Another trip to Dr. Li

As soon as Micheal heard that my test results still weren't quite right he decided that I had to go to the Chinese doctor again. This afternoon he picked me up in his fairly new BMW and drove me to the same doctor's office that we visited a few weeks ago.

We arrived after an awkward car ride (he doesn't speak a lot of English and I barely speak any Chinese at all). We walked into Dr. Li's cubical and I sat down. Dr. Li again checked my pulse on both my wrists. (I'm sure he isn't checking my pulse but that is what it looks like.) He talked to Michael a bit and began writing down a bunch of stuff on a prescription pad (it's actually a large notepad that he puts carbon paper under to make a copy for himself). There was a lady watching all of this and she began talking to Michael about me. All I understood from their conversation in Chinese was that I am American, I'm a teacher, I look good, and I'm fat.

After thanking Dr. Li and saying goodbye we walked back into the main hall which looks like a health food store. We went to the cashier then walked up to a counter in front of a wall with at least 150 drawers in it. Each one had different characters on it. Turns out this is where the herbs are stored. Michael gave the pharmacy workers the list of medicine and they began putting sheets of wax paper on the counter so they could put the herbs on the paper so Michael could examine them. At first I thought they would mix all these things together and I would have to boil this and drink it. I soon realized that would not be the case. There was way too much stuff for me to make tea out of. There were about 20 different herbs on the counter now. All put together it could fill a plastic grocery bag. Michael then said that we could get the medicine tomorrow. I thought this was a little weird since everything was sitting right there on the counter. It's not like they had to order it or anything.

After Micheal made sure all the herbs were there and that none of them were rotten we began to leave. Michael changed his mind and decided to show me what they were going to do with the herbs. From what I gathered, they take all the herbs and whatnot and put it in a high pressure boiler (Michael's words) then they make some sort of elixir from that. I'm sure it won't taste very good but at this point I'll do anything to make my WBC count go down so I can get residency in Dalian.