St. Louis Mission Trip: Josh's Hospital Vistit

 It started with a swollen hand and ended in isolation at Glennon Children's Hospital, in St. Louis. After waking up in the travel van after two hours of driving I noticed that my hand had started to swell, and there was some sort of bite mark on my hand. Once we had gotten to St. Louis, the entire back of my right hand was swollen and red. The leaders were concerned about me, so Pastor Jon and Yoon first drove me to Smiley Urgent Care. Which looks like a set out of the walking dead, which makes Smiley Urgent Care a perfect name for it. We then ended up at downtown Urgent Care, after they couldn't figure up what was wrong with me, they sent me to Cardinal Glennon Children's hospital, and after driving 25 miles out of our way, we realized that the urgent care had given us the wrong address to the hospital. Despite this, we sought out care  at this hospital. After 4 hours of the same questions, and lots of waiting, the hospital decided they wanted to keep me overnight as they still didn't know what was wrong with me. However, to spend the night I had to be transferred to Cardinal Glennon, the hospital they were supposed to send me in the first place. 

At this point is was already almost midnight and we were on our way to the right hospital, which was only a mile away from the dorms that the rest of the group was staying at. After all the same questions, the hospital put me in an isolation room because they didn't know if I was contagious or not.  

Yoon had gone back to the dorms because the rest of the group needed the van we were using for transportation, so it was just me and Pastor John chillin like villains in a hospital room.

 After many more of the same questions and many phone calls to my parents for updates on my conditions and location, Pastor Jon crashed on the couch and I crashed on the hospital bed after a 21 hour day. Something important me and Pj did learn is that if you eat Oreos and chips ahoy before you go to sleep you wake up with a very unpleasant taste in your mouth. Without boring you with more details about the questions they bombarded me with and all the doctors that had to put on special gowns to come see me, they eventually concluded that I had been bitten by something and the bite had gotten infected by a bacteria. They put me on an antibiotic and sent me out of there at 3 o clock. Me and PJ had finally escaped! When Yoon came to pick us up he drove 30 miles an hour past the hospital with the door open and me and PJ jumped in before the hospital could imprison us any longer! Okay I'm just kidding about that last part- there were speed bumps, Yoon could only go fifteen miles per hour.

- A novel by Joshua Wadlow

"Did a bug bite you?" -Jon H.