Make it Go Away!

I was in a bad dream. I thrashed around trying to get the ants off of me. I was in a thick mud and my body could feel every grain of sand. Was I awake or asleep? Was I in that in between stage? My nails raked my sore legs to try to relieve the itch but left only a burning row in its wake. Did I slough on cream I was allergic to, my face burning in response? I tossed in bed. Opening my eyes I saw that the dawn had entered my room—what time was it? Had I slept at all? My legs radiated a fire and begged for more scratching. Like a yearning for a bad drug, my growing rash needed to be fed. It didn’t matter the repercussions I would feel in ten, twenty minutes, I just needed that quick fix…

On no sleep and extremely uncomfortable I went into work. I was quickly sent on my way out to the nearest hospital. “Just get better,” they called as I whimpered out to my motorbike.

“Okay. Uh-huh. Now, uh-huh I give you injection for stop rash.” The skin doctor told me sympathetically. I had already been to the general doctor who had directed me to see the skin specialist I was with now and a chest, throat and ear specialist afterward for my deep and quickly becoming, chronic cough. A consultation with the skin specialist in the pseudo spa inspired aesthetics center had already led me downstairs for an allergy test. They didn’t tell me it was going to be a gallon syringe to milk the blood from my tiny and delicate veins. Getting blood drawn, one of my most dreaded doctor appointment necessities was over in a matter of minutes and before I knew it, I was already halfway up the stairs to return to the skin center.

“Okay,” I answered meekly standing across from her awkwardly. Am I supposed to sit? And sit where? Do I sit on the table? I don’t want to jump to conclusions. Should I wait for them to motion me? What is the Thai doctor- patient protocol? My lowered gaze snuck up to catch the shadowlike nurse’s knowing smile. I dropped my backpack to the floor and surveyed the surroundings. A small round table and two chairs made up the consulting area we had occupied earlier when the blood test was decided. The hospital bed in the room wasn’t your typical sterile white cot, either. This one was covered with a Thai-inspired tapestry with little face pillows and a contrasting throw at the foot. Was this where I was supposed to sit? It looked more like I’d be getting acupuncture or my eyebrows plucked than a medical examination in this room.

“Do you want, uh-huh, the throat doctor for, uh-huh, the cuff?” The Doctor faded back into the audible foreground. “I tink, uh-huh, is bad. Need different anti-biotic, uh-huh.” Her mouth continued to move as the audio faded out of my mind again. I couldn’t help but focus on this shot I was about to get... an injection! A needle! Somewhere on my body. Half-listening I decided to make a move toward the spa bed. As I climbed up she continued to talk of my cough and who I should see. But all I could think about is this shot. This shot, an injection, a needle! How big will it be? Where is it going to go?

Interrupting her rant I asked, “Where do I get the shot?” I just had to know. I couldn’t wonder any longer. Half of me knew where it was going to go; I just didn’t want to believe it. I can’t remember how she answered me, maybe it was the shock of realization that has made it flee my memory, but she told me—the butt. I audibly mumbled, “Oh, God,” as I began to lower myself to the bed.

“If you want, you can take only tablet. Uh-huh. And no injection, uh-huh. But I think uh-huh, better injection, uh-huh. More quickly.” I groaned in arrogance as I lay on my stomach, face planted in the soft pillow. “I tink, uh-huh, it okay.” She tried to console my dread. Yeah, sure Lady. It’s not going to be you with the sore bum. The shadow nurse swooped in and began to hike up my skirt to expose my rashed left cheek. As I felt the cool air on my exposed bottom, I could only mumble half-reassuring words to myself: It’ll be quick. It’ll be better. This will help. It won’t hurt. The nurse who had drawn my blood earlier had been like an angel, some sort of magical needle angel who could draw mass amounts of blood without any pain or prick. My faith was up. I was ready to rid myself of this hell if it took a little stab in the backside.

I imagined myself detatched from my own body looking in on the situation. How funny it would be to an outsider! The shadow nurse in her pale blue uniform would be smoothing the contrasting blanket over my legs so that it folded perfectly. The doctor at the chrome counter top would be filling a syringe with liquid and holding it up to the fluorescent light. And me, my head buried face first in the pillow or sneaking a peek at myself in the mirror at my head reflecting the absolute horror I felt. And in the center of it all, one spotted red cheek rising out of a mound of black flower printed fabric. It was like some sort of demented painting.

I did everything I could to avoid looking at the needle. If I didn’t see it, I couldn’t freak out; although, my imagination did picture it as an arm-length ice pick dramatically spurting liquid from the top as she rounded the corner of the hospital bed and approached my vulnerable rump.

“Okay, uh-huh. Injection.” She cooed as a sharp pain pierced my backside. Just as I thought, This isn’t so bad, a heat began to burn, spread and pierce.

“Oh, God. Oh, God.” I moaned under my breath. It lasted only a few moments, the end of which left me paralyzed on the bed holding the burning area.

“You can sit for a moment,” the doctor reassured me as I, still frozen, made no attempt to do otherwise. After a respectable amount of stillness I rose and rolled onto my right hip to hop off the bed. I rubbed the pain with the heel of my hand, caressing the sore area. It swelled with heat and tingled with the surge of medicine. Golly, that was fun. But I knew I had more doctors to see.

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“The Doctor will see you now.” A small, white-uniformed nurse half-whispered to me. I put down my paper Dixie cup of coffee-mocha and grabbed my bag. Time to solve this chronic cough.

The chest, throat and ear specialist encouraged me to get an X-ray of my sinuses. Erik’s voice kept ringing in my head: “Just do whatever it takes to figure out what’s wrong.” However, my mind automatically went to my pocketbook.

“Miss McGill?” A petite nurse in white uniform asked me shyly as I sat sipping what was left of my free coffee-mocha blend.

“Yes.””Please come wit me.”

“Ooookay,” I said cheerily as I scooped up my bag once again and followed her. Now filled with farangs, I walked through the hospital’s first floor watching as they scarfed down large cups of cappuccinos at the small café. Suckers, I thought as I tasted the sweet cream still on my tongue. My escort was joined by another nurse and like flying geese we breezed through the lobby in patient-nurse formation. At a fork in our path the two split. Which nurse was mine? They both looked exactly alike from behind: white skirt suit, black poufy hair bow. Was mine the tall one or the short one? I chose to follow the one that branched off to the right and glanced at the other as she went left. She held some sort of Tupperware container and I knew I had chosen wisely.

Feeling a little high from the cortisone injection I was led into a small room by a sharply dressed man. “You sit here. Put nose to da’ line.” I sat on the cool metal stool, my left cheek slightly hanging off. “Like dis,” he lifted my head and stuck my nose, bridge down, against the red cross on a white screen. “Hold still.” He instructed as he backed away from me. Huh, what do you know? No heavy apron here either, just pure radiation surging through my body. Great guess we’ll add cancer to this coupling. After the second x-ray I returned to the doctor where I sat waiting, another Dixie cup of coffee-mocha in my hand. Hey, I’m going to get something out of this even if it is only six free cups of coffee.

After a briefing from the specialist on the causes of sinus infections and what a clouded sinus looks like in an x-ray, I left him. I walked towards the pharmacy/cashier with a shopping list of anti-biotics, anti-histamines, decongestants, saline nasal wash, expectorants and other anti- this and that’s. I forked over an obscene amount of money, of which I probably wouldn’t have in the states but had to in a foreign country just because I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t pick and choose what I wanted and what I didn’t want at this point, I was just too desperate to heal. They had me by the bum, and nose, and throat and went in for the pocketbook kill.

I walked out of the hospital and into the thick air to my motorbike. I had two follow-ups scheduled for the next week and a little hope tucked away in the goody bags of prescriptions given to me by both specialists. I couldn’t wait to start to feel better.


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Update:
I had to go into the hospital again on Friday. The rash was driving me insane! I have never felt so uncomfortable and irritated. It tingles with itch and I think I may be losing my mind. I can’t sleep and lay awake counting imaginary sheep until my alarm clock tells me it is time to get up. My allergy test came back and turns out I’m not allergic to any of the 40 listed items whether its beetroot, cats, or Australian tree mixes. So, that’s nice to know. Now if I could just figure out how to get rid of this damn rash. I look like Freddy Kruger and may have to only come out at night.

Washed all my clothes, sheets, towels over again and stopped using moisturizer. Pray for me.

On a good note… I can smell (kind of) again. Yeah! Now I wear a sweet white painter’s mask when I drive. Yeah, I’m hip. Go back to see that doctor Weds. Can you really develop asthma just like that?

Positive thinking… positive thinking.

Doctor, Doctor, Give Me the Cure...

“You have cuff?” The doctor asked me as she sat at her small linoleum topped desk. She fingered through the sheets of paper lined green and white with the random Molly sporadically scrawled between spiraling hieroglyphics that make up Thai writing.
“Yes.” I answered with a demonstrative deep foghorn of a cough. “And this,” I added lifting my right arm up for inspection, rotating it to give the full effect. Hemming, she scrunched her face in acknowledgement. It seemed not to concern her. So, lifting up the bottom of my skirt to reveal my thighs, I added, “See?”
“Mmmmm.” She moaned as her orange eye-shadowed eyes went from my legs to the paper. She scribbled something down continuing with her interrogation. Apparently, my rash and/or hive covered body was not impressing her. “How long you have cuff?” She asked slumped over the desk, her white frock coat hanging behind her on the mirror.
“I’ve had this cough for about 4 weeks. I got sick at the end of January. Nose, runny, then my head had pressure. My nose is fine now, but cough is bad. My ears feel like I’m under water. You know? Pressure in my ears? And now this,” I said pointing to the red blotches that threatened to cover my entire body. “I don’t know what is.”
“Hmmm. You take what color cuff?”
“The color? Oh, um yellow phlegm?”
“Uh huh, and you take sa-moking?”
“No, I don’t smoke.”
“Mmmmm, and you take womit?”
“Pardon?” I asked raising my eyebrows in total confusion. Even for my trained Thai-lish ears, this one was a bit difficult to make out.
“Womit,” she answered putting her hand to her mouth and dropping forward to the floor in a fluid motion. “You know, womit? You take?”
“No, no vomit.” I half chuckled to myself. Thai’s tend to replace certain letters with others. My boss sometimes jokes about the confusion of switching these letters and the humorous words they make. I couldn’t help but to think of her.
“Feber?”
“Uh, no fever.”
“You have athma? In family?”
“No. No one in my family has asthma.”
“Mother? Father? Sister?” She said jokingly trying to coax out a confession of asthma.
“No. No asthma.”
“Okay,” she said standing up, her small frame barely rising from the desk. Taking the stethoscope in hand she placed it on my chest. “Breathe big.” I inhaled as big as I could making sure to rattle the mystery disease around a little so she was sure to hear it. “Again.” Again I breathed deeply, the phlegm vibrating like a rattler’s tail in my upper chest. She has to be hearing this.
“You hab wheezy in your chess. I tink maybe asthma because wheezy.”
“I don’t have asthma,” I shot back. I am 24 years old for crying out loud. I know that I am sick, that it isn’t asthma.
“Uh-huh. I think you take X-ray of chess.”
“X-ray?” My mind raced to dollar signs. How much would that cost? And it’s not like I have a freakin’ broken rib or something. What are they going to see in an X-ray? “I don’t know…”
“Yes, I think you do because lule out infectious. Okay? I think better.” She smiled and nodded knowingly to me. Her forced curly hair scrunched into a layered mullet stiffly moving as she encouraged even more deeply, her body leaning towards mine. Looking around the room for inspiration and the correct answer to be written on the wall, my eyes met with those of Donald Duck’s, Goofy’s and Mickey Mouse’s. Cartoon characters danced in colorful costume on the low walls of the room and I, I was in the center of it all. Is this a joke? Is she a pediatrician? Is she the only available doctor? Why am I in the little kiddy room? Hey, maybe I get a lollipop?
If this was the only way to make progress in this visit, I was left without a choice. “Okay. X-ray.” I had already inquired of the price and knew that Erik, sitting in the waiting room, would scold me if I didn’t take this precaution. “But what about this?” I begged showing the red blotches on my arms and legs. This was really worrying me, more so than the cough.
“What you take for cuff?”
“I took cough tablet and anti-histamine, for nose. Then I went back to pharmacy because it was not working. He gave me more cough tablet,” I pulled out the green tablets from my bag, “and more anti-histamine. Then he gave me anti-biotic, Amoxicillin. I took for about five days and still not better. I have stopped taking Amoxicillin for five days. Only thing different is that I ate honey Thursday and Friday. I got spot on my leg here.” I lifted my skirt again to the red blotched area on my thighs “So, I stopped eating honey. I woke up this morning and now it is all over my body.”
“Mmmmm. You eat honey?”
“Yes, but never allergic to honey before.”
“Mmmmmm.”
“And I am allergic to Penicillin, but I took Amoxicillin before and I was fine.”
“Mmmmm. I think, maybe, you eat honey and you allergic.” Yeah, thanks lady, I just said that.
“It’s not Measles? Person at my work had German Measles. It’s not that, right?” I nodded to her hoping for some recognition of the disease.
“You hab feber?” Didn’t we go over this?
“No, no fever. I feel fine.”
“You take sa-moking?” Are you kidding me?
“No, I don’t smoke. Do you think allergic to something?” My frustration was mounting. I felt like I was diagnosing myself.
“Yeeees, I tink allergic. Maybe honey. Okay?” Nodding to me she turned and pushed a button on the wall, lighting up a red light bulb above. A nurse came in and gathered my chart. They spoke in Thai as I kneaded my hands together. X-ray? What’s an X-ray going to do?
I dressed in a red smock, its ties coming together in the front in a kind of Eastern flare. Murmuring to myself, I exited the restroom and took my position in front of the giant screen. The technician positioned my body and instructed me not to move as he left the room. What? No protective covering anywhere? Apparently Thailand has yet to realize the potentially harmful effects of over exposure to the ol’ X-ray gun. Or is it that the West is just a little too protective? Things you think are normal everyday precautions, like refrigerating eggs, go by without a second glance here. I guess my body will just take on a little more radiation than normal today- all in the sake of science, of course.
I took a seat waiting for the X-ray to be developed. My grumpy technician came out of the room and held a dark chest X-ray up to an illuminated board.
“Is that you?” Erik asked.
“I don’t know. Looks good though.”
“Looks like a chest.” He grinned at me looking up from the pages of his massively fat book. Smiling back coyly, I poked him in the ribs.
Soon enough I was back in kiddy wonderland. Waiting, the Doctor gestured for me to sit. Fumbling with the folder holding the X-ray, she awkwardly maneuvered around me. I motioned for Erik to come in with me as he sat peeking through the crack of the sliding screen door.
”X-ray good. Lule out selious infection.” She said holding it up to the light. Making her way back to the desk, heels clicking on the floor, she added, “No Tuberculosis. No Pneumonia. Dat’s good. We know not selious infection.” My eyes met with Erik’s and I saw him wanting to add more.
“But the rash. What about this?” He asked.
“I tink allergic to da honey.” She said smiling.
Gee, looks like now I’m a Doctor. I feel like I made my own diagnosis. I feel kind of cheated, a little let down by the Thai health system. All I can do is take the medicine she gave me and hope it works. Guess we’ll see.
* To be continued… The plot thickens over the next few days.

Chun Pu

We have a new addition to the household. She is small, but she sure is a handful!

Erik and I were coming home from a dinner out with friends. It was just getting dark as we stopped at the local market to pick up some fruit for our long bus ride the next day. You can never count on the “lunch and snacks” the bus company promises, so we are always sure to carry a few snacks ourselves.

I hopped off the back of the motorbike as Erik wheeled it to a stop in the loose dirt and erupted a cloud of dust. I removed my helmet and walked toward the shamble-shack with its frayed canvas awning sloping like a slack jaw. I bowed my head to enter the cover and glanced up at the dimly lit rows of fruit. The shelves the fruit lay on come to about chest high, each level displayed a different fruit. Pineapples with spiky hair lay next to dragon fruit, its green –tipped, purple leaves sprawled outward toward the piles of different sized oranges. I am sure that the oranges are all different varieties but can never be communicated past anything but, “orange.” Mangosteens resembling overgrown blueberries with hard shells nestled with the spiky, green-red hairs of rambutans. I scanned the colors to find our apples.

Through the small opening between the shelves came a boy about seventeen from the shadows behind. Much taller than me he stooped under the canopy and held a thin plastic bag open for me to put my fruit into. I smiled at him and leaned over awkwardly to reach for the apples in their pink Styrofoam netting. Picking a few, I rolled them in my hands to check for firmness and bruising. Happy with the four I found I nodded to him to acknowledge that that was all. “Tao rai, ka. See apple, ka. See-sip baht?” (“How much? Four apples. Forty Baht?”) I asked as I reached for my wallet. He turned behind him to grab a calculator and I saw a small shadow dart behind the stall. “Oh, lek meow.” (“Oh, small cat.” As I don’t know the word for kitten or baby.) He furrowed his brow at me and cocked his head to one side. I pointed to the where the shadow had been, “Lek meow.”

An older boy about my age came from behind the other. He smiled at me and leaned down into the darkness. He returned and held a tiny, little mound of fur in his outstretched hand. Two green eyes peered at me as he shoved the warm body into my already full hands. Struggling to balance the bag of apples and to not drop the tiny body, I lowered one shoulder and slid the bag onto my right arm. A little calico cat purred at me as I scratched under her chin and held her up to the sky in my left hand. She just sat, purring away with her little back legs outstretched from beneath her white belly, toes spread in the cool air. She was the chillest little kitten ever.

I smiled at her as I handed her back to the fruit boys. “For you.” he said with his hands up in refusal.
“For me? No, no.” I answered him trying to push the kitten into his hands.
“For you. Yes!”
“For me?” I studied the creature. She looked so content just slumped in my hand. She looked at me and blinked her green eyes lazily. “Erik, I think we have a cat.” I called to him over my shoulder.
“What?” He said as he walked toward me.

The mother cat appeared from under the rows of striped watermelons and I put the kitten down to her. The kitten crawled on the mother and they playfully batted at each other. They rolled onto their stomachs and nipped at the other’s ear. Erik and I backed away to observe and discussed the situation- were we really going to take her? The kitten saw us and bounded toward where we were standing. She began to rub her head and small body against our legs and crisscrossed around our ankles. She dove into Erik’s hand as he leaned down to her. “Yeah, she’s a keeper.” We agreed.

I held her against my chest as we drove the rest of the way home.