Update: She stopped breathing this morning.

That is, all of got through the night. Very strange coming back, seeing all Mei's stuff, lying down, and she's not there. Plus the neighbours baby was crying this morning, so for a split second I thought perhaps Mei was back here. At any rate, Gaby and I feel a lot more...composed. Mei is doing fine according to the nurses. Gaby and the grandmothers are going there this morning.

A little bit of information on what Mei has:
http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/hirschsprungs_ez/

A lot of people have said “Buying blood, WTF?”... Well, I guess that's how they do it down here. As far as I can tell, each hospital keeps a bit of blood themselves, but rely on a bloodbank for {many|some|most} requests. However, the idea of pre-stocking is a completely foreign concept here. I think I wrote before on this blog, but we went to a store once, asked for soap. We were told there was no soap. “Well, shouldn't you buy more, since you already sold out and it's only the middle of the month?” “No, we only sell soap for the first half of the month.” Another time, shopping for an out-of-stock item, I was told ?(quite angrily) “We stock enough of the product, the problem is that people just buy it so fast.” I guess the same applies to blood?

Things are complicated by the fact that the donation requirements are absurd to say the least. Obviously you want healthy blood being donated, but they will deny someone from donating for any reason, such as having taken aspirin a day before. My wife's doctor was denied because... he's a doctor. Went I want to donate yesterday, the nurse said I couldn't because I was “scared”.

Then, throw in a good dose of inefficiency (really, I almost flipped on the receptionist when she said “receiving blood??” and seemed puzzled at how to handle our order), and there you go. When I was paying, the lady insisted on a national tax ID number and wouldn't let me say “no, I don't need a government-authorized invoice, just let me have the blood so I could go“. Fortunately the doctor was with me (I don't think I'd have been the best driver), so he gave his... crazy.

The whole blood issue is small however compared to the doctor who handled Mei. This should have been caught quickly, before it became a major issue, if he wasn't negligent. Probably doesn't help much to think about it, but it just infuriates me to know that this was so easily avoidable, and *should* have been avoided.