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.