A friend of mine on one of the many China-adoption-related online communities on which I'm a regular nuisance a contributing member recently posted this news photo of a Chinese kid in a clinic in Anhui. The kid, who seems to be about the age of most adopted children (maybe a year older at most), has been given an IV drip in the head.

This is pretty much standard operating procedure in Chinese medical care. If it's effective medicine, the belief goes, it's going to get into your body intravenously.


I know this because when we met our daughter, she had bronchitis that insisted on escalating into pneumonia. It was December in Chongqing, one of the largest, busiest cities in the world -- foggy, chilly and full of smog. It seemed like the river and the mountains conspired to keep the air close and thick. Construction work continued around the clock.

So, a couple days after meeting our daughter for the first time, we wound up going with a few of the other families in our travel group to the Chongqing University Hospital, pediatric wing. I helped the nurses hold my daughter still while we got the antibiotics into her.



My mom -- that's her behind me in the pictures -- did the same thing the Chinese parents and grandparents were doing down the hall and held up the bottle.

There were a few Chinese families there with their own customized IV holders, but unfortunately we were too preoccupied to get any good pictures of them. My Steadfast Spouse was busy holding her son's hand -- which also had an IV needle in it. We *all* got sick.



As much as I dislike antibiotics (overprescribed and breeding superbugs), I know I should have gotten one myself. I wound up coming down with laryngitis a couple days later (the only member of the family who'd learned any Mandarin phrases), which then blossomed into pneumonia just in time for our long flight home.

I get a little hazy about dates during this period. Obviously, there was a lot going on, and, well, the fever.

But I'm pretty sure this was how we spent Christmas Eve 2003.