Emergency!

Probably one of the biggest parental fears with international travel is the sick child who needs medical care. If you've ever wondered what that sort of situation might look like, here is OUR story.

It's started the same way it mostly starts back in the States - sick friends. Our friend, Sophia, was sick on her trip with us to Baby Boss. And she still wasn't better by the time we saw them on Sunday. She was on meds to bring her fever down, however, so she had the strength and energy to play, and we tried to keep her away from the kids and limit our exposure to her.

I think it wasn't enough. The day after playing with Sammi, Sofia, and Alan for the last time, Eloise woke up with a head-ache and threw-up in the morning. Most disappointingly, this cancelled the return trip to Yingge with JJ and Mabel to eat at the century old home on Old Street. (This loss took me a while to get over. I was SO looking forward to this experience. It was going to be one of the last fun things we did. And I was anticipating it would also be one of the coolest.)

Blessedly, by the same afternoon, Eloise felt much better and didn't have further spewing episodes. (Making me all the sorrier our plans had been cancelled. STILL getting over it.)

So I was anxious that Eloise's bug would spread to the rest of the family in our final week. Actually, I'm not sure Eloise caught anything from Sofia at all. In fact I think it was Arthur who did.

Sofia wound up staying three days in the hospital beginning right after we saw them on Sunday. I don't think hospital stays are as big a deal in Taiwan as they are in the States, but she proved to have a pretty ferocious fever. And by Wednesday, so did Arthur.

His lasted all day. At some point, I gave him the baby ibuprofen we had traveled with. This helped somewhat, but he didn't seem fully himself.

That night I told Q I would trade beds with Kai so I could keep an eye on Arthur throughout the evening. I gave him a final dose of ibuprofen at 8pm, and we all went to bed.

Sure enough, around midnight I woke up to Arthur calling for me. Our room was somewhat dark (though I'd left a light on fearing he would also need to throw-up) so I reached down and felt his hand. It was outstretched and shaking. I rolled nearer the edge of the bed and rubbed his back, but he continued to call to me as if he wasn't aware of my presence.

So I got on the floor with him and held him in my arms. His little body was on fire, and most disturbing of all, he continued to reach up, shaking and trembling, and call for me to hold him though he was already in my arms. I didn't know what to do, but I was scared and felt I needed to cool him off as fast as possible.

I took his shirt off and began pacing the apartment to circulate air around him. I'd been wanting to give him a warm sponge bath earlier, but didn't have any washcloths so I didn't. Now I found a shirt of his I'd put in a pile of things to discard in Taiwan, ran lukewarm water over it, and sponged his head, neck and back. He'd become aware that I was holding him, taking care of him, and he began responding, though without any energy.

And I was tired. We went out to the couch and I laid him down on it to rest my arms. He lay there and seemed to go back to sleep. As I wondered what to do next, Arthur called out to me again. Laying on the couch, perfectly safe, he seemed terrified and told me he was "falling upside down."

I picked him up again, paced, sponged, and went in to wake Q. "We need to talk about what to do," I told him. He could see Arthur in my arms and quickly got out of bed and came into the living room. Though it was past midnight and how to get to the hospital, and what would happen once we got there were ALL big unknowns, when I described what I had been dealing with, Q was fully on-board with going. He said he was surprised I was hesitating at all.

I didn't know Arthur was feeling up to the "smile" above,
but I was relieved to see his face in this first pic when
all I had said was, "I'm going to take a picture.

He readied our bags with food (we thought we might be admitted because we knew Sofia had been), passports, and other essentials, while I ran down the hill to the security house to ask them to call us a cab. They said one would come in just 3 minutes and I responded that we would be ready and ran back up the hill to make sure we were.

One of the challenges we faced was that we were down to our very last bit of cash. Blessedly, we'd already been inside the hospital, so it wasn't completely unfamiliar, and we were confident we would get good care. But we knew none of the ATMs liked our card. We DID have enough cash for the cab, and figured we would cross the money bridge later.

The cab driver was VERY fast. I didn't go into any great detail about our needs - I figured to anyone paying attention, a foreign family heading to the hospital at almost 1 AM said enough. As we waited for a green light to turn onto the main road to the hospital, an ambulance passed. Our cab was so fast we caught up to it and would have arrived at the same time were we not cut off by another red at the turn into the parking lot.

Inside, the staff quickly established that we were cash pay and we waited maybe 5 minutes to register by giving them Arthur's passport. We were then taken back, Arthur's temperature was taken (101.5F) and his weight noted, and we got in to the doctor who was able to see us right away. The doctors in Taiwan study medicine in source-language, meaning English is the FIRST language of their medicine. So in English, we visited with the doctor about how long he had been sick for (the whole day), what we'd done (given him ibuprofen) and his other symptoms (none). I told them about the shaking and disconnect with his body Arthur had experienced just an hour earlier. The doc asked more about that, but most of his questions I wasn't able to answer because of the darkness of the room Arthur and I were in.

The face he pulled for this second pic was a "tender mercy"
for my mother heart. I knew if he felt well enough to
pull a face, his full recovery couldn't be far off.

The doc examined Arthur by looking in his ears, throat, and feeling his glands. He had Arthur squeeze his hands. Through all of this Arthur was a champ. When he wasn't being talked to, he rested in my arms, but was responsive and unafraid to interact with the doctor. He even made a few funny observations which I don't now remember, but they were definitely tender mercies calming my panicky mother-heart and helping me to feel he would be alright.

The doc said he found a slight infection in Arthur's throat, and that the fever was likely due to this. However, since he didn't exhibit other symptoms of a cold, he said he would prescribe cold medicine we could take if we needed, but for the fever, prescribed ibuprofen (which we already had) and acetaminophen. (This thrilled me! It was, in fact, all that I had wanted in the first place, but at the hour I needed it, IF a store that sold it existed, I had no idea where or how to find it, and doubted it would be open anyway.)

After the diagnosis, Arthur and I waited for the meds to be prepared and Q went on the hike to the 7-11 behind the hospital for more cash. In the end, it turns out he didn't need it. The total we payed the hospital was under $1,000 kuai - less than $30 for the emergency room visit AND 3 medications. AND it took less than 30 minutes! The hospital called us another cab and we were back home fast.

Leaving all the other kids at home had been an unsettling thing. Before we left, Q had awaken Kai to tell him where we were going in case there were issues. I told Q that if we were admitted, or there for a long time (our experiences in stateside emergency rooms and instacares have taken hours) we could call Mabel in the morning to come be with the kids. (I felt blessed and comforted that this seemed an option. It is difficult to find people in Taiwan who don't work or who don't have little kids for whom contagion would be an issue.) Anyway, the kids were sound asleep when we got back around 1:30 am, and in fact, in the morning Kai did not remember Q waking him up and was surprised to learn Arthur had been to the hospital.

Getting out into the cool night air had also seemed to help Arthur. When we got back to the apartment and went to give him his first dose of acetaminophen, we couldn't find the dosage! I got online and Q and I spent some time trying to do the math to convert Stew's weight into kilograms and teaspoons into milliliters. NOT fun with a 1:30 am brain! Exhausted physically and mentally from the effort, I thought to myself that it was a CRAZY oversight to not provide that with the prescription, and hunted on the instructions again for the "mL." On this second try, though I didn't find the "mL" I DID find that he was supposed to take 7 CC's. For the life of us, neither Q nor I could figure out what CC's was an abbreviation for, but we again googled a conversion for the CC's prescribed to the mL measuring cup and discovered they were the same! CC, or cubic centimeters, are the same as mL! A good thing to know!

Arthur took the meds. In general, he is not a fan of syrup medicine, but tolerated this one as he had the others. I promised him the medicine would help him feel better and not be so hot. Within about 20-30 minutes my promise came true and he slept comfortably until about 6 am, when I was able to give him another dose of ibuprofen before he got to emergency heat. All the following day we staggered the meds every 4-6 hours and Stew's strength and energy came back, comforting me further, though I could tell he was not well.

And we were down to the last few hours in Taiwan. I felt so blessed that in all of our sicknesses, I had kept our time incredibly open. We didn't have to cancel anything but the dinner on Monday. We weren't able to do as much as we might have to enjoy our last days in Taiwan. BUT, with Q's help, and with the health we all felt on Tuesday, we were able to stagger things and get out and do final gift shopping.

On Thursday night after a day of meds, I posted an update to the post I had written on facebook the evening before we wound up in the emergency room. I had asked people to pray for feverish Arthur. I updated that though we had wound up in the emergency room, we had the meds we needed, and were doing better. I asked next that people pray that Arthur would not NEED the meds - that he would get better for our long journey home coming up in less than 48 hours. These prayers worked! Arthur's final fever dose was Thursday morning, and his fever never came back!

We survived an emergency room visit in a foreign country in the nick of time to get well and return home to tell the tale!

Trip to Memory Lane in Zhonghe

This trip has had very little specific places or people from my past. But we are running out of new things to do and see, so I thought we'd take a free afternoon and hit an old area of mine near Taipei.

On my mission, I served in only 3 areas. The first two were in what counts, in Taiwan, as country-side: Bade and Miaoli. My last area, which I opened back up to sister missionary work, and opened it while training a new missionary, was in the heart of what was at the time, the most densely populated area on the planet: Zhonghe/Yonghe.

Right: Eloise on Memory Lane itself, or the street on which I think our apartment was (and still is... see below).

The kids outside the Zhonghe/Yonghe church. Now THREE wards meet there. The outer white tile has been replaced with a granite looking stone. Nice!

I went from only serving in branches to covering two wards. At that time, unlike the Elders whose areas were only a portion of the district, the sisters covered the entire district. Only when we were sent there, we covered two entire districts. Up til that time, I had never been more stretched in my life. The work was huge, the press of people was intense, and church on Sunday was 6 hours long, plus meetings. We sisters had a work load that was otherwise covered by 8 elders. And all with a companion who didn't speak Chinese. Though I'd never felt such pressure, I also had never felt the Lord so close as I felt him then. I received powerful answers to prayers. We enjoyed such success that within 3 months, they brought in another sister companionship and assigned us to one district (though I don't now remember which) instead of the two.

Inside of the chapel, very little has changed. I stood at this pulpit many a time to share my testimony, including the final testimony I shared with members before I went home.

THIS was the place I went back to see. The chapel, which had been the only one I served in as a missionary, now is on the old and small side for Taiwan. The sister missionaries we met there (coincidentally, and blessedly, as it would have been locked!) let us in, and told us that in most areas now in Taiwan, they all have chapels! (I already new my other areas had chapels, and have even been to Miaoli's on a previous trip. And by the way, this area STILL has 2 sister companionships, though it's unlikely that they've kept the sisters there at a constant number over the last 18 years.)

This original shot was taken only a few weeks before I came home and on the p-day when I discovered I still wanted to dance when I got back. I was in the middle of one of my only ballet work-outs here when the Elders showed up and wondered what I was up to. Kai replaces Elder Bolander, who interestingly, I met up with in China on a ballet tour years later!

This is a recreated shot. In the original, I'm holding a broom
because I was sweeping out the font in preparation
for the baptism.

Anyway, I had fun recreating with the kids, some of the shots from my mission at this church. I think perhaps the roads seem much less familiar, not only for the change that can happen in 18 years, but also because we taught SO MUCH, and our area was so huge, we were either in the church teaching, or not on many of the same roads twice.

This was also the only place in MY LIFE where my fantastic sense of direction failed me on a regular basis! I got more lost here than I have ever been anywhere else. BUT, going back with my kids, my old landmarks and sense of where I was at got us from the MRT station to the church and over to where I think our apartment was. I was able to point to the road where, on our bikes, we alluded a guy who was following us on a scooter. I showed the kids the one-direction road where we lived and told them about driving against the crazy flow of traffic to short-cut our way home. (It's now a calmer two-way street. I think the MRT has really reduced vehicle count on the street level mid-day.) I told them how my bag was stolen from the church and for weeks after, I would scan the banks of the stream we walked and biked along, hoping to see my scriptures cast aside by the thieves. I bought them a green mango chunk filled popsicle and told them about the hot p-day where that was all I ate because I was too hot to eat anything else. I told them about weirding the elders out with a decorated table and flowery sign that read, "Welcome to District Training Meeting," just for the amusement of myself and my companion.

I *think* this is "the agency" -  our nick-name
 for our apartment. - specifically,
the detective agency. My comp was Agent 1,
and I was Private "Ai" - my Chinese name.
Good times!

There were hundreds of other stories I didn't share, and won't share here. But it was good to be there and give a tiny taste of that time in my life to my kids. Amazingly, they listened and even seemed to enjoy mom's time on Memory Lane. What a blessing to have this moment with my kids. I wish I might have shared the moment with more of the amazing people from that time and place, but they have actually met both companions I had in that area. And as for the members of both wards, I hope I see them in Heaven!

PS: Perhaps I took it for granted, because I was always there, but completely unplanned, just at the right time, two different sets of sister missionaries showed up. The first set let us in, and then had to go. We promised to leave the door locked behind us. But we managed to forget an umbrella in the locked chapel. We were about to abandon it when the second set stopped in. They saw the lights on and were able to unlock the chapel again so we could grab what we had left. It was such a blessing to get in to the building because the whole rest of the time, we were on the street wandering.

Say, "CHEEEE!"

Sherri and I after getting home just in time for me to go
teach my last ballet class for the ward members.

This post is out of chronological order by quite a bit. Many Sundays ago Sherri, a sister in the ward, came up to me and noted that if I had been a dancer, I should visit Taiwan National University for the Arts, very near to where we are living, while we are here. She said they had a ballet and dance department there, that she was friends with the dean of that department, and that she could take me there.

Of course, this was delightful all on it's own. I told her I was very interested in going and mentioned I have a friend from my days at Ballet West, Jiang Qi, who I knew was in Taiwan teaching at some university. Sherri told me it was probably TNUA, and though I couldn't believe the world would be THAT small, I thought it would be fun to go anyway.

Sure enough, a few days later she messaged me that Qi (pronounced "Chee") WAS teaching there, and Sherri arranged for a visit.

The visit itself, on Tuesday, Nov 24, was very nice. The university was beautiful. Sherri took us around the grounds and to a Museum of Art full of modern media pieces, which were, in my opinion, hilariously terrible. I should write about some of them just for amusement. But I'll save my fingers for a more important record.

These water buffalo are the school's pets and graze in this field. This one startled the kids by suddenly moving towards them. Thankfully, they were paying attention and were able to quickly move beyond the length of it's tether. 

Me and the Dean of the Dance department of TNUA.

So, after Sherri's tour, we met up with the dean who took us around her department. The studios were beautiful. I was also impressed with the students, who could not have been dancing very long, given the kind of school schedules and FULL academic days lived by kids age 5 on up. Finally, we would up on the top floor outside a freshman modern class and Jiang Qi's men's class. Sherri told me she could be with the kids in the hall and let them play and watch the modern while I went in to see Qi's class with Kai.

So with 10 minutes left in class, Kai and I entered. Qi recognized me right away, came to hug me, and introduced me to his students as a dancer he danced with many years ago. The 15 boys burst into applause at Qi's enthusiastic introduction, which I thought was really cute. Kai and I then settled ourselves on the floor and watched the rest of class.

Jiang Qi is the gentlemen between Kai and myself. The other boys are his students.

Qi was as graceful and gracious as a teacher as he had been a dancer. I had forgotten how absolutely regal he is. At 60, he isn't doing a lot of dancing any more, but there is no mistaking from his demonstrations that he was a fabulous dancer. It was so fun to see him and remember. I got to tell him about going to see him perform with Ballet West when I was younger, in my teens. I don't remember the ballet he was in, but the second or first act ended with him being lifted up on the shoulders of other dancers and waving to the audience as the curtain fell. I was watching the show in the VERY deep Ogden theater and was sitting in the balcony on the very LAST row. As it happened, I was grateful I was there. I was so drawn into the action by Qi's performance, that when he waved to the audience, I waved back! Thankfully there was no one sitting behind me to wonder why on earth someone was waving at the stage! (I didn't share that I also remember his final performance with Ballet West. I got to sit on stage and watch him dance the Blue Bird in the Sleeping Beauty. His power and grace, combined with my knowledge that it was the last time I would see it, brought tears to my eyes, which wasn't optimal - to be crying ON STAGE in a scene that had no reason for tears - but I was moved.)

Two of the blessings of Qi's influence watch the modern class.

But as I described afterwards for my kids how neat it was for me to see this great dancer again, I realized Qi's influence on my life runs much deeper. It was Qi's connections in China that brought Utah Regional Ballet there, and they took me - Qi might be the very reason I've been to China.

MORE significant than that, it was Qi who offered me the job with Guangzhou Ballet in China after my mission. (At that time he was preparing to return to China to be their Ballet Master. He never did but instead became a professor of dance at a university in the US.) Because of this offer, when Jonas Kage, my boss at Ballet West, offered me a position of apprentice, I was able to refuse the offer, preferring China to an apprenticeship, at which point, Jonas offered me a better contract.

AND, having received a better position, Qi then encouraged me to stay at Ballet West, though at the time, a part of me thought, "What could be better than an opportunity to combine my love of ballet with my love of Chinese?" However, Qi's counsel was wise: once I was IN China, it would be very difficult to get another dancing job elsewhere (due, I assume, to the cost and hassle of international flights to audition). In MY mind, the other difficulty, of course, was who to marry if I lived in China. I was 23, and knew I needed to find a good Mormon guy. Qi's counsel to stay tipped the scales in favor of my long-term future, and it was while dancing for Ballet West and living in the Avenues in Salt Lake City that I met my hubby and father to my 4 beautiful children. So in a way, I told them, they had Qi to thank that they were even born!

Perhaps, on that last point, it became an outing they won't soon forget! I only wish I had digested all of that sooner so I could thank Qi in person! What a blessing to get to see such an influential person in my life again! The world God created for each of us really is THAT small!

Super Saturday

We hit two destinations today, and met with three friends (which might have been 8)! Whew!

I LOVED this quote, and so, grabbed it via this shot.

First, we hit the Evergreen Maritime Museum. We'd stopped by last week when we wound up at Chiang Kai Shek Memorial, but entrance wasn't cheap when you accounted for all of us, and there was just an hour 'til closing.

Today, we still only gave the place 1.5 hours, but they had started a promotion where you could write your New Year's Resolution on a display and get discounted entrance, so we lucked out!

While EV is "King of the World," Arthur has spotted the ice burg! Love it!

AND it was FABULOUS. There were tons of intricately recreated models of ships through the centuries. And there were interactive displays which were very cool, and would have been all the cooler if they had been in English. But most things were in English, with very few errors, which was a pleasant change of pace. My favorite thing was the salvaged last words of a Titanic passenger who had carved a farewell to his family on a plank. I cried.

We Caspies triumph after we complete our own boat puzzle!

Here we met up with Krissy, another candidate to teach the kids Chinese and live with us in Utah. It wasn't optimal to try and meet someone AND manage Arthur and three other kids in a multi-floored museum. But we liked her and she joined us for lunch at Taipei's Main Station - our second destination.

I wanted to take the kids to see the train station because I remember it was busy and it was huge. My memory of it's busy-ness and huge-ness was BEFORE the MRT was completed and before the high speed trains ran. It's busy enormity is almost beyond description. On a Saturday afternoon, the press of people was intense. And we wound ourselves through an immense labyrinth on 4 below-ground levels just to find our way to the ground level and main hall.

I had suggested we meet Sammi and Sophia there for lunch. We didn't arrive until 2 pm and we were starving. Sammi pointed to a box lunch place next to where we met and said it was the cheapest option. More crucial, the lunches were ready NOW so we grabbed what we needed and went to find a place to eat in the food court on the second floor. That was MY plan, but I wasn't prepared for the throng that would still be eating at 2 pm on Saturday. Not only was there not a place for all 9 of us, but the noise was so loud we would not have been able to communicate without shouting.

We fled quickly to a pavilion outside and sat to the far side of a performance going on which we didn't understand. So things stayed noisy, but there was room for the kids to run, and dance, and complain our box lunches weren't very good (true). So I was much more content there, and we were able to visit with Krissy a bit more. (She was great with the girls, and easy to talk to, and would make a good teacher/roommate, but we give preference to people who are able to stay longer, and as of now, she was only thinking to come during a break from school. We're going to keep in touch.)

Around 3 I finally pressed us to leave. We were meeting a family from the ward at home at 5pm and I needed to clean and cook dinner. Sammi helped us back inside, and then decided to buy everyone a treat.

So we had tiny custards out of real egg shells and the kids drooled over the Thomas the Train ride around a giant Christmas tree and Quent asked Sammi about the mass wedding happening just yards away from that.

This shot was Q's idea! So we were wedding crashers, joining the other 20 or so couples who just got married. It was a group ceremony we just caught the tail end of and only crashed the picture portion. It struck Q and myself as very odd and very funny, but our reaction confused Sammi so perhaps group ceremonies in hectic public places are a thing here....

Finally we said goodbye to Sammi and Sophia, and Kai who was staying with them for the weekend and were on our long ride home. We made it back at 4:30 and I decided I MOST needed to lay down or I'd be a lousy hostess. It was a good thing I did because our guests delayed their arrival, then confessed they were at Costco, then asked how late the kids went to bed, and finally said they would be there at 8 pm, at which I point I suggested we change days. (I don't know how kids function pleasantly until 10 and 11 pm here - and I'm talking LITTLE kids, 3 and 4 years old! - but MINE don't, and I don't either.)

My kids had been looking forward to this evening for a few weeks, but thankfully I had an alternative activity we'd been procrastinating too: putting up the Christmas tree. So after an easy dinner of pasta and salad, the kids and I made our tree and then made ornaments for almost 3 hours while listening to Christmas songs. It was a lovely evening after all, and the rest I grabbed at 4:30 carried me through 'til bedtime! It's days like these that truly increase my love of the Sabbath as a day of REST!

PS: The weather for all of this was unseasonably GORGEOUS. Clear blue skies, sunny, about 75 degrees! My one regret of the day is that our plans weren't more centered around enjoying it while it lasted! I said to Quent, "This is the kind of weather that comes just before a typhoon! I wonder if one is coming." Sure enough, though it's no typhoon, a storm came in last night about bedtime and it's still dark and rainy outside today. (Sunday)

Arthurian Classics

"Mommom" and Arthur on the Maokong gondola

About two weeks ago we were eating dinner with friends, when Arthur climbed into my lap and exclaimed, "This is a boy who loves his mom." Wow! Talk about knowing the way to his mother's heart. That made my whole week! A few weeks before that he said enthusiastically, "Mommom, you're my BEST friend!" How I love that kid!

Stew's Thanksgiving meal with Sammi and Alan

I gave him a much needed haircut today. I think I had trimmed the hair out of his eyes one other time on our trip, but otherwise, it's been about 4 months since his last hair cut. When his dad, who met us on the train this evening, complimented Stew on it, he then climbed into my lap and whispered to me, "Momma, I no like R-do (how he says his own name) anymore."

It was such a sad little confession, I couldn't help but wonder what was up, so, full of concern, I asked him why. He explained, "I no feel awesome anymore."

"Oh no!" I replied. "Why don't you feel awesome anymore?!"

His answer: "Because you cut my hair."

"Well, actually your cut hair gives you even MORE power," I comforted him. "It's like a super power." That seemed to do the trick, and I think he will suffer no more mental anguish from losing about an inch from his lovely locks.

From our outing today to the Mirimar shopping mall for a ride on the ferris wheel. Notice the haircut. :)

Earlier this afternoon on the train, he was being unusually docile. (He wound up taking a nap later, so I think he must have been tired.) He was calmly sitting in his stroller and just chatting with Kai, who shared the following as his happy moment of the day.

Arthur pointed at him and said, "Bzzt. Now you are 3!"

"I'm three?" Big Bro asked.

Stew with BOTH buddies: Bradly AND Big Bro

"Yes, so we can be best buddies!" Cute little Arthur is the most richly blessed with buddies here because HIS peers are not locked away in schools, yet. But still he truly misses his best buddy and cousin Elwood back at home! He even crawled into bed with me one morning, sobbing, "Elwood is so far away."

"Yes," I comforted him, "but you will see him very soon." Later in the day, Arthur told me of a dream he'd had that night that he was playing with Elwood at his house with a train. Poor cutie had to wake up and realize that though he had a train and buddy Bradly, Elwood WAS still far away.

But while there are aspects of life - haircuts, missing friends - that have tried our little guy, he is still FULL of confidence and his 3 year old swagger makes everyone smile. He even said at one point, "I can do it! Because I'm an American!" Look out Taiwan! Arthur is on the lose, practically running wild, and he will melt hearts if you let him!