Weekly recap

Aside from my major miscommunication that I posted about below, we had a pretty good week.

There were two rather big things.

On Wednesday, we signed a long term foster care agreement for our little baby.  Our heart's desire is to see this sweet little guy in a home with people who love him.  Isn't that what we desire for all children?

Does he have some challenges?  Sure...but don't we all?

On Thursday, I took him to the ShenYang Children's Hospital for some testing.  He has some issues with a wet rattle at the back of his throat and his doctor wanted a swallow test if that was possible.  He also needed some blood work done since he is so malnourished.

I met a medical resident there who spoke both Chinese and English. We did the registration and took him into the intake area.  The person working the front desk listened to his lungs and said that he had very bad pneumonia and that he should be admitted right away.  He has had a very bad cold with lots of wheezing in his chest.  When we got him, he had aspiration pneumonia from being fed with a propped bottle while lying flat on his back.  If they had said he had pneumonia again, I wouldn't have been surprised.

My heart sank when they said to admit him.  Hospitals in China are often very crowded and not very peaceful places.  I felt that if he really was sick, I'd prefer him to be treated at home.  So we decided to call his regular pediatrician.  She was out of town but we got ahold of another doctor at the Clinic.  The doctors he sees work for an organization called ShenYang Light.  ShenYang Light is an amazing program here that does medical residency training and also works in orphanages and nursing homes.  Those doctors are heroes, pure and simple.  They were able to squeeze the baby in for a visit and found no pneumonia.  So I was able to take him home with me.  I was so thankful.

Since his immune system is so week, even now, his cold is a big thing.  But he is home with us and able to sleep and rest.  He has been a happy little guy for the last few days.

The second thing had to do with our English Corner.  Every Friday night we go to an English corner that includes students from a local university.  We usually have some kind of presentation and then break up into small groups for discussion.  This week, we did a mock wedding with all the trimmings!  We went over customs, the vows, the traditions and more.  We acted out  a wedding and then broke up into groups to talk about weddings and marriage.  There were many good questions about divorce, staying married, choosing a spouse.  It was a good investment of our time as marriages in China can be really challenging.  Work schedules, long distance marriages, the one child policy all affect marriages here.

One thing that Elisabeth found at the market here cracked us up.

Yes, those are smiley face French fries that are being cooked up in a wok!  It's always fun to have fun food!