Fujian - Day 1

We arrive at about 2pm and ike sleeps as soon as he is in his stroller. We get quite a bit of help fm all the teenage cousins (all boys!) on the trip. It’s been really quite nice reconnecting with them after all these years. Age range from 19 to 11, then a drop to Nate at 5.

It was nice that Nate also was able to play and connect with them too until dinner when he said he was in pain and his arm hurt from the elbow to mid arm. He cried several times when moving his arm and taking off his sweater. I had to feed him dinner and he was utterly miserable. He even insisted on seeing a doctor and said it was really painful.

So we headed to the Chinese bone doctor… I thought our relative would take us to the hospital where an x-ray would happen but nope, we came to this shop lot, there was a huge gathering and a lot of commotion, apparently it was the clinic’s one year anniversary so they were having a raffles draw with prizes.

While we waited the wind made the place a lot colder. The sky was cloudy today and we could only drape Nate with his sweater, he wore thin summer pants. Another relative lent us her jacket with neck fur lined… he looked like he was in a full length coat. We ducked into a barber shop to wait till the crowd dissipated and the barber tried to talk to him, Nate was totally unfriendly. The barber wanted to take a picture of Nate, fascinated by a foreigner kid.

We finally get to see the bone doctor who was smoking and still had a lot of people milling about in his shop, I didn’t get a good look at what the clinic or shop was… the doctor touched his arm (Nate screamed in pain) and the doctor asked 2 questions, did he fall on to his palms or was his arm pulled (his cousins pulled his arm). Twice nate said it was pulled with a quick swift action, the doctor pulled his arm and pushed his elbow in an upward direction, Nate cried out loudly again… and then sobbed in my arms. The doctor asked him to test lifting his arm and he could, so the doctor said no worries, the dislocated elbow is now back in place… don’t lift the arm for 3 days or so.

Nate was a transformed boy after that, he was happy again, interactive, smiley, a total change from the sourpuss.

Me… I am feeling hungry, I think I didn’t get much to eat, feeding the two kids then rushing to the clinic… lucky for me I have the cookies from Lissa from last night…

Check in took some time and the boys have just slept now after a longish bath in the jacuzzi, its way pass their bedtimes and tomorrow we head to another location.