The untold tale of the Thai Hospital

August 18, 2008

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How did I get that lovely card? Well I can tell you that for sure.

One day towards the end of our Thailand trip, we were eating green curry (possibly 7-11 hot dogs) in Chiang Mai when suddenly, my left lung hurt with every breath I took. It continued as we walked the streets and I became concerned, not concerned enough to skip the nightlife that night, but concerned. After leaving our favorite spot the number one bar, we went back to our hotel where I painfully fell asleep.

Due to poor planning, we had no train tickets back to Bangkok and had to settle for an overnight seat rather than a bed. That was cool because I prefer sitting up when I breathe from one lung. As we got into Bangkok, we decided to go to the Guesthouse we stayed in the first time around and see how I felt after that. When we got there, I was keeled over in pain in the back of a taxi and calling for a quick bag dropoff and a quicker ride to a hospital. In the hospital, I freaked out a bit and then I got a hospital ID card or I guess it is a membership to the hospital, which was Christian and bedazzled with some crosses around.

We had 3 days before our return to China and I’m sitting in an exam room in Bangkok Adventist Hospital. Quickly, I was given a chest x-ray. It was messed up, so I was given a 2nd.

The doctor reviewed it carefully and came up with the diagnosis of “early pneumonia,” which was late, I’d say considering three months earlier I was diagnosed with regular, on-time pneumonia. I told him that I needed to go to Shanghai just three days later. His response, “we’ll see.” Mine, “nope, still going back.”

So he gave me some antibiotics, which miraculously relieved my lung pain immediately almost. I was able to go back to my diet of Ovaltine, Thai Iced Coffee, Green Curry, and BK Whoppers. Three days later, I managed my way back to China, into Shanghai where my next tale took place.

Stay tuned for the “The flip flop run or how I spend my freezing, rainy afternoons.”

How many foreign hospitals have you been to? How much English did they speak?

Posted in Found in thai guo