Thailand

By Jen Hawse on Uncategorized tagged Bangkok, Health, Hospital, Thailand

A Bout of Salmonella in Bangkok

No one wants to get sick. Yet, it seems as if illness has been a common theme in my travels thus far. Between colds to travelers diarrhea to strep throat, I’ve had my fair share of sicknesses in the past six months. Most have been minor annoyances. I don’t like being sick, I complain about it. And, I’m a bit of a hypochondriac (I can hear Jason saying, “a bit, ha!”) so I tend to overblow my illnesses at times and become paranoid over things like having the feeling of a lump in my throat (the entire goddamn day long) or minor twinges of pain in my chest (chest pain = immediate emergency, except when it doesn’t).

Yesterday was a test of my mild paranoia gone right! A few weeks back, due to those weird twinges of chest pain, I decided we were going to Bangkok and I was getting a female cancer screening. In the US, I’ve had serious trouble getting physicians to perform breast exams on me and I cannot fathom why. It’s something that if I don’t ask for repeatedly they will not do. Having a young cousin who had breast cancer makes me exceptionally aware of the risks and there just seems to be no reason other than prudishness or laziness for them not to examine me. So, I scheduled for the full package, far more comprehensive than a GYN visit in the US is, and one that would only cost me ~$217 in total (without insurance) and booked the flight.

Jason wasn’t too happy about my trip plans. He thought it was a waste of time and money to entertain my deluded phobia and that it interrupted our plans to do something more fulfilling than going back to a city we both didn’t really enjoy. Still, we went. Upon arrival I felt fine, just a little touch of diarrhea, which is so normal at this point that it’s to be ignored. However, on our second day here I developed a fever and knew it. You don’t need a thermometer to know you’re feverish, you can feel it all over your body. With fever, and diarrhea now every hour or so, I began to feel completely terrible. My heart rate soared while laying down, my body ached, and at times breathing wasn’t as easy as I’d wanted it to be. That night, I didn’t sleep at all. Every time I began to fall asleep I’d jolt up. It was like my heart wouldn’t slow enough to even let me rest. By 5:30 a.m. I was done trying. Jason and I had a 6:30 a.m. alarm for my previously scheduled appointment for that day, so I just stayed up till we had to go.

Upon arrival I told the receptionist that, yes, I am here for an appointment, but I’m not feeling well today. This is Thailand, English isn’t their first language and often times it’s limited at best, so they basically said, “We’ll do the cancer screening first, than check you up”. OK, I wouldn’t do it in that order, but I’m not going to argue because I’m in a safe space now. I go back to get my vitals check on and, low and behold, my blood pressure is up and my heart rate is 144 bpm. Upon sitting, two nurses come back over to me to check my vitals again, because they probably thought they didn’t get a good reading. Nope, reading worked, I’m just ill.

I am called into a doctor’s office that’s more office than anything else and sit down at his desk. He doesn’t touch me, except on the wrist to feel my heart rate, when I tell him in the past few weeks I’ve had heart palpitations and my heart rate is high now. He does listen twice with a stethoscope to my lungs. He asks me why I’m here, “Well, it’s for the female cancer screening, so they said I’ll do that first.” “No, you have an infection and if we do the screening the test results won’t come back properly. We’re going to admit you to the ER, are you OK with that?” I guess I am now!

When I was a little girl I twisted the chains of a swingset together at my grandmother’s house and looked up. Rust sprinkled like dust into my eye. I had to go to the ER to get it taken out with a magnet. I’ve had surgery before, minor but still surgery. I’ve been to medical clinics at few times. But, I’ve never been admitted to the ER. This wasn’t the plan for the day!

In ER admitting, they do a quick EKG (I don’t know this at the time, questions are hard to ask and are often met with nods or vague answers) and then I am fitted with an IV. Someone with much better English comes to me and tells me I’m staying overnight, so would I like a private, semi private, or dorm style room? I’m overwhelmed, Jason isn’t allowed in this area, and I feel like crap so I don’t know the right answer, but opt for the private room because we have insurance and, at worst, it’s $100 a day for the room, food, and 24/7 nursing care (not including meds). I am wheeled up fairly quickly and get started on some antibiotics and IV fluids to rehydrate me. The room is large, has a private bathroom, and accommodations for Jason to sleep on the couch. There’s a table and the food isn’t half bad actually! While I’m reluctant to eat at first, knowing what will happen, I realize I should because I’m in good hands and haven’t had a meal in well over a day. I settle in.

A new doctor, Doctor Nick, comes in hours later to tell me I definitely have a bacterial infection and he highly suspects it’s e. coli. It’s very common in this part of the world and easy to treat. Most people don’t even seek medical treatment for it (although, to be fair, I didn’t exactly seek it either, but I’m glad I got it!) they just suffer it out with fever and sickness for a few days. He says they’ll do a stool test and he’ll be back in the morning to confirm exactly what’s wrong.

During the night I have one more battle over my fever, but quickly overcome. By midnight I’m declared fever free with a great blood pressure and heart rate! I can rest easy, until 4:30 when they wake me up for vitals again. No problem. I fall asleep quickly and get about 6 hours in, which is nice compared to none the night before.

After eating some breakfast the doctor comes back (“Hi Dr. Nick!”) and tells me, actually, I have Salmonella and not E. Coli. This is my second bout of salmonella in my life, and the second time I needed IV treatment for it. The first time I was in Ocean City, MD, on a vacation with my friend Stacey. I’ve got to say, it was rougher then than it is now, mostly because we waited days for medical treatment and I was throwing up too. My mom thought, “It’s a stomach bug, you’re fine”, but with no improvement it was determined I am not fine and in fact needed some interventions. Some people react more strongly to certain bacteria than others, and for me salmonella is particularly potent.

Because Salmonella is an infection of the walls of the intestines, and because it causes blood in the stool, the doctor has asked me to stay at the ER throughout today. Our flight to Krabi isn’t till tomorrow, so sure, why not! Our hotel room really sucks anyway, and our neighborhood has either really expensive food or the highest concentrations of prostitutes outside of Pattaya. So, we stay one more day and I will make fully sure that the salmonella is kicked out of my system before going off to other tropical lands. At least this isn’t malaria or dengue. We have one more month in Southeast Asia (which includes India) so we’re going to double up on bug spray and I’m going to be extra vigilant about what I eat and where it comes from. Thank goodness Jason isn’t sick like me also, or we’d be sharing a room!

Thanks to all my friends who sent me well wishes! Being sick in a foreign land is scary. Being sick in America without adequate health insurance is really really scary. Being sick is just plain scary. I truly hope this is my last bout of illness on this adventure.

UPDATE: After spending ~72 hours in the hospital I’m back at the hotel room, just 24 hours prior to our flight to Krabi. The doctor released me, saying the salmonella is on the mend and I should be fine after taking my course of antibiotics. My only real complaint from the hospital is their lack of english language skills among the nurses, which made it scary when I felt I had a problem that I couldn’t articulate well. Thankfully, I wasn’t in much need to worry. The nurses were incredibly sweet and took excellent care of me. Jason even got them a basket of treats as a thank you gift 🙂 Dr. Nick was completely willing to answer every question I had and even helped me resolve an ongoing medical complaint that I was having with the throat lump. When I told him I was nervous about the course of antibiotics that I’m on due to the risk of tendon damage (news is out this week about it that scared me) he knew exactly what I was talking about and assured me the problem is rare, happens in people who are generally older and/or have taken this kind of antibiotic over and over again. He made me smile many times over.

For my care, I put an ~$850 deposit down. Upon checkout today I got back $221 and that’s after I was able to do the female cancer screening. That means for a three day hospital stay, out of pocket, with 24/7 nursing care, a private room, meals, and tons of drugs it cost me just about $550. Are you shocked and awed at the US medical system after hearing that? I am.

We weren’t going to go to Bangkok, but I’m so glad we did, because apparently I had been harboring the infection for a few days and by the time we got here it was ravaging my body. The doctor told me today, “I’m glad you came in, because your white blood cell count was really high! Normal is about 6,000 and yours was 16,000. If you didn’t come in today, you’d have come into a hospital soon enough and might have gone septic, which requires a 7 day IV treatment.” Whew! So glad I had the appointment and trusted my instincts to make it a priority to take care of myself.

Thanks again for the thoughts and well wishes! I feel so loved, even being so far <3

1 Dec

By Jen Hawse on Asia, City Review tagged Animals, Bangkok, Buddhism, Chiang Mai, City review, Elephants, Festivals, Temples, Thailand, Tropics

Chiang Mai This Place is Nice

When people think about Southeast Asia, Thailand often comes to mind first. Formerly Siam, this ancient civilization is a culturally rich tourist haven. Tourism accounts for 6% of Thailand’s GDP. For comparative purposes, the US generates 2.6% of our GDP from tourism. Thailand’s main economy is export focused. I bet you have a few clothing items in your closed that are “Made in Thailand”.

During our trip planning Thailand was highest of the list of places to dig into and explore, chiefly because it’s fairly cheap, safe, and open to foreigners (or farangs as we’re called by the Thai people). Our original plan was to get a six month multi-entry visa (MEV) for Thailand and make it a sort of “home base” for our travels. We wanted to explore all around Southeast Asia, while knowing we could go back anytime. After weeks of research we realized the requirements for the MEV were too much to handle. You needed to have a job at home (nope, sorry), plus proof of that job that isn’t a paystub (what, how?) then statements showing $7,000 in the bank, plus we’d have to pay $200. We didn’t want to lie or pay that huge $200 fee, so we opted to just keep hopping and avoid having the “home base”. That meant our first stop out of the Far East and into Southeast Asia was Thailand for a one month stay.

Chiang Mai ladyboy cabaret. — Chiang Mai ladyboy cabaret

As you know, we jumped into Bangkok first and spent a pretty intense 10 days there. The King had passed away six days prior to our arrival and the city was transformed in ways that no one could have envisioned. A sea of Thais were arriving daily to pay their respects and mourn his loss. The sadness was visceral and all entertainment was cancelled, including even simply playing music at bars. Black was the standard garb and locals and tourists alike were encouraged to wear it. For being in the tropics, Thailand has some fairly strict standards of dress. This includes no shoulders or knees showing, with many Thais opting to fully cover their legs and arms. No, tourists don’t have to comply, but it’s again encouraged. So, when temperatures feel like 107 F, you’re suppose to wear all black and be covered up in order to be modest. Jason and I care about respecting culture and modesty, so we wanted to make sure we covered as much as possible (read, it’s hot and just got hotter for us).

img_20161113_152436852 — Hot, but worth it for this craziness

Really, it’s mostly important to be covered at temples. Thailand is a swarm of Buddhist temples. They’re everywhere, with over 40,000 throughout the country, and my goodness they’re stunning works of art and religion. 94% of Thais follow Buddhism, a religion that has origins in the country from the 3rd century. I’m personally a big fan of Buddhism for their culture of nonviolence and belief in the changing nature of the universe. Out of all religions that I’ve encountered this one speaks to me the highest.

img_20161112_214034428 — Temples everywhere

Something I never got over was seeing monks draped in flowing orange robes, walking the streets, with canvas shopping bags carrying their simple belongings. Thailand has between 200,000 – 300,000 Buddhist monks, so they’re easily found. Monks can be of the city or forest variety and the monks have to follow over 230 rules. How do I know all this? When in Chiang Mai I participated in a Monk Chat to learn about their unique way of life. The monks were very open to my questions and were actually quite interested in what I was doing in Thailand and where my travels had taken me. Many were intermediate English speakers, so the conversation provided them an opportunity to speak with a native English speaker while engaging in a cultural exchange.

img_20161102_170556944 — Extremely old temple in the middle of Chiang Mai

We spent 17 days in total in Chiang Mai, so besides spending time with Buddhist Monks and sweating we also had a great day playing with elephants at Elephant Jungle Sanctuary. My mom had gifted me some spending money for my birthday (thanks again, Momsie!) and this is what we opted to spend it on. In Thailand there are several options to interact with wild animals. You can pet sleepy (read: drugged) tigers at Tiger Kingdom or ride elephants at several parks, which is terrible for them on many levels; or you can go to one of several elephant preserves in the area to help care and interact with the big lugs in an environment that’s specifically designed to make them happy and keep them safe. We opted for the humane elephant preserve (of course!).

The day started with an 8:15 a.m. pickup from a “red truck”, a Ford that’s been outfitted with bench seats and a cap on the bed that had windows cut out of it. The back of the cap was completely open to climb into and out of, there was no door. Staying by the train station meant we were a good 30 minute walk from the city with few hotels that far out, so we weren’t sure if this truck was going to take us to a van to drive up the mountain or if we’d be getting more passengers and going on our way. The latter ended up being true. By 9:10 the truck was filled with 10 people, driver included, and we were heading up to the sanctuary in the mountains of northern Thailand, in a truck, with no door on the back. Hey, at least we were all the way on the inside!

img_20161104_091511354 — In the truck, heading toward elephant sanctuary

Zig zagging through the mountain passes we drove fast. The driver claims we were making up time because two of our fellow riders were late. It seemed likely that they were very young newlyweds, at least according to me and the three hilarious German ladies that I shared a few laughs with. The couple surely wasn’t dressed like they were going to play in the mud! Either way, as for the crazy drive, you eventually became used to the crazy conditions and almost comfortable with it. A cool blew into the cabin and all around us were beautiful vistas. Peace set in, that is until the road no longer became a road, but instead a kind of truck “path” that steeply jetted us into an even closer to near death situation as we drove inches away from sheer cliffs on tracks wide enough for just the two truck tires. Somehow, we didn’t die (either coming or going!). The day has hardly started and yet our adrenalin is pumping at full force.

Instead of going into great detail with the elephants I’ll just share some pictures here to show you what happened.

Another special treat in Chiang Mai was the Loy Krathong Festival. This was one of the main reasons we decided to go north to Chiang Mai instead of south to the world famous Thai beaches. Loy Krathong roughly translates to “to float a basket” and is celebrated throughout Thailand on the full moon of the 12th month of the year. These baskets are generally banana leaves decorated with colorful flowers and sometimes hold a coin as an offering to the river spirits. Fireworks and big celebrations are generally part of this annual event, but with the King’s passing all of these extra demonstrations were toned down. Paper lanterns, however, were still part of the event and were just as magical as you can imagine.

img_20161114_235803176 — We are cleared for liftoff!

Yi Peng, another full moon even, is the reason these lanterns are part of the Loy Krathong Festival. For Thais, the lanterns are a symbol of merit, a Buddhist belief in doing good deeds to bolster personal enlightenment and ensure you have a better next life. I’m happy regardless of their reasoning, because watching these lanterns take off was a top bucket list item for me and completing it is like floating on air 🙂

img_20161112_200622823 — A celebration of lights!

Chiang Mai has become a favored city for Jason and I because of it’s medium size, natural setting, good food, mixed culture, and some great people we met during our stay. It’s #2 thus far for me, right behind Seoul, for this trip.

It’s funny how each place we’re only at for a short time, yet in my mind I keep thinking, “Oh, we can always go back if we want. We’re in SE Asia for a while.” but, in reality, we will most likely never return to these destinations and I have to be OK with that inevitability. Travel, to me, is the definition of bittersweet. Often, I’m thinking of home and wondering what you people are up to out there, living normal lives and spending time with those you love. When I’m not thinking of that I’m planning our next move, where to go and how to get there. I’m thinking of what’s on the agenda for tomorrow. I’m worrying about the budget. I’m looking at maps. I’m dreaming of our time in Europe. I’m considering how I feel both guilty to live this way and immensely blessed. I’m trying not to kill Jason as well, and vise versa 🙂

Travel requires patience and perseverance. I’m no model for either of those traits and often I’m rushing through something and stressing me and/or Jason out or bored that there’s nothing to do for a brief period of time instead of being productive and planning or just being. Patience and perseverance. I’ve never been a hobby kind of person. I’m a worker bee and that’s always been my hobby. I like to feel useful and I’m grateful that I’ve had great jobs where that feeling has been realized. In travel, you consume everything and you don’t give anything unless you make a concerted effort to take on volunteer work. This week, I signed Jason and I up for Work Away, a website that connects hosts looking for volunteers all over the world with their projects and willing workers. Like WWOOFing, Willing Workers on Organic Farms, Work Away is for all types of work and the great part is they most often pay you in room and board. With this we can save money, learn some new skills, feel useful, meet new people, and keep having fun traveling. I think this is exactly what I need to make this trip go from good to great.

img_20161108_185132838 — The fishies cleaned up our feet!

If you have specific questions about anything or want me to cover a topic, versus a country, just ask! Before I left people wanted to know about our budget and backpacks, if there’s interest I can write a blog on those topics or others. Thanks for reading! Until next time!

1 Nov

By Jen Hawse on Asia tagged America, Animals, Bangkok, Health, Medicine, SE Asia, Snakes, Thailand

Medical Tourism in Bangkok

Update: I wrote this two days ago, but haven’t posted due to changing cities and lack of internet in Bangkok. So, we’re doing better now!

I’m feeling a bit guilty. Travel is about the experience of constantly diving into the unknown. In the past two days we have not dove, but mostly stayed afloat in the serene waters of our new hotel room (this one has a bathroom en suite!). Why are we sitting and not wandering? Because, we’re both a little under the weather and we’re needing our rest, regardless of my guilt.

It’s true, this is my third illness in the past six weeks. Travel has taken a beating on my normally healthy body. The generally strong and healthy one in the relationship, Jason, is also under assault and feeling lethargic from cold symptoms. Woe is us, right? No, of course not, just another admission about what’s real and ultimately not glamorous on our budget travels.

I don’t mean to dwell on illness, truly, but I do want to spin you a story about our past few days.

When we arrived in Thailand last Wednesday it was very late. We didn’t make it through immigration until after midnight. It took us about 45 minutes to figure out which mode of transportation we were going to take to leave the airport itself and then once we were on our way our Uber driver got lost at least twice (yes, there is Uber in Thailand). By the time we got to our guesthouse it was after 1:30 and we were exhausted. The plan was to get vaccinated here in Bangkok the next day.

Why did we wait this long to get our travel vaccines? Because, as you can read in one of my first posts, it would have cost us over 3x’s in the US as it does here for the exact same drugs. Let me answer your looming questions: No, our insurance wouldn’t cover them in the US. Travel vaccines are elective and thus not covered. No, we don’t think they’re any different over here, in fact we know they’re the exact same drug from the exact same manufacturer. Medicine is globalized. No, we don’t think we were taking an unnecessary risk in waiting because we are going to be in developed areas for the 4 – 6 week period while the vaccines take hold. No, the US isn’t world class in care, they’re just world class in health costs. Thailand has excellent hospitals and they say if you’re ill anywhere in SE Asia to run to Thailand for treatment, if you can. No, you can’t get vaccinated for malaria or dengue fever, you can only take preventative measures, so the mosquito risks are all ones we have to take on ourselves through DEET and long sleeved cloths. I digress, but we weighed this very carefully and decided to get vaccinated in Bangkok well before leaving the US.

Jason asks me Wednesday night if we’re getting vaccinated on Thursday, the day after we arrive. I tell him no, we’re going to want to sleep in as best as we can and we should wait till Friday when we can get up early and go. So, Friday comes and we’re running a little behind, as is our way, but we get out and jump on the bus to the clinic. Truth be told, I’m scared. I’m scared of getting vaccinated anywhere, not just Thailand. I think the anti-vaxxers got to me, because I fear things like loss of limb function and death. If I got vaccinated at home I’d have the exact same worries. I just don’t want to do it. The funny thing is, needles don’t scare me at all, just the stuff in them! So, I’m moody and nervous. We’re almost there though, on this very slow moving non-airconditioned bus and Jason says to me, “Fuck! I forgot the passports!” I didn’t realize, but you need a passport for the international immunization documentation packet that they give you. It’s handy for going into countries that actually require pre-vaccination (although none do on our trip). Well, there goes that! We skip vaccines that day, then Saturday (my birthday), then they’re closed Sunday and also Monday, because of a government holiday, so that means on Tuesday we have to get vaccinated to make sure we have time to recover before we leave on a 12 hour night train on Friday.

Tuesday, late at night, after we book our AirBnB in Chiang Mai and Jason falls peacefully asleep I start freaking out. My throat has a huge lump in it. It’s swollen. This happened very suddenly. It hurts to move my neck! This is crazy! Right before I left I found a swollen lymph node in my leg and had a little freak out, but it felt nothing like this. I’m a tiny bit hypochondriac, so this huge and painful lump isn’t boding well. I think my throat is closing up it happened so quickly. I try to sleep, but can’t with my pounding heart and worried mind. Tomorrow we’re getting vaccinated; maybe I’m making this up in my head! Maybe I’m believing I’m sick to trick myself out of getting immunized. After about an hour of basically having a panic attack I wake Jason up. I apologize, tell him not to get angry with me, but just help me calm down because I can’t do it myself right now. He gets up and starts talking logic, like, “No one dies in their sleep from a closed up throat.” (But, do they?!). “Stop touching it, it’s probably not that bad, and you’re going to make it worse.” “Just got to sleep, it’s after 3:00, and you’ll be fine.” Eventually, exhaustion takes hold and I sleep.

Waking up, my throat is still swollen, but not much better or worse. Jason has a little cold, he’s had one at this point for a few days, and no matter what happens we’re getting vaccinated today. We grab our passports, the cash, and head out. Other than the lump and soreness, I feel physically fine (very mysterious indeed).

We get to the hospital, which we’d read a blog online about before the trip explaining the ease and affordability of travel vaccines, and find the place to be a little oasis in bustling Bangkok. Not only do they have a travel clinic, they also have a World Health Organization snake farm here where they milk poisonous snakes of their venom to work on anti-venom therapies. You can visit the snake farm and see these slithery little guys in action for $6 USD. We planned on a double whammy of vaccines and snake farm in one trip!

The hospital staff has lunch from 12:00 – 1:00 p.m., and we arrive about 12:30. We we grab a tea in the courtyard and fill out some paperwork as we wait. I’m, of course, nervous. At 1:00 we head in, grab our number, and wait our turns. The process is smooth and there are both foreigners and Thai here getting shots. There’s even a Buddhist monk in his beautiful orange robes. After we register and get our paperwork packets we have our temperature, blood pressure, and pulse taken and then head in for a consult with the doctor. During the process we overhear an American asking about how it works. He’s alone and so I say to him, “We’re doing the same ones you are!” Maybe he was nervous too and I wanted him to know he wasn’t alone.

Well, the process is so quick that we basically spend the entire time moving from station to station with our new friend, Kevin. This is good for me, because it takes my mind off the clear and impending doom the vaccinations will surely cause me! Kevin, on the other hand, is chill and definitely not nervous, but happily chatted with us the whole time. Thanks, Kevin!

After the doctor’s consult, which he recommended we get Hep A, Typhoid, and Japanese Encephalitis, we go to the pharmacy to pick up our vaccines. Yes, you personally pick these up and take them with you to the nurse who will give you the shot. We paid, in total, for the two of us, less than $150 for all three shots, plus administration fees. In the US it would have been 10x’s as much.

The nurse sticks me with three needles, I wince, she tells me to relax, I apologize, and we call it a day. We get our immunization documentation packet and are told to wait a few more minutes (to ensure no serious complication arise) and we’re done here.

After getting shot, we part with Kevin, wish him well on his journey through SE Asia and to Australia, and head to the snake farm. Boy, are we in luck! They’re having a show with all the snakes on display! We get to see vipers, pythons, and rattlesnakes from all over the world. At the end they invite you to get a picture with an albino python and I just had to! My dad fiercely feared snakes, but I just love them. I don’t know why, but I think they’re fascinatingly beautiful animals that deserve respect and want to harm you far less than we harm them.

Vaccines complete, snake farm check, it’s about time to head back. But first, lunch! We go to a nearby mall, get some Japanese ramen (it doesn’t compare to Japan, but I’m afraid nothing ever will) and then treat ourselves to ice cream for being good patients. As we’re doing this Jason is getting sleepier and sleepier. I am, strangely, feeling fine, but that throat lump is as big as ever! We head back to the hostel and call it a night.

The next day we’re moving hostels and I’m still worried about my neck. Swollen lymph nodes indicate your body is fighting an infection, and my lymph nodes are still enormous. If you can’t figure out where your infection is happening it’s a real problem. If you can, you take proper care to fix it, and you’ll be fine. I can’t figure it out so I’m googling while trying to talk to our AirBnB host in Chiang Mai and pack up properly before check out time. After days of searching, and being told by Jason to stop touching it, I’m just making it worse (grrr), I find the answer.

There are two types of strep throat, one is viral and one is bacterial. Viral causes swollen lymph nodes and makes you feel overall ill. Bacterial strep is generally a child’s disease, but it can happen in adults, and is something people can acquire from large crowds. We have been in some of the biggest crowds I’ve ever encountered. Bacterial strep makes your tonsils swell and have pus cover them (sorry, gross, but true). I take my phone’s flashlight, shine it in my mouth and hold up my mirror, and see I 100% have bacterial strep. An answer! How do you treat this? A common 10 day regimen of penicillin. Easy.

To be sure it’s bacterial strep, though, you need a strep test. So the first place we go after leaving our hostel is to a travel health clinic. They have no strep test, so we go to a pharmacy and they have none either. Crap. I don’t want to wait to treat this and google isn’t showing us where travel health clinics are. I’m so sure of what this is that trying to find a clinic is just going to prolong the infection, which is dangerous. We decide the best course of action is to pick up some antibiotics from a pharmacy, amoxicillin, and start treatment. The 10 day regimen is $10 USD. Back home, without insurance, how much do you think that would cost? Well, considering you can’t just go into a pharmacy and get antibiotics you’re looking at a doctors visit + the prescription, so I’d say around $400 from what I’ve witnessed as of late with the US health care system. Or, it’s $10 in Thailand. If we’d gotten a strep test it would have probably been another $10 USD. The progressive US, am I right?!

So, today, we’re resting again. Jason is still fighting his cold, because getting vaccinated on top of a cold means your immune system is fighting doubly hard, and I feel fine but don’t want to risk exacerbating the illness by stressing my body. The swelling is dropping and while it still looks nasty I feel completely fine.

Tomorrow, we leave the hostel at noon, exploring with our packs on all day, then jumping on a train to Chiang Mai for a 12+ hour journey starting at 7:30 at night. We’ll be in Chiang Mai for 17 days, so hopefully we can cook some (yes!) and dig into the landscape a little more than we have here in Bangkok. There are elephant reserves where you can feed and meet former circus elephants, but you cannot ride them. It’s a little pricey, but it’s what I’m going to spend the birthday money my mom sent me on 🙂 Thanks, Momsie, so much!

Thanks for listening and stay well, my friends!