Surprise!

I recently returned from a 9 day trip to the United States for my oldest sister's wedding. It was a surprise trip for most of the family because only my oldest niece knew about it. I wanted to surprise Vannessa but I forgot that my laptop was "sync'd" with the desktop that she has and all of the flight information I added to the calendar to be efficient showed up on hers. I arrived in Bangkok and had a message from her asking me if I was trying to be sneaky. I simply asked her what she meant by that question and boarded the plane to Tokyo knowing she wouldn't see my message for hours. I did not respond back to her reply to me so I try to maintain the surprise factor. I learned from her that she tracked all of the flights from Bangkok that day to see if she could determine when I would be arriving. I arrived at her office around 1:00 pm on the 6th and was greeted enthusiastically by my daughter.

We both left for Las Vegas on the 8th to surprise my sister and the rest of the family that would be coming for the wedding. My sister told me she knew I was coming because of her sister's intuition which kind of burst my bubble but it really didn't matter after all. It wasn't about me. It was her weekend. I surprised my mother and my nephew and his wife when they arrived so I considered the trip a success. It was a quick trip to Vegas but it was a wonderful wedding and celebration. My sister lives in Vegas and the ceremony and dinner was at her favorite Italian restaurant on the south end of town. The staff at the restaurant were all wondering who the sister was who came from Thailand and they thought it was amazing that I was there.

Me and Vannessa in the back row, my sister, Nicki and her soon to be husband, Dick

I was able to see most of my family and some of my friends.. It was just too short a trip to be able to see everyone so I will make sure that the next time I am back in the states it will longer and I will have an opportunity to see more of you. I was able to surprise a lot of the folks I did see and that was fun.

I have to admit that I was cold on several days while I was there. I had gotten rid of my heavier coats and only had a fleece jacket so I didn't spend much time outside on a couple of the colder days. The day I arrived was quite windy with a chill in the air and I about froze to death. Funny how your body changes so quickly. I am now back here in Thailand where it is cool but rainy which means higher humidity than I am used to, so now I sweat. Maybe one day I will get used to this place....

I returned back here on Saturday, November 16th to discover one of the girls was not feeling well with fairly significant abdominal pains. It was about 3:30 pm when I arrived and we went to the hospital shortly after that. What an experience that was.

Unlike the trip to the hospital with our friend who traveled here in October, we went to the regional hospital which is the one that most of the Thai citizens use. It is supported by the government health care ministry so it doesn't cost much money. As a matter of fact, our trip was only 30 Baht/$1.00 USD. But I am afraid to say that is the only good thing about the experience. The building is old, dark and gloomy and short staffed. We arrived around 5:30 pm and didn't get done until around 11:30 pm with an unsuccessful diagnosis. They did the usual blood and urine tests but unfortunately I believe we had a student doctor who couldn't figure out what was wrong. So after a while of waiting another doctor came and said he didn't think it was her appendix so he was going to have an Ultra sound done on her abdominal area. He thought perhaps it was a cyst on her ovaries or something like this. So off we went to get that done. Waited about 30 minutes for her to be wheeled back there and then we sat and sat and sat some more. When I asked why it was taking so long, I was told it was because they were waiting for the doctor to come to do the test. Evidently they didn't have a tech who could do it. Soon a woman came in carrying a purse like she had just come in from outside.

So she did the test or so I am led to believe...... and then my girl is wheeled into the room where the CT scanner is. They close the door and the red light above the door comes on. I think they did a CT scan however no one told me. Once that was done, we went back to the first area to sit in the hallway waiting for a doctor. The nurse comes to us and tells us that there is only one doctor on duty and he is in surgery so it will be a while. So we wait and wait and wait some more. Finally a man with several young "students" following closely behind him shows up. He tells me he is the surgeon and he believes it is her appendix. He believed it was her appendix even though the person who did the Ultra sound couldn't see her appendix?????? They can't see an angry appendix? The options where to take it out or have her stay for observation. He said the bad thing about observation was that there was only one doctor and if she got worse, she might be taken care of in time.  Comforting thought.

Two different doctors, two different opinions..... After talking it over with the group and her mother who was there with her older sister, we decided to go home. By this time, I was beyond exhausted and only wanted to go to sleep. Well this was the weekend for Loi Krathong and the park just south of the house was full of celebrants armed with very large and loud fireworks. Fireworks going off until all hours of the morning do not make for a good night's sleep even when exhausted. Finally slept for a bit and when I woke on Sunday, she was feeling somewhat better. However that did not last. This time we went to the other hospital and what a difference that was. She was seen and an hour later we were on our way back to the house with medicine for a urinary tract infection. This time I got a doctor who could speak both English and Thai and took the time to show me the results of her tests. No angry appendix, just a normal sized one. No elevated white blood cells in her blood, just her urine. No surgery.

I learned a valuable lesson this weekend about the status of medical care here. I do not fault the Thai people who have to use the regional hospital and completely understand why. I just am concerned at the level of care they receive. My experience was not a good one and I wonder how many others get wrongly diagnosed and have unnecessary procedures done because they cannot afford to go to what is considered a private hospital. As I explained to our friend, I know that $90.00 is a lot of money to many Thai people but is "chicken feed" to us. $90.00 was all it cost at the second hospital for the doctor, blood and urine tests, ultra sound and all the medicines. Quite the eye-opener.... And I will be taking the children to the second hospital from now on even if I have to be the one who pays for it.

She is home and doing much better even though she is not fond of taking her pills. She took them to her room on Sunday night and I discovered yesterday that she hadn't taken any of them. So I have them now and I give them to her and watch while she takes them. Last night she snuck into her room and into bed before she took them so I had to go in and give them to her. But after each time, she says "Thank you Mom." I am sure she will be just fine by the end of the week.

Next blog... Loi Krathong.

Until next time..

God Bless,
Heather