My 'Welcome to Thailand' Moment

I'll try not to be too graphic for this post. There is no need to glorify or go into too much detail on this one. Nonetheless, this was a notable event that I feel should be documented.

Throughout my first weekend upon arrival in Bangkok I had periodic headaches and feelings of nausea in my stomach. I figured it was due to being tired from the jet lag in combination with eating new foods (mmm...curry). The feelings would come and go - nothing some Tylenol, water, and a nap couldn't handle. However, on Tuesday I was feeling especially bad. My headache was worse and wouldn't go away, and my stomach was more queasy than usual. I ate a snack in the morning with some water and Tylenol and took a nap hoping I could sleep it off like usual. I initially woke up from the nap feeling OK. My stomach was rumbling - OK, good, time to eat again and move on with my day. Unfortunately, these weren't rumblings of hunger. No, these were the type of rumbles that made my stomach churn and were accompanied by my mouth watering. Not good. I sipped on some water next to the bed, but it didn't help. My mouth kept watering. I asked myself if this really happening - am I about to yak? It sure feels like it. Sure enough, my mouth waters to a point where I have to run to the bathroom and out comes my morning snack. It's been so long since I've thrown up that I'd forgotten how much it sucks! The whole heaving uncontrollably thing really does sucks! It's one of those rare times when you are helplessly not in control of your body. Unfortunately for me, my problems didn't stop there. The stomach rumblings were worse now. I'm on my knees in the bathroom next to the toilet trying to recover from the vomiting, when my body abruptly instructs me to drop my pants and sit my ass on the toilet. I won't go into any more detail here, but you get the point that my body was purging itself in more than one way.

At this point I was feeling very weak, nauseous, and hungry so I went and fixed myself some soup and water to put something in my stomach. After only 5 spoons of soup I ran to the bathroom and repeated the same horrific episode. OK, this is getting serious. I can't even hold down a little bit of soup. I called Amber to see if she had any stomach medicine and ended up taking some Pepto we had, but she said my symptoms were similar to something her co-worker had and that I should go to a hospital. She decided to leave work and take me to the hospital. By the time she arrived I had thrown up again and was very weak and getting disoriented. She got her driver to take us to the emergency room at the nearby hospital. I could barely walk when we pulled up. They put me in a wheelchair and took me to the emergency room area. They immediately put me in a bed and within minutes a doctor was checking on me and asking me about my symptoms and what had happened. They took a blood sample so they could make a diagnosis, put me on an I.V., and set me up in a room saying that I would need to stay at least one night there. Within 30 minutes they determined I had some type of bacterial infection from something I ate. I was put on anti-bacterial medicine through the I.V. and a soft diet with electrolytes. By the way, I've never been hooked up to an I.V. They stuck me in a vein on the top of my left hand and left a big-ass catheter in me to attach the I.V. tube. That thing hurt like hell! On top of the ailment I already had, I was also stressing out about the acute pain in my freaking hand. I think it took about 12 hours for the pain in my hand and for me to get accustomed to the feeling of the huge catheter in my hand. Note to self: stay as healthy as possible so that I can minimize hospital visits and avoid getting I.V.'ed or having catheters inserted into my body!

For dinner it took me an hour and a half to eat a piece of toast! For those of you that know me, I eat my meals very fast. Can you imagine seeing me take teeny tiny bites of one piece of bread for over an hour? Each tiny bite made my stomach rumble and I thought I might have to run to the bathroom, but I made it unscathed. By the next morning I was still weak but feeling a little better. I was able to eat all my soup and both pieces of toast for breakfast, it only took 1 hour this time! I napped through most of the day, and by the afternoon I was feeling good, I had most of my energy back but still had a lingering headache. They let me out of the hospital and gave me more medicine to take for the rest of the week. It sucked when they pulled the catheter out of my hand, it left a huge purple raised bump that stayed sore for days. It took me three more days to get back to 100%. I would still get tired easily and the headaches would come and go, but after those three days of eating nothing but soup and bread I finally ventured out and had some great Tex Mex. I wolfed down the meal like my old self and everything was back to normal! The Tex Mex cantina, named Charlie Brown's, was hands down the best Tex Mex I've had outside of Texas (much better than anything I've had in Philadelphia or Delaware). I'll be dedicating an entire blog entry to this restaurant.

All the locals say this 'welcome to Thailand' moment will eventually happen to outsiders living in Thailand. A lot of Amber's ex-pat co-workers experienced the same thing as me, some weren't as serious while others resulted in hospital stays of days and even weeks. I do want to make a quick note that the health care I received at BNH Hospital was spectacular. The staff was very polite, prompt, and attentive to my needs. The nurse outfits were cute too. They wore the classical nurse uniform complete with the dress and little white hats - just like the Joker in the latest Batman movie. I wonder how long I would have been waiting in the emergency room lobby had I been in the U.S.? I still don't know what I ate that caused my infection. Amber and I pretty much ate the same thing for all our meals and we always drank bottled water. It could have been something her body was already used to since she has lived here over a year, but we'll never know. So within a week of arriving in Thailand I experienced my 'welcome to Thailand' moment complete with the first hospital stay of my life. Good times. I can't wait to see what other adventures life will throw at me.