Shanghai Diaries: Pneumonia

I’ve been exhausted by work, and I’ve been annoyed by a lot of things at my new school, things that put a pretty short shelf life on my time there. However, they have been wonderful this week as I’ve been sick with pneumonia. At Clown School, the ring leader harangued one of my coworkers, who got Covid and then pneumonia, to get back to work. Here, I had to do a few things to take the time off (thankfully, the pneumonia is such that I could do a few things, but definitely needed the days off after), and then they took care of covering my classes. One teacher took time to grade some quizzes, which put off my pacing because the kids didn’t get the lesson done I had planned, but to be honest, the assignment was just something to help keep them occupied for 90 minutes, and it was a sweet gesture, so I’ll take it.

The other thing that made me feel better about the whole situation is that my insurance here is really good. I got to go to the fancy hospital that caters to foreigners, got blood work, a chest x-ray and CT scan all done, checked out, diagnosed and prescribed meds in about 2 hours. My deductible is 1000 rmb, which is about $140, which is still a bit to shell out at once, but I could pay it. I didn’t have to worry about spiraling costs. I shouldn’t have to pay anything for my follow-up visits.

Obviously, I’d rather not be ill, because it sucks, but I’m able to handle it much better than I would in the US.