Skip to the good stuff: today's return visit to the hospital. I was determined to get better than, "Tests show normal so you're okay" at the end of an exam that started with "You so skinny!" and "5-15 times per day with nighttime vomiting."
This time, there were no tests. There were no blood draws. Nothing.
"You dehydrate," the doctor said. "You live here, now?"
Huh?
"You need live here tonight for IV fluids and tomorrow I take out you gallbladder."
Huh?
"You stay for IV to rehydrate. You lips dry, you need fluid."
Okay.
"And tomorrow I take out you gallbladder."
WHAT?
"You gallbladder..." the computer screen gets tilted toward me, and google pops up to show me what the gale/ gal/ gallblat/ galbllat
"Two 'L's and two 'D's."
"Oh, okey."
"Why do you want to take my gallbladder out?"
"Have seen with farangs it helps."
"It helps? Huh?"
"With farangs who do not like Thai food. It maybe helps."
"But I don't want my gallbladder out!"
"Okay, okay, you go get IV."
So they ushered me out to the lobby, presumably while preparing a semi-private room. For most of an hour. A perky nurse appeared alongside a grizzled old guy pushing a wheelchair. "You come, sit, okay?" she said.
I stood to walk but was not allowed to step over the threshold to the elevator.
The perky nurse deposited me in an utterly unremarkable semi-private room--quite a bit more dirt in the corners, mold on the ceiling, and use on the furniture than we'd see in the west, but otherwise the same basic setup--and disappeared. For lunch hour.
By the time someone came back, I'd been there for close to four hours without food or drink and stood to receive treatment for dehydration--this bodes ill for any tech trying to find one of my normally-flimsy veins. It didn't help that the first candidate was an internist who reached for my left hand.
"Maybe it's easier here," I said, pointing at my right elbow.
"Is okay, okay," she said.
And ruptured the vein.
"Is okay, okay."
She moved to the vein coming off my left thumb.
And ruptured it.
"Is easier here, really," I said.
"Okay, okay, is okay."
Pop goes a vein on the back of my wrist.
And then in my left elbow.
Twice.
She disappeared and came back with a very large syringe. "Inject for muscle pain in stomach." She flipped her hands around. "You lay over."
Huh?
With one hand, she picked me up by my belt, rolled me to my side, and pulled down my pants. It would've been nice if she'd closed the curtain, especially since I was in the first bay next to the hallway with the scrawny pastiness of my bare butt shining at a steady stream of passing hospital staff.
She disappeared again and came back with a senior nurse, who looked at the five patches of taped down cotton and said, "Oh."
"Here, here. Is easier here," I said.
"Okay, okay," she said. She disappeared and returned with a tray of sterile torture devices. "Here: is for little baby. It goes in okay, no?"
She blew the vein on my right wrist. I tapped my right elbow and resolved to leave if she didn't try there or ruptured even that. But she hit it, and started a saline drip.
"Okay, you sleep. I come back tonight."
I almost worked up the gumption to say, "Okay, okay, but I'm hungry and have to pee." No such luck, though. She closed the curtain, and that's the last I saw of humanity save for nurses who came bursting in looking for the man screaming in Thai. I cranked the IV up to the maximum flow and read the National Geo carried from Kathmandu, and the two finished at about the same time.
After I pressed the call button, a gaggle of nurses flocked around the guy two stalls down. They left, returned, left, returned with trays.
Dishes clattered.
I rang the bell again. A buzzer sounded down the hall. And kept sounding. No footsteps.
After a while, another clatter of dishes. A flurry of footsteps out into the hall, down the hall, and a hurried return.
"Bag is empty, can I go now?"
"You want leave?"
That's an understatement.
"Okay, okay. I pull out needle and call chair for you."
"No matter, no matter, I can walk, okay?"
And I left without any tests, any drugs beyond the butt injection, or any treatments.
I guess the good news is that, in American terms, the medical care is pretty darn cheap. It's just that this culture operates on a matter of face: if the doc can't find a bombastic sort of cure, or at least make a sweeping prognosis, there can be nothing wrong without the doctor losing face. So if it's not something cool, it's nothing at all.
So here's to square one, eh?
This time, there were no tests. There were no blood draws. Nothing.
"You dehydrate," the doctor said. "You live here, now?"
Huh?
"You need live here tonight for IV fluids and tomorrow I take out you gallbladder."
Huh?
"You stay for IV to rehydrate. You lips dry, you need fluid."
Okay.
"And tomorrow I take out you gallbladder."
WHAT?
"You gallbladder..." the computer screen gets tilted toward me, and google pops up to show me what the gale/ gal/ gallblat/ galbllat
"Two 'L's and two 'D's."
"Oh, okey."
"Why do you want to take my gallbladder out?"
"Have seen with farangs it helps."
"It helps? Huh?"
"With farangs who do not like Thai food. It maybe helps."
"But I don't want my gallbladder out!"
"Okay, okay, you go get IV."
So they ushered me out to the lobby, presumably while preparing a semi-private room. For most of an hour. A perky nurse appeared alongside a grizzled old guy pushing a wheelchair. "You come, sit, okay?" she said.
I stood to walk but was not allowed to step over the threshold to the elevator.
The perky nurse deposited me in an utterly unremarkable semi-private room--quite a bit more dirt in the corners, mold on the ceiling, and use on the furniture than we'd see in the west, but otherwise the same basic setup--and disappeared. For lunch hour.
By the time someone came back, I'd been there for close to four hours without food or drink and stood to receive treatment for dehydration--this bodes ill for any tech trying to find one of my normally-flimsy veins. It didn't help that the first candidate was an internist who reached for my left hand.
"Maybe it's easier here," I said, pointing at my right elbow.
"Is okay, okay," she said.
And ruptured the vein.
"Is okay, okay."
She moved to the vein coming off my left thumb.
And ruptured it.
"Is easier here, really," I said.
"Okay, okay, is okay."
Pop goes a vein on the back of my wrist.
And then in my left elbow.
Twice.
She disappeared and came back with a very large syringe. "Inject for muscle pain in stomach." She flipped her hands around. "You lay over."
Huh?
With one hand, she picked me up by my belt, rolled me to my side, and pulled down my pants. It would've been nice if she'd closed the curtain, especially since I was in the first bay next to the hallway with the scrawny pastiness of my bare butt shining at a steady stream of passing hospital staff.
She disappeared again and came back with a senior nurse, who looked at the five patches of taped down cotton and said, "Oh."
"Here, here. Is easier here," I said.
"Okay, okay," she said. She disappeared and returned with a tray of sterile torture devices. "Here: is for little baby. It goes in okay, no?"
She blew the vein on my right wrist. I tapped my right elbow and resolved to leave if she didn't try there or ruptured even that. But she hit it, and started a saline drip.
"Okay, you sleep. I come back tonight."
I almost worked up the gumption to say, "Okay, okay, but I'm hungry and have to pee." No such luck, though. She closed the curtain, and that's the last I saw of humanity save for nurses who came bursting in looking for the man screaming in Thai. I cranked the IV up to the maximum flow and read the National Geo carried from Kathmandu, and the two finished at about the same time.
After I pressed the call button, a gaggle of nurses flocked around the guy two stalls down. They left, returned, left, returned with trays.
Dishes clattered.
I rang the bell again. A buzzer sounded down the hall. And kept sounding. No footsteps.
After a while, another clatter of dishes. A flurry of footsteps out into the hall, down the hall, and a hurried return.
"Bag is empty, can I go now?"
"You want leave?"
That's an understatement.
"Okay, okay. I pull out needle and call chair for you."
"No matter, no matter, I can walk, okay?"
And I left without any tests, any drugs beyond the butt injection, or any treatments.
I guess the good news is that, in American terms, the medical care is pretty darn cheap. It's just that this culture operates on a matter of face: if the doc can't find a bombastic sort of cure, or at least make a sweeping prognosis, there can be nothing wrong without the doctor losing face. So if it's not something cool, it's nothing at all.
So here's to square one, eh?
This brings back amazing memories of Honduras, though I could at least speak the language. I visited a LOT of people in hospitals who'd had their gallbladders removed because "sometimes it helps." *Oy!
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