Erica Lately

I took Erica into school late one day and her class was gone. While we waited I snapped a quick picture. The reason we were late is below, flick past quickly if you don't like looking at blood..

Erica provided us an opportunity to make our first visit to a Chinese emergency room. She and Clara were dancing in the lounge room. Erica lost her balance and fell ear first onto the corner of the air purifier. She was cut on the top of her ear, underneath the fold at the top of her ear (that might not make sense), behind her ear and on her scalp. David's company is subscribed to International SOS, so we are able to call there and get advice for medical situations. Because Erica was cut back and front of her ear (ie - might have some cut to her cartilage) they advised us to bypass the more local hospitals and take her to the Emergency clinic that has western doctors on staff. This hospital is clear on the other side of Shanghai.

So we drove the 1/1.5 hours to this other clinic. Once we were there it was the shortest wait time I have ever had in an emergency room. They literally met us at the door and greeted us by name. They whisked Erica into a room with a nurse and had her lying in a private room within five minutes. David was still filling out forms when Erica began to be treated! Initially we were seen by a (local) Doctor who advised sutures. Fortunately she asked for a second opinion. A British doctor saw Erica and advised that she could get away with glue and steri-strips.

Erica sustained her injury right before we left for a holiday on an island in the Philippines and was banned from swimming for five days :( Her ear still isn't completely healed. The deepest cut was underneath the top rim of the ear and that part still has scabbing. She experienced a little difficulty avoiding rolling over onto her ear during sleep for the first week.

This is a party bag that Erica brought home from a Birthday party. Some of the Birthday parties here are big productions. Seriously some of them must cost in the same range as a wedding and give the parents the same amount of stress. We threw a typical Australian backyard Birthday party and had regular lollies in our party bags ha!

Speaking of differences - the kids received items like this in their trick or treating bags. There is a very wide range of items given out at Halloween here. There are the American families who bring back candy from the USA - always extremely popular! And there are lots of Asian families who give out Asian treats which are not what many of the Western kids are used to - seeds, nuts, beef jerky, spicy products. We ran out of lollies at one point and resorted to some items that a Chinese friend left at our house. Every kid loves shrimp crackers right?! Nope they don't.