Foreign Objects

“Stepford Villas” is the moniker conferred on my neighborhood by the expatriate community of Shanghai. In this time-warped neighborhood, men work and women join clubs. I would say tend house but that is not necessarily true. The same advantageous wage structure that has denuded the American landscape of manufacturing jobs in favor of cheap Chinese labor, allows middle-class American expatriates to hire housekeepers, nannies, drivers, and masseuses that make house calls. Not having to concern themselves with the mundane tasks of domesticity, the über-housewives of my neighborhood can actually do the projects in Martha’s magazine.

In Stepford Villas, I feel every part of the interloper that I am. I was a reluctant housewife. Sure, I look the part of the new mother: de rigueur track suit with spit-up stains on the shoulders, over-stuffed diaper bag with the accoutrement of babyhood, unkempt hair, and the edgy expression of someone in a sleep deprivation experiment. But underneath it all is a baffled woman who woke up in a life she did not recognize.

My neighborhood, now within Shanghai’s first ring road and boasting the tallest building in China, was nothing but farm fields less than fifteen years ago. Some of the locals look as mystified about their new circumstances as I do about mine. The climate and air quality in this unlikely boomtown are practically pestilent most of the year, but winter shows Shanghai to an advantage. The normally turbid skies clear, the odor-laden air dissipates, and the mosquitoes die.

On an appealingly brisk December day I got my son Kendall up from his nap and we headed over to our weekly playgroup session. There I could look forward to an abundance of sagely advice offered by childrearing experts, most with exactly one child each. This week’s hostess was Sasha, a Koala-cute Aussie with a gorgeous daughter who looks like her name--Amber. Amber has done everything first in our playgroup cohort: first to feed herself, drink from a cup, and say “mama.” I expect a solution to global warming and an end to strife in the Middle East before long thanks to the miraculous Amber. Surely this indicates what an outstanding mother Sasha is--a natural. Since my little man is the last to do everything, that makes me the malingering mother of the group.

Recently, I was riveted by the plight of the poor penguins captured in that docu-drama tying to perpetuate their species. As a result, my new mantra is, “keep the egg alive.” In a rare burst of confidentiality, a father (God forbid his wife overheard him) recently admitted to me that once the “egg” becomes a teenager the mantra will change to “don’t kill the egg.”

With Christmas just a few weeks away, Sasha thoughtfully scattered Christmas ornaments on the floor along with some toys for the kids to play with. Kendall, my egg, put everything in his mouth; a habit he would continue for another nerve-racking year. I assumed his mouthing of objects was a phase he would grow out of so I did not do much to discourage it. However, failing to examine what he was putting in his mouth proved to be a tragic mistake. Kendall quickly found an ornament and began mauling it.

I was only arms length away from him when I noticed that he was gagging. I suspected the worst and sprung into CPR mode. I vaguely remembered to “clear the airway,” and I attempted a finger sweep of the mouth. Unfortunately I pushed the foreign object deeper into Kendall’s throat. I should be fired. I flipped him upside down and began swatting him on the back. He began howling at this betrayal, first the fingers in his mouth, then sharp blows to his back. All I knew was that howls were good--it meant air was getting through. But I saw nothing ejected from his mouth. What a time to discover I have no aptitude for the Heimlich maneuver.

In the mean time, the playgroup crowd stood paralyzed by this spectacle; me, more crazed-looking than usual, and Kendall crying at the rude treatment he had been made to suffer unjustly.
“Did you see anything pop out of his mouth?” I asked Kaori, a micro-Asian woman, and mother of three from Japan.
“No, but I’ll look.” She replied helpfully and got down on her hands and knees and began searching the carpet. “What did it look like?”
“I didn’t see it, I only felt something hard just before my finger-sweep shoved it down his throat,” I said.
By now a few of the other moms had joined the search for the mystery object. My son’s crying had tapered off to a wounded whimper.
“Thanks for looking--but I have to assume he swallowed it. I need to get him to a hospital in case this object tears his esophagus or blocks his intestines. Sasha, can you call me a cab?”
“Just use my driver, he’s not doing anything,” she offered, in a somewhat cavalier manner, or maybe that was just my imagination. (Surely Amber would never put something like a Christmas ornament in her mouth!)

I rushed out to the minivan in the driveway and climbed in. “Wo yao chu port o man.” I instruct the driver in my survival-purposes-only Chinese. It is likely the only thing he understood was “port o man;” Chinglish for the Portman complex that housed the only Western medical clinic in Shanghai. It was late afternoon and the traffic moved disappointingly, though not surprisingly, slow. Along the way I managed to phone my husband Mark and assure him that yes, his first-born son was still alive and breathing, but no, the foreign object he was chewing on just before he began choking had not been located. Forty-five agonizing minutes later I arrived at the clinic to find my husband and my driver looking equally distraught. We rushed into the clinic and were quickly ushered into an examination room. A young, female doctor entered just seconds behind us.
“I understand your child may have swallowed something? What did it look like?”
“Uhh, I think it was part of a Christmas ornament. Actually, I may have pushed it down his throat when I was trying to sweep it out,” I explain in a voice dripping with ineptitude.
“Let’s put him up on the table and take a look,” she said. She retrieved a tongue depressor from a jar and attempted to insert it into the egg’s mouth. He responded with firmly closed lips.
“Sorry little man, we need to look inside your mouth. Open up please.” I requested, and he parted his lips only slightly, suspiciously. It was enough of an opening for the doctor to slip in and take a quick look. The egg focused on me with a betrayed look in his eyes; it would not be the last one of the day. The doctor then placed her stethoscope on his chest for a quick listen. He squirmed as the cold instrument stung his skin.
“There does not appear to be anything obstructing his airway,” she concluded. But so had I, like an hour before. “But you say you could not find the object. That means it could be in his stomach by now. I suggest and X-Ray to be certain.”
“Okay,” Mark and I replied in unison.
“Unfortunately our X-Ray machine is down; you will need to go the foreigners’ unit at Rui Jin University,” she said, handing us a card with the address. Our hearts sank.

We were not enthusiastic about visiting a local hospital. As most parents quickly discover, once you have children your relationship with the health care system intensifies. You see more doctors, more often, than you typically do as an adult, and that is just for routine check-ups and vaccinations; never mind the inevitable accidents that occur. I knew that in the event of an accident or sudden illness I would have to rely on the medical care available in Shanghai. Frankly, I hoped that day would never come. Sure, Shanghai has the world’s first Maglev train, an ultra-modern airport, and river-spanning bridges and tunnels employing the latest in civil engineering technology. But everyone knows that their hospitals are scary; SARS anyone? In the end, we did as we were told.

Mr. Chang, our driver, was waiting with the car running. In a city as large and sprawling as Shanghai he has an incredible ability to find any address in remarkable time. He employed all his professional driver skills, and some insanity, to get us through the heaving and impossibly narrow surface streets on the way to the local hospital.

Mr. Chang pulled up to the front gate and sprang from the car with speed and agility astonishing in a portly smoker. One look at Kendall and I, and the guard pointed us in the direction of the foreigner’s unit. The reception area was confidence-inspiring with polished floors and uniformed personnel. The Western clinic had called ahead to alert them of our impending arrival, so they were expecting us. We were quickly directed to the radiology department.

Once we passed through the doors of the foreigners’ unit and into the hallway of the local hospital, dread returned. I know it is cliché to talk about the medicinal smell of hospitals, but that would have been preferable to the odor that confronted us. The tangy stench of urine assaulted our noses immediately as we passed the public toilets. The corridor was brightly lit with fluorescent lighting that showed everything to a disadvantage; the missing tiles from the floor and the dirty, stained walls. Local Chinese milled about and stared at the wai gou ren walking past them. We arrived at the radiology department and after a short wait were escorted into the X-Ray suite. Our confidence returned when we saw the big, beautiful, state-of-the-art Philips X-Ray machine. We were pleased to discover that the room temperature, normally frigid in Chinese public buildings during the winter, was kept soothingly warm. Technicians placed protective vests around Mark and me. We were instructed to hold Kendall still as the device moved over him. We did as instructed. He looked so small and vulnerable on the table with no shirt on. He was scared and crying. Mark and I were scared and trying not to cry. I felt like I had failed him.

We were asked to return to the foreigner’s unit to await the results. Shortly thereafter, a throng of lab coats appeared and began deliberating. Lots of people wear lab coats in China. So what they were is anyone’s guess. Soon we were approached by a woman who identified herself as the interpreter.
“Unfortunately, the X-Ray was inconclusive--we could not locate the object,” she rattled off crisply, with only a hint of an accent, “therefore, the doctors suggest that we put your child under anesthesia and go in and look for the object with a gastric scope.”
“Uh, could you excuse us for a moment?” I stammered back, much less articulately.
“Oh-my-God, are they crazy?” I hissed at Mark. “They want to go on a fishing expedition in Kendall’s stomach.” Before he could answer I whipped out my mobile and punched in my best friend Sue’s number. She had caller ID so she knew it was me calling.
“Helloooo, whatcha doin?”
“Sorry, no time for chit chat. I am at Rui Jin Hospital, the egg swallowed something and they are proposing a rather radical solution, do you have Dr. Leung’s number?” I hammered out like a Gatling gun. Dr. Leung was our mutual pediatrician in Hong Kong.
Sue rattled off the doctor’s number before disconnecting.
I dialed and was astonished when the doctor answered after the first ring. After I explained the situation to him, he paused momentarily before responding.
“Normally, we would wait a few days to see if the object passes before such an aggressive intervention.”
I quickly and quietly related to my husband the gist of Dr. Leung’s advice which we then relayed to the interpreter. She returned to the throng of lab coats where there was much intense deliberation. She returned, looking grim.
“If you do not wish to search for the object, and instead want to wait for it, the doctors think it best that your son remain in the hospital overnight.”
“Thanks…but I think we will be more comfortable at home.” I said.

The hospital staff was disappointed with our decision but in the end accepted it. We paid our bill and returned home. The egg seemed fine that evening and slept through the night. The following day he was constipated for the first time that I could ever remember. The interpreter from Rui Jin hospital called to check on him. I can never recall a clinic or hospital in the U.S. making a follow-up call. I was grateful, but had nothing to report. So we waited.

The next morning the egg had his regularly scheduled morning poo. After attaching a clean diaper we set him on the floor to play and set about the grisly task of examining the contents of his diaper. We both donned rubber gloves and began our inspection. I was the first casualty. Overcome by the odor I dropped out. But Mark, God love him, soldiered on. After a few minutes of meticulous scrutiny he declared the diaper free of any foreign object.

Later that morning, after Mark had gone to work, the egg had a second poo. I knew I had to screw up the courage to go it alone. This time in addition to the rubber gloves, I added wads of toilet paper up my nose and dove in. Mercifully, my gloved fingers immediately hit something hard and non-biodegradable. There it was--the little plastic piece that connects the ornament with the wire tree hanger. It was not quite an inch long with a circular piece on one end and a dagger-shaped piece on the other. I bundled up the soiled gloves inside the diaper and along with its contents happily dropped it into the Diaper Champ and went off to call Mark with the good news.
“Mark, I found the object, it passed!”
“What did it look like?”
“Scary actually. It was pointed on one end and rounded on the other. We are lucky it didn’t do any damage in there.”
“What did you do with it?”
“What do you mean, do with it? I threw it away.”
“What! Go get it. We have to save that for posterity.”

Once again, I dawned gloves and tissue wads, opened up the Diaper Champ, and retrieved the souvenir. How strange, I thought as I examined the object after thoroughly washing it in anti-bacterial soap. To think that item passed completely through Kendall’s little body.

Later that day the interpreter called again to check on our son and the status of the foreign object in his body. She seemed as relieved as we were when I relayed the good news.

Some day my son will also marvel at the object that passed through him. For now he just seems content that the constipation has passed. For a moment, I can breathe easier, the egg lives.