gradually warmer today so my parents, JIajia and I spent some time doing a little bit of shopping in the city centre. We decided to cheer the shoe-shining ladies up a bit by having a mass buff! They good-humouredly haggled us up to a total cost of  £1.

Then, as an early birthday treat for Dad, Jiajia treated us to a lovely meal at Pizza Hut. Luckily this, and the later tea, was all English food, as Mum had a nasty throwing up fit in the evening, but can't blame it on any Chinese food! Fortunately she'd recovered by bedtime.

... what is it with the Chinese feeling that no photo is complete without a "V" sign??

This was our school's end of term meal last night. They are big affairs these days with about 100 staff attending. I was on my best behaviour, as usual!

It's good to have some rest options ahead. I've been quite poorly of late (again!) and am currently on antibiotics for two separate infections!

One of the things all the recent doctors agreed about on my recent hospital visits was the need to wear a neck collar for a few hours each day for a fortnight or so. With Ava's help we tracked down one the other day and I'm trying to be good and wear it a bit. I find it difficult to be enthusiastic though as (a) my neck's been fine for a couple of weeks now, (b) it makes my neck uncomfortably hot, and (c) I look a right wally!

... look away now!!

It was back to the hospital yesterday with Ava and her medical friend Rose to pick up the MRI scan results and get them analysed by Dr Mang, the neurologist [see photo]. He said my blood vessels were fine and my brain was very healthy (so to those who always thought I was crazy - just check out that MRI). He did point out a cyst growing in my brain(!) but insisted (in-cyst-ed?) it was benign and not that uncommon. However, he showed me clearly where two of the neck vertebrae were pinching a nerve, a condition called Spondylosis, fairly common in old people(?). The cure? There isn't really one - take vitamin B12, massage your neck when it hurts, wear a neck brace for 2 hours a day for two weeks, take a pill if you get very dizzy, keep your blood pressure down, rub in deep heat, try to work and play with your head raised at 15° from horizontal - easier said than done, and live with it! But at least I had a name for my problems.... or so I thought.

We left Mr Mang and popped into a top bone specialist friend of Rose's. He took one look at the X-ray and MRI scan and immediately dismissed it as a pinched nerve. It must be an ear problem, he decided. We showed him the results of the recent ear test (negative) and he said it must be a pinched blood vessel. We showed him a negative test results for that too, and he said he only knew that from the MRI it couldn't be Spondylosis.

A little dejected, we left the hospital and Rose invited us to dinner with some of her friends. It turned out there were 5 doctors amongst them, all keen to see the test results. Five different diagnoses, and varying advice and medication suggestions later, I was given an impromptu (and painful) neck massage and left feeling as confused as ever. On the internet Spondylosis looks to me like it covers the symptoms, so I'll go with that for now. I now need to buy a kite (it's a "15° from horizontal" thing!).