Party time!
Wow! Talk about surprise parties!
Regular readers will recall my Tuesday post in which I included photos taken during Nu Jia’s and my tour of the brand new, almost-finished 2nd floor rehab center . During the tour, we were told the new facility would be open by the end of the month, and indeed workmen were still busy all around us.
Well, this is China! Things can happen here really fast when there’s firm leadership, and today’s events sure proved the point. For this morning we were asked by our commander-in-chief, Dr. Zhu Hui, to report for duty on the 2nd floor, where we not only discovered our new rehab center broom-clean but also that tables were being set up for a lunchtime party.
🙂
Welcoming toast by Dr. Zhu
First cut by Nu Jia, Dr. Zhu and myself.
Solo cut by Kelvin (who’s here from Canada)
Not having it … David prefers pizza!
Off-duty nurses having a ball …
Of course, it wasn’t all play today … we come here to work, too! This is Day 23 since my surgery, and I am feeling more confident as I am able to hold better posture and learn to balance while bearing 100% of my own weight. Even Joseph Pilates might have admired my “core” progress!
Square those shoulders!
And finally, here are some more photos of our cleverly designed new center. It’s sort of challenging to describe, as it is built on the 2nd floor around a ground level atrium and covered with a huge skylight dome. Modern China is full of brilliant architecture, such as the brand new Kunming International Airport. So I feel we’re pretty lucky to be able to make good use of such an open and cheerful space.
Brand new everything + so MUCH space!
One day Nu Jia and I hope to use those steps
Here’s OT corner …
Lots of light = lots of happy indoor plants!
Looking ahead, in my next post I’ll publish some photos of the brand new 8th floor rooms that are now available for international patients who prefer to live on the hospital grounds rather than rent an apartment across the street as I did. Both work fine, but the new rooms are REALLY nice and offer newcomers a turn-key solution. Just get to the Kunming International Airport from Hong Kong, Shanghai, Guangzhou or Beijing (or even direct from Seoul, Korea, as I did in March) and a wheelchair-accessible London Taxi can bring you straight to the Tongren Hospital.
China Quad Diaries 
yay ali!
Hi Ali: it’s only three weeks, and look at YOU! YES!!!! standing right there Girlfriend and looking so strong and beautiful! I can’t wait to visit later this summer and meet you (save some fruit for us! the tray looks yummy). The expansion is sooooo impressive. Thank you for sharing your awesome and continuing recovery and the exciting and growing energy in Kunming! Tony and I are following with much enthusiasm.
the new place looks great!!!
Bonjour Ali. Yes this new “bootcamp” is quite impressive. Indeed it’s huge.
Always inspiring. Food looks great too! Now why can’t American rehabs and nursing homes look like that in America?
Alexandra.
You are as brave as any person I know of! Please forgive my ending a sentence with a preposition (I know your editor father can not) for the sentiment is true. Your standard is humbling to those of us ‘hollow men’ who suffer weak knees just reading your blog. The choices and judgments you have faced, the unwavering optimism and good cheer, the openness, the blog itself, set an almost impossible threshold but one utterly worthy of aspiration. Thank you. Your family support in its depth and breadth is also remarkable but, may I say, not at all surprising.
It is a such a good thing you are doing but not just for yourself, and not just for your family, but for the many who have known you all, not to mention those you now touch for the first time.
Joanne and I are thinking of you, thinking of you, thinking of you, wishing you the best, and in our lives, hoping to live up to your example.
Tom and Joanne Hardy.