Shortly after dinner I started feeling not so well. Around 22:30 I figured I had to go back to the guest house where we were staying as the bad feeling got slightly worse. Nir and Nadav came along and fell asleep shortly thereafter. I started having stomach aches the like of which I've never had in my life (a pretty bold statement coming from someone like me as some might know). While typically when one eats something bad the stomach hurts in the belly button area and the matter is easily resolved through diarrhea, in this case it hurt way up (uncharted territory) and there was no output at the little boy's room (at least at first). So around 1:00 am, after a couple of hours of pain, which got worse, and after making friends with the toilet I woke up Nir and Nadav at that point when I was afraid I was going to faint.
They were of great help. First, Nadav found Lili (I am not sure how he managed that) and brought her up. They asked me if I wanted go to the hospital (I was surprised there was one), and I figured I should since things were getting worse. So off we went. Now getting to the hospital wasn't a simple matter. At first Lili suggested they take me using a two-wheel transportation device (hell if I know what it's called), which was the most uncomfortable thing in the world. About 10 seconds into the ride and after banging my head I decided walking was a better option. Nir helped me with the walking, and the distance seemed endless since when a wave of pain came the walking was halted. Close to the hospital we passed by some sort of a cop who helped as well.
The hospital was the worst one I've ever been. First of all it was not very clean. Mostly the problem was with the toilet (which I visited all too many times during the night) - it lacked toilet paper (except for some that was outside and thus outside help was needed) and there was no soap to wash one's hands. Furthermore, there were loads of mosquitoes, which made the whole experience not too pleasant. More about mosquitoes shortly.
As we were getting to the hospital I told Nir that if needles are involved he must make sure they are disposables and never been used. Also, since I had no idea what was to come, I told him that only under the most severe circumstances should he allow blood transfusion. I was very worried about the possibility of HIV.
When I was in the ER communicating with the outside world was a problem. I was under nearly continuous pain and could not talk to anyone (although I could indeed think properly mostly). They wanted me to drink water as I got dehydrated. In fact Nadav, ran to get bottled water (you shouldn't drink water from the tap and they had no bottled water in the hospital). Anyway, the water made me feel worse and I had to use pen and paper to write in the most basic manner that water was bad and IV was needed. So I got an IV and spent the night there. I was fortunate that Lili was there at the ER as she made communicating with the nurse much easier.
The nurse didn't make any decision and I found it extraordinary that there was no doctor on call. I thought they should treat the situation methodically by running some tests. Of course none were performed. We decided that it would be best for me to spend the night at the hospital and so I did. At that point Nadav took off (the next day I learned that he threw up a couple of times..) and Nir stayed for the remainder of the night.
The night was packed with mosquito fun. I spent the night in the lobby, which had fans to keep away the mosquitoes, but with little success. Both Nir and I got beaten really badly. At some point my left arm was completely swollen, but that somehow faded away in the morning.
The pain subsided as the night progressed and in the morning I checked out. The whole thing only cost 1300Baht ~= 40 USD....
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