It's the traveler's greatest fear. You can live with losing your credit card, you can certainly survive if they lose your luggage and there's even a way out if you lose your passport.

But getting sick? That's another matter.

Visions abound of being holed up in some ghastly shack, surrounded by natives with equipment equally as primitive. Medicines haven't been updated for donkey's years and don't for a moment let them give you a blood transfusion. Heaven only knows what nasties are lurking in those dubious instruments.

So it was last month, on July 5 to be precise, that I keeled over, six days after arriving in Beijing from Auckland, New Zealand.

I was with a friend sightseeing at Houhai when my legs turned to jelly. I could barely move, so he rushed me home in a taxi and I collapsed in bed. The next day the awful truth dawned on me as I looked down at my leg. I'd suffered a recurrence of the dreaded cellulitis.

I'd had this infection once before, seven years ago in Sydney, Australia. First the aches, then a mild fever and finally the leg had blown up to double its size and started changing color.

My doctor had simply sent me home with a prescription for antibiotics and an instruction to "keep your leg raised" to let the infection dissipate into the rest of the body.

With nothing to do for days on end, what else but to watch TV and google the Net for all the gory details? Do it yourself - I had just the news I didn't need. This cellulitis ain't no fun. People have even lost their limbs over it and the commonest thing doctors do is get sufferers to hospital and pump them with regular anti-biotics through a drip. My heart had sunk; why hadn't my doctor advised this? Eventually, after two weeks of painful suffering at home, the infection gradually vanished and the leg regained its health. But the word cellulitis haunted me, as did that doctor and his casual manner.

Now it was back, in a place where I spoke none of the native tongue and they spoke little of mine.

The liaison officer for expat employees duly accompanied me to the Sino Japanese Friendship Hospital. We were off to a good start - it was just down the road, it was squeaky clean and we were attended to straight away.

Wang relayed the story to the doctor, who eventually replied: "wh4uf1p84ty134p98y3".

"What did he say?" I asked Wang skeptically, "go home and take it easy?"

"No," said Wang. "He says you've got a bad infection, they're going to hook you up to a drip and give you antibiotics right now. You must keep doing this for the next few days."

You beauty! Music to my ears. The infection was gone in half the time. Sometimes our worst fears aren't founded.