Acute Myocardial Infarction-Thoughts on Escaping Death (4)

The time spent in the hospital was truly hard to endure—not just for the patients, but for their caregivers as well. I noticed that everyone else in the Intensive Care Unit had brought their own relatives to stay with them, while I was the only exception. It wasn't about money, but trust. Many people simply couldn't bring themselves to trust the nursing attendants at the hospital...

The nursing attendant my wife hired cost two hundred yuan a day, which was the going rate at the hospital. But I soon discovered that all the nursing attendants there came from the same place, even the same village. Whenever meals were delivered or the single beds for the nighttime caregivers were handed out, the corridors would be filled with the loud voices of these attendants greeting and chatting with one another...

I didn't want to speak ill of the nursing attendant. In fact, during my first five days in the hospital bed, she had done a perfectly adequate job. Since I had diarrhea, she was always tireless in helping me clean up. But just when I had begun to feel grateful, she asked me for a red envelope, as though what she was doing now counted as extra nursing care...

If she had continued working diligently, I wouldn't have minded giving her a red envelope at the end. But what was impossible to tolerate was her greed. And by greed, I didn't mean money or possessions, but food...

The hospital provided meals for every inpatient. My meals, for instance, were low-fat and low-salt, with practically no flavor or oil at all. For a while, I thought the hospital cooks only needed to boil everything until it was soft. The nutritional meals were enough to turn anyone's stomach, but for the sake of recovering,