The Trip to the Hospital

Where do I start? The hospital or the bus? Yesterday I had a day full of unexpected situations. The things that I always wanted to avoid kept coming towards me like thorns. 

The four leaders for Women and Leadership

From 9 AM to 3 PMish, I participated in a mandatory challenge course at Brown University with other Summer@Brown students. About hundred students were put into separate groups based on the course they are taking. There were two groups for Women and Leadership and I was in the one lead by Isabella and Cynthia. I really loved how cooperative and friendly my group was throughout the whole day.  Failure meant laughter and trying harder than before. 

The picture that I took with Don's gorilla pod

The games that we played required us to all be leaders, to listen, and to work together. First, we had mini games like "Egg, Chicken, Hawk, and Princess." We had to play rock paper scissors in order to level up. Whenever we lost, we downgraded by one level. Another game that we played was making eye contact with someone and having a yelling contest if that person looked back. A strategy game that we played was connecting pipes so that a ball could go into a cylinder container. However, there was a lot of restrictions of playing that game such as not letting pipes touch each other and not talking. The lesson of the pipe game was to understand that everyone is equally important and we have to find several ways to communicate with each other without talking. When the ball dropped to the floor, we all lost patience but it was funny how much determined we were to get the ball into the container. In one of the games, we had to line up in a small space in the sequence of our birthday month without stepping out of the space. If one of us stepped out of the space, a part of your body was taken away; in other words, you couldn't use that part of your body. It was difficult because three of us were blindfolded, including me. There were times when I felt impatient because I couldn't see. It took us 20 minutes to put 13 of us in order. The lesson of this game was to be able to work together and to find a strategy that worked for all of us. 

During break, we went to a building at Brown that had pictures of famous people. But, I noticed that there was only one women out of around twenty drawings of famous people. I don't think I would of noticed it if I didn't take Women and Leadership at Brown this summer. This class has made me realize how little women are represented in society today. Although gender discrimination is bad today, it was much worse a long time ago. 

All week, I tried to avoid a problem that I had by thinking that it will go away. I haven't been to the hospital in America before because my insurance only works for emergency. I was afraid that the hospital wouldn't accept my medical insurance so I stayed quiet while my eye was stinging. I woke up one day this week with the feeling of soap of my eye whenever I blinked. It's really bothering when I have to blink a lot in the sun without a choice to control it. At one point, I kept on thinking what might of caused it to be that way and started panicking. I called my chaperone, Jenny, and we walked to the hospital. We decided to walk there because it looked not so far from my dorm on iphone Maps. However, it took us awhile and we eventually got lost. We spotted a shuttle bus and ran to ask the bus driver for a ride to the hospital. Coincidentally, the driver worked for the hospital and gladly took us to the Children Hospital. 

At the hospital, the nurses in the Emergency Room told us to expect to wait at least two hours until they called my name. Don called me and made me feel so much better, although he did get me emotional. Jenny left me in the waiting room to get some food. I felt so bad because she couldn't get to eat her fancy dinner before we came to the hospital. At least she got to eat the food from the hospital. On her way down the elevator, she spilled hot tea on the elevator so she told the worker and they helped her clean it. When the ER nurse called my name, I had to show my ID once again and they asked for my ID for Brown University. The nurse had a hard time finding the phone number and address for my medical card. I didn't know it because I never went to the hospital or used my card before. I never thought that I would run into trouble. Actually, I hoped that I would never had to visit the hospital because it's complicated and EXPENSIVE. The nurse eventually found the address and number and the doctor called me in. The doctor made my eye glow to see if I have any scratch marks in my eye and tried to flip my eye lid too. However, at the end of the diagnosis, she said that she couldn't figure out what is causing my eye to sting. The doctor stretched my eye out when she was examining it, which added to my pain. 

I left the hospital in worse condition than before and no medicine for the pain. However, I heard about a couple kids who got taken to the hospital for an eye problem. I wonder if our pain are related in any way. I wish the best for them. I'm used to not taking medicine for my pain and just waiting for the pain to go away. But, this time, I wish I had something to reduce the pain. I wish the best for the rest of my trip in the East Coast. Hopefully, things will get better.