*S*O*S*
Monday, December 29th, 2008By Mama, who was peaceful and prayerful
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
“It was a rather un-fun morning.
It felt really weird being able to open my eyes, but not see.”
~ Kgirl-almost10
Today’s plan to visit the Killing Fields had not been intended for fun, but little did we expect to spend the morning at the SOS Hospital. However, that’s what you do when Kgirl9 unexpectedly and suddenly collapses at the market and loses her sight. When she looks so vacant and is understandably concerned that her eyes are open, but seeing nothing, you don’t hang around to finish your shopping. You might if you had a medical background and recognised the signs of dehydration, but I lacked that knowledge. All I had was the decision we had made not to take anti-malarial medication potentially condemning me.
And so we carried the limp 30kg form up the road, calling out, “Doctor? Doctor?” to a non-understanding audience. We crossed Busy Street almost effortlessly and K9 stumbled a few steps before the blurriness returned. I declined an offer of a motorbike – I know they fit five people on one bike here, but I could not see how we were going to hold our invalid on. Mrs H zipped in to a guesthouse where we knew a Cambodian lady spoke English while I continued home. I left K9 in a heap on a chair outside and ran up the three flights of stairs, shouting out to Rob. Having quickly imparted the bare bones of the story, I flew back down the stairs with passports and money to a tuktuk that had pulled up. English-speaking-lady suggested we go to the local children’s hospital, but upon hearing we had insurance she sent us to the International SOS Hospital. What a good choice. We stumbled out of the tuktuk and supported K9 inside between us. Before we could even sit her down someone appeared, grabbed a wheelchair and whisked us off to an examination room, taking the history as we walked, and calling out, “Trauma team.” It was very reassuring.
Over the next three hours we were seen by a couple of very competent conservative doctors in a professional-looking environment. We left a smear of blood on the bed, and there was something that looked like dried vomit, but apart from that everything was sterile. The needles came out of sealed packages and were disposed of after use. The paint on the walls was barely dry – renovations of the ten-year-old facility had been completed just two months ago and it had the appearance of any modern hospital, with service superior to any we have experienced in NZ.
Pretty quickly they started treating for dehydration, with the promise of leaving the lure in just in case she would need some other medication. But the major issues (like bird flu) were fairly conclusively ruled out early on, and a couple of hours later a blood test had ruled out malaria and probably dengue fever (that won’t show for another two days in the blood, but her platelet count was high, which means it is unlikely she has it, plus she doesn’t have a rash and she hasn’t got a fever any more either).
Once the litre of saline solution had been pumped in and she’d drunk four glasses of electrolyte, she really needed the toilet – the cleanest toilet we’ve seen in our travels! Thankfully I accompanied her, as she soon felt like vomiting and her vision went blurry again. Back to bed. More water. A bit of waiting. Tried sitting up again – more blurry vision, but not the total blackout like she’d had at the market. Blood tests came back, and with them, relief. Dehydration we can deal with. And prevent. As for the “non-specific Cambodian virus” diagnosis, we’ll never know which one she has caught, as they do not have the facilities to test here (words from the doctor, who sounded like he wished he could provide something more conclusive).
We were all set to walk out when K9 asked if she could have the lure removed! Her emotions welled up at this point and a few tears trickled down her cheek as the plasters were pulled off. It probably wasn’t really that bad, but the combination of heat and foreignness and uncertainty and no-breakfast-yet-even-though-it-was-already-lunchtime and I-want-to-go-home quietly bubbled over.
Tentatively we escorted her up the hallway and paid.
US$201.02
And we had to pay the two cents! Good thing Mrs H was carrying a 100 riel note (most things costs thousands here so she had been complaining about how useless it was to have hundreds, but this one proved useful!) For such professional service, it seemed a small price to pay. We came home loaded up with more electrolyte powder, total cost $1.92 (that’s where the two cents came from above!)
The tuktuk drivers on that side of town drive a hard bargain and we were a little ripped off to get home, but we were not going to walk. The driver we used didn’t really know where he was going and when I spotted our street, we pointed it out to him! U-turns across the traffic are no problem here!!!!!! And actually, on the way TO the hospital I was quite grateful that our driver hadn’t cared about driving on the wrong side of the road to go the quickest way.
Now it’s late afternoon and K9 has been lying down all day. She is much more perky. She has drunk gallons and has some colour back in her cheeks. She managed to come out with the quote at the top of the page.
The two little girls are not as bad, but not so good either. They are still sporting fevers (39.9 and 39.1 degrees – down from the 40.3 high) and are thoroughly miserable lying about doing nothing, just wanting Dadda-cuddles. If they are still hot tomorrow we will not book bus tickets for travelling on the 31st as we had planned to. Instead we’ll take them to the hospital for malaria and dengue fever testing on travel day (it’ll be fever day five, the day dengue can show up). We had imagined two weeks of zipping round the country with our friends and so it is a bit frustrating to feel like we are mucking them about when we have a limited time frame with them. Thankfully they are understanding and one day we’ll laugh about the trip when they missed a flight and got lost in a Bangkok tuktuk and spent hours in hospital in Phnom Penh…..we may not accomplish all we had hoped to, but we’ve made some memories together.
rayres