Silk Road: Kashgar Surgery a Success

Uyghurs sit in chairs waiting for the blue doors to open

We had been told my dad's surgery was scheduled in the morning so we had planned to go after he woke up. But at 11am, I got a frantic message from our tour guide, saying we needed to get to the hospital as soon as possible to sign another form.

Hadn't my aunt done that already I asked? The guide, who was there when she signed a bunch of papers -- including one promising not to give hongbao to the doctor -- said apparently there was one more to sign, regarding the anesthetic and the risks because of my dad's age.

My mom and I rushed over there, but were bogged down by security -- we had to go through the routine of showing our passports and having our bags scanned, and then figuring out where the surgery room was. All we knew was that it was on the third floor. We asked some hospital staff but even they weren't sure. How could that be?

The line for the elevator was long, so we decided to take the stairs. Once we got there, we saw a room full of Uyghurs, young and old waiting for their loved ones to come out of the surgery area.

We tried to find a doctor and saw no one, and wondered if we were in the right place and went back upstairs to the seventh floor.

In the doctor's office I recognized the doctor who had asked us questions about my dad's medical history and he told us to go down to the third floor. We said there was no one there, and he took us down and told us to stay here.

We were the only Han Chinese in the room, and it made us wonder what Uyghurs thought of us, thought they might have figured out we were not mainland Chinese.

Finally we heard a shrill voice calling our family name.

We rushed over to a small sliding window where a Han Chinese woman wearing a surgical mask gave us a form to sign. It already had my dad's signature on it (or what he could scrawl), but needed us to confirm we accepted the risks of the anesthetic due to his age.

"We are in surgery now! You can't leave! If there is a complication we may need to talk to you!" How reassuring.

There was no water fountain or toilet in this area, nothing. But the best part of this room was that it had wifi. So I used WeChat to communicate with other tour members and our tour guide to give them the latest updates. Our tour guide showed up and we hugged and I cried a bit. The guide was our rock and we were eternally grateful for the help and support.

Transferring dad back to his own bed

After a while the same woman called for us again -- we didn't hear her at first and a Uyghur man motioned for us to come back to the window. The woman with the surgical mask held out a kidney-shaped steel shallow pan that was full of dark blood.

She said the surgery was over and this was how much blood that was drained from my dad's head. I started taking pictures of it, and she encouraged me to do so; she added there were no complications. We now had to wait for him to wake up before taking him back to his room.

My mom and I were relieved the operation went smoothly and I reported this back to tour members. Being able to communicate on WeChat made me feel like we weren't completely cut off from the rest of the world.

It was another hour or so before dad was finally wheeled out of the surgery room. He was groggy but seemed fine. We got into the special elevator to the seventh floor and wheeled him back to his room.

Now we would have to see how long it would take for him to recover so we could get him back home as soon as possible.

Silk Road: Late Night at Kashgar Hospital

The view outside my dad's hospital window of a colourful tower

It was around midnight when we arrived at Xinjiang Kashgar First People's Hospital. We had to have our passports checked at the gate and then our bags screened by X-ray machines.

Turns out we would have to do this every time we went to the hospital, which was twice a day.

Then we went to the emergency room where my dad was lying on a stretcher and he wasn't very comfortable. We took his jacket and tried to make a pillow out of it. Inside the bare room were other patients. To the left was a young man in black curled up in the fetal position with lots of bandages covering his head.

Outside the room a young mother was wheeling her young daughter on a stretcher. The girl, about six or seven years old, was naked from the waist down and her right leg was severely bruised. It didn't look too good.

An ATM machine with cameras above

We were trying to keep my dad entertained while my mom, our doctor friend and the tour guide went to the doctor's office. The doctor was Uyghur and so the guide acted as a translator, explaining each step of the surgery, the surgeon even drew a diagram showing how he would drill holes in my dad's head to drain the blood from the clot.

Then we had to get dad's paperwork done to have him admitted but more importantly to pay the hospital 10,000 yuan (US$1,506) in cash right away. My mom went to the Bank of China ATM and thank goodness was able to withdraw cash. She could only do it in increments of 3,000 yuan which mean withdrawing at least four times.

We wheeled my dad across the hospital compound into another building -- again we went through security checks before he was put into the elevator to the seventh floor -- the neurology ward.

The nurse asked us if we had paid yet and we replied we were in the process of doing that, but she still wouldn't wheel him into the room until she'd seen the receipt. It was that bureaucratic.

Finally the payment was sorted and dad was wheeled down the hall then to the left.

The Han Chinese nurse flicked on the flourescent lights of a semi-private room (no private rooms exist in the hospital unless you're a VIP on the top floor of the hospital). In the bed closest to the door was a young Uyghur man with bandages around his head, while in the other bed was a woman, his wife.

The nurse shooed the woman out of the bed and forced the bleary-eyed Uyghur woman to help put fresh bedding on the bed my dad would be lying on. Then he was transferred from the stretcher to the bed.

At the foot of the bed was a bare bones metal frame cot with bamboo slats with a thin mattress and lump pillow. We were told that since we were foreigners they would let us use the cot free of charge -- usually others would have to pay to rent it on a daily basis.

My dad was given pyjamas but they didn't fit -- we would later find out we had paid a 100 yuan deposit on them.

Another Uyghur doctor who spoke some Mandarin asked us more questions, the answers he entered in the computer, like how many children does my dad have, what medications is he taking, when was his last surgery.

We were told by hospital staff that one family member would have to be there for the night, and my aunt, my mom's younger sister, immediately volunteered. She insisted, saying surgery would be the next day and that we needed to rest. We also gave her the authority to sign all the papers the next morning for the surgery to go ahead.

But it would be a sleepless night for her having to tend to my dad's needs, while we went back to the hotel before 4am. Our tour guide was amazing, there the whole time, translating and advising us on how hospitals work here.

I didn't get much sleep -- at one point I woke up crying and scared, trying to process what was happening and wondering if things would be OK.

Silk Road: Our First Kashgar Hospital Experience

A standoff simmered between hospital staff and us over my dad's well being

The next morning my dad's situation didn't improve -- in fact at one point he fell in the bathroom and my mom had to get my uncle who was traveling with us, to come and help pick him up from the floor.

After a mini conference that included three doctors, it was decided that my dad should go to the hospital for a CT scan.

The ambulance leaving our hotel the first time

Our tour guide arranged for a non-emergency ambulance to come and take him to Xinjiang Kashgar First People's Hospital -- the best hospital in the city -- but a traffic jam resulted in the ambulance instead driving to Xinjiang Kashgar Second People's Hospital which was closer to the hotel.

The hospital looked drab and since my mother, her good friend and I followed in a taxi, we weren't quite sure where to go look for my dad. We soon realized we were in new territory, as most of the patients were Uyghurs and some of the staff were Han Chinese.

After asking reception a few times in Mandarin, we finally got some directions and managed to find him in a nearby building with two of his doctor friends.

The CT scan did reveal a blood clot and the medical staff there -- in particular the administrator -- insisted that we had to stay and do the operation in the hospital.

One of the doctor friends -- the one who first assessed my dad -- was insistent that it not be done in this hospital which didn't seem to have the highest hygienic standards. He called long distance to a neurosurgeon he knew in Vancouver and briefed him on the situation.

At this point there was a bit of a standoff between the Han Chinese and Uyghur medical staff and us as to what would be best for my dad. Seeing him lying in a bare bones room didn't seem to be the best option for him, and yet the Chinese administrator claimed my dad was in no condition to leave the hospital.

Dad's medical booklet at the first hospital

Finally our insistence was respected -- but not without signing several forms saying the hospital was not responsible for what happened to my dad. My mom had to sign the forms and put a red thumb print on top of her name. That's what you call double-step verification Chinese style.

Eventually he was released and we all returned to the hotel in time for a late lunch.

During lunch we made calls to my dad's medical insurance company in Quebec, Canada, and after listening to the situation and seeing pictures of the CT scan, they insisted my dad could not fly in his condition and that he had to be "treated locally".

Our doctor friend tried very hard to explain where we were (we're in a remote area in China!) and the conditions of the hospitals here, but the insurance company didn't seem to care. I would later find out that flying in dad's condition would have been impossible.

in the evening we gathered again for another conference, and there were suggestions of getting into Xinjiang Kashgar First People's Hospital tomorrow morning. And then someone threw out the idea of going now to avoid traffic jams.

By now it was 11pm and I contacted our tour guide again -- can you help us arrange for an ambulance to take my dad to the hospital? The guide rushed over and accompanied my dad, the doctor friend and my mom in the ambulance.

I was not far behind with my aunt and uncle. It was going to be a long night ahead.

Silk Road: Something's Wrong

One of the side streets near Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar, days before October 1

 There were already signs that my dad wasn't doing well. He was walking slower and slower, and his brisk steps were down to a shuffle. Many of our tour members were getting concerned. "Is your dad OK?" they asked.

At first we thought it was exhaustion -- we were on a 17-day tour and we were waking up at 6am to getting out the door by 7.30 to drive three to four hours to the next destination. He was napping on the bus at every opportunity, but he didn't want to miss out on any sightseeing opportunities either.

Kashgar is the furthest west city in China and Xinjiang

The first sign of trouble was at Urumqi airport, day 12 of the tour. I was the last one of the group to get my boarding pass because I had mistakenly checked in a battery charger in my luggage. Of course my dad chastised me for this, but he wasn't his usual fiery temper which was unusual.

Then the two of us went through security, me first, him behind. As I was packing up my stuff, I heard a cry for help and turned around to see my dad being caught by a young security officer who was trying to get him onto a bench and then help him put on his shoes. The young man asked me if I knew him and I said he's my dad.

The officer politely explained he had to go back to work and I thanked him for helping out. I asked dad what was going on, and he said he thought he sat down, but missed the bench.

I thought it was strange, but helped him get all his things together and we walked slowly to the gate. Mentally he was fine, but physically there was something wrong.

After we arrived in Kashgar and got off the tour bus to go to the restaurant for dinner, dad had trouble getting off the bus and luckily the tour guide caught him and steadied him.

Later that evening back in the hotel, my mom asked a doctor friend who was on the tour with us to see if my dad was having a stroke.

The doctor friend observed my dad carefully and he was a compliant patient; perhaps he also knew something was wrong. The doctor ruled out a stroke because my dad didn't have slurred speech and was still mentally fine, but that something was wrong with his motor skills.

He suggested we see how he was in the morning and then perhaps go to the hospital to get a CT scan of dad's brain.