Thursday, December 11, 2008
Yes, I Am Alive
I realize it’s been a couple of weeks since I last posted anything. I really don’t want to use the super lame “I’ve been really busy at work” line but the fact is I’ve been really busy at work. We’ve taken on our biggest project to date and aspects of it have turned out to be far more difficult than we had imagined.
Not a whole lot exciting has happened in the last few weeks, though I do have a couple of interesting anecdotes. Last weekend when I was out with my friends we had a couple of Russian guys from Siberia hanging around with us. They were telling us all kinds of stories about life there. One of them asked me, “In America, are you taught that Russia is a police state?” I answered that we’re taught that things have gotten better since the days of the USSR but that there are a lot of gangs now, the Russian Mafia. He laughed. “In Russia we prefer the gangs. Nobody goes to the police. The gangs will steal your money, but the police will steal your money, torture you, and throw you in jail.” (Insert Guantananmo reference here.)
They then described how the police would torture someone. They’d start out with something called the “elephant.” This is where they handcuff you to a chair and put an old WWII-era gas mask on you. This has a long hose hanging down in front of it where the air canister would attach, giving you a look like an elephant with a trunk. The police would take the hose and block the end off with their hand, cutting off the victim’s oxygen supply. They’d keep this up until you passed out, after which they’d take their hand off and you could breathe again. The police would then do this over and over and over to you for even days at a time, making you pass out then reviving you, until you admitted guilt to whatever they were trying to pin on you. Another technique is more traditional. They take an electric wire, plug it into a socket, and touch the live ends to your fingertips. This technique is known for some reason as “internet.” They said the elephant was preferred to the internet because it didn’t leave any marks.
One of the Russians mentioned that his family wasn’t originally from Siberia, they were from the west. How did they end up in Siberia? “Many years ago Stalin put my family on a train, so now I come from Siberia.” It’s a whole different world out there, folks.
The other tale happened last night. I ended up at the emergency room. As many of you know I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and I take medication for it. As part of the OCD I also am prone to anxiety. Since these medications are hard to get in China (one is almost prohibited for doctors to prescribe and the other is not sold here) I have my mom buy them in the US and FedEx them over. I’ve done this ten times or so since I got here and never had a problem. This time, for some reason, the box got held up in Chinese customs. It’s been there for almost a week. I had to write out a letter detailing every medication in the box, the dosages, the amount I take, why I was importing them, and so on. This then had to be translated into Chinese, faxed to FedEx, who then gave it to the customs department. It’s been in customs for three days, and I’m out of pills. In other words, the stuff I take to stop me from going nuts is sitting in customs, and the fact it’s in customs and may or may not be released was giving me maxor anxiety.
Yesterday at work all day I was anxious as hell. My heart was beating rapidly and I was forcing myself to try and remain calm. I got home from work and got some dinner. As I was eating I began to feel very lightheaded. My heart was racing, at one point I checked and it was 120 beats per minute. I was dizzy and honestly thought I was going to pass out. I recognized what was going on—I was having a panic attack. I’ve only had a few of them before, but they’re the worst feeling in the world. The way a doctor once explained it to me is that as humans evolved we developed our sense of fear, and as a part of that sense there is an alarm which says “You are in imminent danger of dying.” When you see a rattlesnake near your leg, or you’re underwater for too long, this is the sense you feel. During a panic attack this alarm goes off for no real reason. All of a sudden you literally feel like you are about to die. It’s awful.
I tried to calm myself down with breathing. I even made a couple of stiff drinks, but those didn’t help either. I knew I was going to have to go to the hospital. I was avoiding going because, even though I have great health insurance here, and there are a number of for-profit hospitals who employ Western doctors, they don’t direct bill my insurance, so I’d have to pay cash, and I had no idea how much it was going to cost. Eventually I admitted to myself that this wasn’t going to stop on its own, I needed something to help me calm down. I called a friend who came over, got me in a taxi, and took me to the SOS International emergency room.
I had an EKG and they determined I wasn’t having a heart attack. I was hyperventilating, and my heart rate was above 90 when they first checked it. They eventually gave me something to help me relax, and within a couple of hours I was more or less normal. The visit cost me ¥3,300, about $480. I filed the insurance claim today, so I should have that money returned within a couple of weeks.
Thankfully, according to the FedEx tracking page, the customs people have released my package, so hopefully FedEx will deliver it to me tomorrow.
Welcome to life in China.