I’m in the emergency department of Chaoyang Hospital. It’s crowded. There are a lot of people with IVs sitting about. There are just a lot of people all around. Sitting, standing, in chairs, on stretchers. I have two back to back thoughts. The first - I can do this, I used to have Kaiser. The second - what this ward must have been like during Covid.
My day started out with a text Yang and Elisa: can either of you come over and watch Amanda and Kobe? I think I need to go to the hospital.
They both come, And so started my week of medical tests and doctor visits. Blood tests, CT, advanced CT, MRI, Sonogram, Echocardiogram, 24 hour blood pressure monitor. Two emergency room doctors, two cardiologists, and two neurologists. Surely they will get to the bottom of it. Surely.
The hospital itself is remarkable. I’m impressed with its scale, its efficiency, its service. The room for drawing blood has twelve windows and during peak morning hours by my estimate handles at least 200 draws an hour. I get my blood drawn and I swear the nurse is some kind of ninja. I didn’t feel a thing, it must be experienced to be appreciated.
So what started all this? On Saturday night I felt dizzy while lying on my back trying to fall asleep. Not alcohol induced. Not room spinning. Not nauseous. But dizzy. As I tossed and turned that night, and every time I ended up on my back I felt dizzy. When I awoke and tried to stand..woah..need to sit down for a minute. I made my way downstairs to the refuge of the couch. When the dizziness didn’t pass, I texted Yang and Elisa and told Sabrina.
We took a didi to the Chaoyang hospital. I used to have access to international hospitals back when I was working, but no more. They say medicine is a practice and Chaoyang hospital gets a lot of rep. I feel too healthy to be in emergency; there are lot of really sick people. Sabrina navigates to the triage section, and we first need to pay the 70RMB fee. They take my blood pressure, 142/92 which isn’t great but a lot better than our home measurement. We wait an hour to see the doctor. Unlike the rest of the hospital, which has a modern clean feeling, the emergency department feels old, with open stalls used for examinations.
The doctor sees me, Sabrina translates. He orders a couple of tests (CT, blood, echocardiogram) which we line up and take. Then wait 30 minutes more and see the doctor again. He gives me an IV with some antistroke medicine.
We are back home by 6pm. I’m no longer dizzy but tired. The next day we monitor my blood pressure and it’s crazy high so we repeat the emergency department exercise. My blood pressure had recovered a bit by the time we got to emergency triage. I receive another IV. After two visits to the ER, I now have appointments with a cardiologist and a neurologist over the next couple of days.
The cardiologist essentially said (with Sabrina translation) that my heart calcification and arteries are normal for my age. The next day, I got the MRI which is the second MRI of the year for me (the first was when I had a brief dizzy spell in late December). The neurologist was more proactive, prescribing an anti stroke medicine and a blood pressure medicine and ordering more testing. She looked at the MRI images and didn’t see any significant problems. Notably, she didn’t rule out Parkinson’s.
For the advanced CT, they called my name and ushered me into the room. The CT specialist looked familiar, he was the same person who ran the MRI machine the day before. Sabrina helped communicate with him the day before and he was now looking for her. He asked in Chinese “where’s your family” to which Sabrina, standing behind him, popped up and said “here”. Sabrina, as it turns out, was the previous CT patient (a routine followup).
With no clear diagnosis that could explain my dizzy spells, I turned to AI. AI was incredibly helpful with translating and analyzing all the information from the hospital. With one significant exception. The AI said my MRI diagnosis was “right occipital encephalomalacia” which indicated a small stroke or reduced blood flow caused some permanent damage. I was quite worried about this and eventually cross checked it against another AI. It turned out to be false. The MRI was actually showing the same benign cyst the January MRI showed. Just like doctor diagnosis, AI diagnosis benefit from a second opinion.
On Friday, I wore a BP monitor for 24 hours. Happy joy joy. We followed up with another cardio and neural appointments, this time Sabrina picking what she felt were more suitable doctors. The cardio doctor said my BP had recovered and there was no significant heart disease. She ordered cholesterol reducing medicine since my LDL is a bit high for someone with calcification. Still no clue on what caused the dizziness. She asked that I come back in three months.
My last appointment was with the neurologist and she also did not have a clear answer on what caused my dizziness. She had me walk, raise my arms, saw my right hand shaking, and asked a few diagnostic questions. She then prescribed me medicine which if it works will confirm a diagnosis. I am due back in a month.
I’m feeling better, but don’t have an explanation for what caused my extended dizzy spell. I feel I had some kind of “event” as I wasn’t feeling normal for several days afterwards. We’ll see.