My Christmas at the hospital
I spent Christmas Day ill and wandering around the admitting area of the Nong Khai hospital. Considering everything that’s happened so far in 2006, this seems somehow right. To be honest though, I did not spend the entire day at the hospital, only about an hour. That’s as long as it took for me to decide that if there were even the slightest chance I was going to die, I would at least prefer to limit the ridiculous stories told at my funeral about the circumstances. Because I know you bitches would be shaking your heads and snickering about how “isn’t it just so typical that she actually died like inches from a doctor because she was too dumb to figure out how to get admitted?” Anyway.
So I’ve had this vague flu since the beginning of last week. I have dealt with it as I deal with most illnesses, which is to ignore them like one might ignore a two-year-old throwing a tantrum, until they give up. I figure that if my mind keeps pretending to be well, my body will follow suit. And surprisingly, it usually works.
Yesterday I was weak and unwell but refused to give my full attention to it. Today I got up early and went about my usual morning routine – 6 mile bicycle ride through the cool blue morning, followed by a breakfast of fresh fruit and my own body weight in coffee while sitting in front of the computer working on a new short story.
It wasn’t until lunch that I realized I might be much more ill than I am admitting to myself. My fever started to shoot up and for no reason I ran my hand over my lower back and felt bumps all over. Fever and rash are the hallmarks of any number of tropical maladies. And so off I went to the hospital.
Going to the hospital isn’t as exciting and drastic a choice as it sounds. For one thing, the hospital is close. It’s even closer than the closest 7-11 and that is saying something. Everyone goes to the hospital for everything here. It’s like going to the doctor, only it costs about $10 total. Thailand has a fantastic health care system. It’s no coincidence that ‘medical tourism’ is huge here.
Today was not my day to experience Thai health care, however. After standing at the Information desk for fifteen minutes waiting hopefully for someone to show up, I sort of wandered around the admitting hall, flushed and weak, trying to find someone who spoke English. Finally I found a woman who pointed me to Window 6. No idea what I was supposed to do at Window 6 but I figured the person at that window probably spoke English so I went to the queue. I waited. Nothing seemed to happen. People moved around, trading places, getting in and out of queues but I couldn’t see what the hell they were actually doing. All I knew is that I really needed to lie down before I fell down. I never did get to the window.
Once I was home and lying down, I started to feel better. My fever receded again. I nervously fingered the bumps on my back before remembering that I took a little nighttime slide on the Loose Dirt Hill of Death outside my house last week. Not the first time and sadly, probably not the last. But it does explain why I might have little bumps and abrasions on my lower back. And then I thought about how I take a daily ice-cold shower in 50-degree weather in my might-as-well-be-outdoors bathroom. Hmm but I wonder why I’m not shaking this flu? Sigh.
The final verdict I came to in my non-fever state is that I am not dying from a rare tropical disease but that I do need to lay low until this either gets bad enough to enlist Thai-speaking accompaniment the hospital, or until it passes.
Either way, long after my health returns, I’ll still have a story to tell over drinks, about the time I spent Christmas Day in the hospital in Thailand. Sometimes all I can do is remind myself that every experience is either a good time or a good story, and that for better or worse, I have a lot of good stories.
Tags: Christmas, Hospital, Illness, Nong Khai, Thailand
sandra_101
hey sickie..feelin better?