In English, Please. Please?

Just received the fingertip pulse oximeter I ordered. The thing Steve needed over a week ago. The one I ordered on eBay. The one that was shipped out of California, usually an indication that it might be compatible with the needs and expectations of American customers.

Sigh......

It was in perfect condition, though for half an hour we had no way to confirm that other than lack of dents. All the paperwork which came with it was totally in Chinese characters. While I suspect I learned years ago that China uses multiple alphabets, I have no way of guessing which it might be, even if the fonts were large enough that I could decipher which line bent which way and connected or didn't with which other one.

My starting point was having worn them in hospitals, and knowing that they had a spring on one end and opened to surround a finger on the other, after which it gave LED readouts of blood O2 levels and pulse. 100 would be a great reading, the lower it got the more the staff panicked. Yeah, I got that part, no problem.

(Hey, gimme a break! I was sick in the hospital! I didn't have to work it, just wear it.)

On my finger, nothing happened with this one. I examined it. There were a couple or three places where there might be a button which might produce results which eventually I might figure out how to use, which might be reinforced if it would ever produce some kind of numbers to show I was right and it worked. (Ha! I bet you think you are confused after reading that sentence!) All that of course depended on whether numbers were the same in Chinese script as in English. Of that possibility I admit I am totally ignorant. In fact the gizmo was completely and speedily successful in convincing me I was, simply, ignorant.

And incapable.

I pushed poked, pulled, tried things in combinations thereof. Nothing. OK, flop sweat. Not quite nothing.

All the accompanying materials were collected: box, plastic fitted insert, single sheet and booklet of illegible Chinese characters which may as well have said, "Tattoo me on your body and nobody will know it says you are an idiot or a menu selection or both." I searched every scrap and the only English I found was on the envelope.

I opened my computer, looked up the order, and contacted the seller to express my frustration with the instructions.  There were a plethora of full caps and strings of punctuation marks. Going back over the item description after venitng, I was able to find that it used 2 AAA batteries.

Have those. Progress, eh? Well....

Still didn't help me to figure what to open and how in order to install them.

Brainstorm! YouTube! I googled how to install batteries in these doohickeys, and while the item which had a video posted of the process was not the exact same thing, and different shapes of things were in different places, there was just enough similarity that I figured out where to look for the actual moving parts, as opposed to decorations, or factory joins never meant to part ways. At least I think so. Without instructions, who knows? Maybe I open those and store my secret drug stash in there. If I had one. Which I don't. Just so you know. I have other excuses for being this inept. No, I'm not telling you.

Once batteries were in place, then reversed to be really in place, I put it over my finger. I wasn't sure if the nail was supposed to go one particular way or not, so tried it both ways. If that still didn't work, I was prepared to ask for a refund. But it did. I'm not sure it is correct, as my O2 was low and my pulse high, and when I calm down I'm going to feel just fine. When lit, English finally appears in red to tell you which number is which. Otherwise I'd still be confused. But we'll each keep monitoring our own numbers to get a read on how it performs. Or how we do. 

If nothing else, I go to my cardiologist next week. I'll bring it along and ask for a comparison with their equipment.

I wonder if they'll charge?