Removal of Appendices in China

Don't read this if you're squeamish. I was talking to an Aussie guy last night who had his appendix removed when he was living in Nanjing (literally South City) two years ago. He was getting some severe pains in his lower abdomen so he went to the best hospital in town with his wife. They don't have any western hospitals in Nanjing so it was a Chinese hospital. Luckily he spoke Chinese, although he wasn't familiar with a lot of the medical terms so they couldn't always tell him exactly what they were doing.

So he went to the clinic first. Apparently the way you test for a swollen appendix, or whatever you call it, is you poke the abdomen, which doesn't hurt, and then take your finger away, which kills. So a few doctors did that to him for a while. Then they said to him that he had to have it operated on, and he needed to go across the road to the hospital. He was fairly cripple with pain by this stage, but there was no wheelchair - he had to walk. It took him half an hour or so.

He finally managed to get into a room in the hospital. A male nurse came in and shaved him completely from chest to knees. Then they gave him some iodine to apply to himself, from chest to knees. Then they took him to the operating theatre. The nurses told him to roll onto his side. Then they tried to get an epidural needle into his spine. The first time they put it in it was is in the wrong place. The second time they put it in they hit his spinal nerve, which caused him to kick one of the nurses in the head. They tried again, and still missed. Then the doctor came in and managed to get it into the right spot. They pumped the fluid in which is apparently really painful. Then they sat him up in the bed (once his lower half was numb) and told him they were ready to begin. He was like, what about me? And they were like, don't you want to watch? He was like, no. So they knocked him out and when he woke up it was all done, and he was wrapped in bandages from chest to knees, which made him worry maybe they did the wrong operation on him. But fortunately it was OK, they got the right thing.

Actually he showed us the scar and its pretty small. He says they did a pretty good job, its just that there was a lot of pain.