Hospital (mis)adventures in Asia

WARNING: Not to be read with food or immediately prior to eating. Some people may have a severe reaction to what is written below. If you feel nausea, stomach cramps or generally rotten stop reading immediately and consult your doctor. 

WARNING: “Some ulcers are painless or ‘silent’ and the first sign is blood in vomit or black sticky stools. This is a medical emergency. The person can quickly bleed to death. GET MEDICAL HELP FAST.” 

So reads the section about stomach ulcers in “Where There is No Doctor”, a recommended medical guide for folk in far-away places.  I was looking up my symptoms and didn’t like the look of these words as they matched too closely my own symptoms. But other illnesses, such as Amoebic Dysentery also fitted. So I relaxed. 

Phone calls were made to NZ (where there IS a doctor - and one who was willing to help us). We were told to wait and see what happened. If my heart rate went up, get to hospital quick. 

It didn’t take long for something to happen. At 11.30 pm I produced copious quantities of the aforementioned symptom (of a black sticky nature). It wasn’t so much ‘blood in the stools’ as ‘stools in the blood.’ Feeling like death (which would have come as pleasant relief at that moment) I called to Linda, ‘Get an ambulance’. In this part of the world we speak those words more reluctantly than we would in the West. But it felt like either an ambulance or undertaker at that point. I was as white as fresh fallen snow, without the sparkle. 

Linda summoned a friend with both local languages (we only have one of them - language that is, not friends) and he took me to the hospital in a taxi. He felt that an ambulance would not be able to find our place as it is a new area of town. Several of the expatriate community here have gotten lost trying to find our house. 

And so to hospital. Before being admitted some money had to be paid and a stool sample had to be produced. No problem except that the container I had to produce it in was the size of egg cup. So off I trot (pardon the pun) to the ‘toilet’. I use inverted comma's because I would hate you think of a clean, hygienic area with conventional sit
down flush toilets. No no, think of mud trough with no running water, a smell you don’t usually associate with a hospital and you’ve got it.

Sample produced it was back through the corridors with open sample in hand thinking to myself, “this seems less than hygienic” and “I hope I don’t fall, because they probably make me clean up the mess!” Once the sample was checked, I had to dispose of the remainder. In the toilet rubbish bin. Nice! 

Eventually I was taken to the hospital ward and was asked for another sample. (Wish I hadn’t been so hasty to throw the first one out now). This time they didn’t give me anything so large as an eggcup. That was merely for beginners. I had advanced to the ward now and the target was somewhat smaller: one of those 5 g butter packs you get on planes.  Try not to think about that next time you are eating your aeroplane meal. 

A drip was put in my arm. This is not alarming. Shortly after arriving here 6 years ago we learnt that one of our language teachers was in hospital on a drip. When we inquired as to the nature of his serious condition, we were informed that he had a cold! They use drips and antibiotics like we might use panadol. 

Being on a drip itself was not a bad thing. It makes life awkward when moving about, which I only did when necessary. What was awkward was my veins. The nurses seemed unable to find them. On one occasion the needle was inserted 3 times with no success. The ‘expert’ nurse came along and got it in, but not quite right it would seem, as my hand swelled up. For the third time! The ‘expert’ nurse was highly embarrassed and apologetic. But it was surprising that when everyone who sneezes is given a drip, that none of the nurses were able to do it properly. As I write this both of my hands have so many needle marks that you would think I’m either a druggy or have some peculiar rash.  Maybe it was a local version of acupuncture. But I think it was just puncture. A little more accu(racy) might have helped!

I had a choice of a room to myself, or to share a room with three or four other sick folk, with their carers (as it normal for a sick person to have person staying with them the whole time) and television blaring away in my second language until all hours. I wimped out and took the room to myself. I enjoyed plenty of visitors, mostly people who knew me, but a few locals who wandered in, saw a (very) white guy and decided they would have a chat. Many a time the door opened and a local poked their head around to see if their relative was in this room. No name tags outside the doors, just the old look and see (and disturb the resting sick) method. It even had toilet (squat, not Western), a shower (cold water only), which had a window next to it (no curtain). I never mastered using the squat toilet with a drip in my arm - attempts usually resulted in blood going up the drip! 

I mentioned that most sick folk (actually all apart from me) had another person staying with them in the hospital. This is largely because the hospital doesn’t supply anything other than medicine. That is drink and meals have to be brought in from outside. Someone did wander around the wards in the morning selling food but not at the main meal times. And barbers popped in from time to time to see if I wanted a shave. So it was not altogether without services!

I have bruising from the blood tests. While taking the first test I was tempted ask them to be careful with how much they took, as I didn’t know how much I had left. They didn’t do many of these which, when an American doctor saw the result might have been as well.  According to their results I hadn’t lost much blood when I was
admitted, but after being in hospital a couple of days I was running dry. My body told me otherwise on both accounts. So after examining the blood tests we came to the conclusion that we don’t have a clue how much blood was lost. (In defence of the hospital staff, it is apparently difficult to get accurate results when someone is on a drip). 

Fortunately no operation was needed. But they did give me an endoscopy. I had never had one before and have a piece of useful advice for all those that haven’t. Don’t have one! I know that sometimes people are given anaesthetic before being examined, which seems in hindsight awfully sensible. I got a mouth wash. Then a tube about the diameter of your throat is pushed down your throat into your stomach. Your stomach doesn’t not take kindly to this. (Your throat isn’t exactly gargling about it either!). The stomach’s natural reaction to a great lump of plastic entering, snake like, into its regions is to regurgitate it out. But it can’t because the ‘great tube’ is being forced further in by sadistic nurses who enjoy the sight of white guy dribbling at the mouth (can’t swallow due to the plastic obstruction) and trying to get rid of the tube! (The American doctor friend of mine told me that he had an endoscopy at the age of 12, during which he took hold of the endoscope, pulled it from his throat and threw it across the room! I know how he felt). 

The whole process took about 16 months, though the lying clock told me it was no more than 4 or 5 minutes. I was delighted that a local friend of mine was with me at the time, and he has certainly seen me at the dribbly worst. He later informed me that while I was recovering (panting like a dog and wiping water from my eyes and face), that the nurses had huddled together around the computer muttering that the power had gone off and they would have to do it again! He give them a blasting, telling them that it was not good enough (he’d already told them off for having three goes to get my drip in). Fortunately when they restarted the machine they found the pictures and had found the cause of the all trouble. 

It is difficult to sleep on a rock hard bed (wooden hard actually because that is what I was sleeping - or not sleeping - on). It is also difficult to sleep with a drip in your arm. It is doubly difficult to sleep with both. I didn’t get a lot of sleep for the first few nights. 

So I was awake at one in the morning when a group of nurses came into the room and wanted to have a chat. And chat we did. They wanted to learn English (one already had some). Teaching them English was good for my second language – I’ve never spoken it better at one in the morning, a sure sign of recovery.

The next night I was hit by the same double affliction of both sleeplessness and nurses at one in the morning. This time only two, but they came prepared with English text book in hand. We had a 30 minute lesson before they were called away. The drip was taken out the next day and I was asleep the next night when they visited. To be
honest they were both delightful and we hope they will come to our house and develop a friendship with Linda. 

In closing, I am very thankful for the hospital staff. They quite probably saved my life and overall they handled a ‘foreigner’ very well. They were friendly, polite and generally good humoured, especially when they realised that I spoke their language. But for all that, I hope that I don’t have to repeat the experience. I don’t think my hands could take it!