Boxing Day 2009, 11am, Sihanoukville General Hospital
I am writing this blog entry from my bed, my bed in Sihanoukville hospital. So, this is my second Cambodian hospital experience in the same number of weeks, however this time I am unfortunately here not through my own choosing. I do have a needle in me again though! It's just that instead of taking blood out, I am having 4 bottles of fluid antibiotics transfused in through a drip painfully passed through a vein in my hand. Lovely. I was astute enough to ask for the drip to be placed in my left hand though in order that my right one would be un-pierced and free to document this!
I'm perfectly fine and just quite surprised to be here really. I got out of bed this morning and discovered that what I thought were about 30 tiny, harmless little bites on my legs, had now grown 5 times their original size, filled with pus, itched like hell and made me look like a leprosy victim. No problem I thought - go to the hospital - get magic cream - bites calm down. But when I got to the hospital (one ward, no doors on the front of the building - open shop medical care!) I was informed by the Doctor through a translator that the reaction I've had to the bites proves I have a viral blood infection and needed to lie down for 2 hours whilst they pumped me full of drugs. So here I am! I've also been given a whole bag of pills to take for the next 7 days (should be fun crossing the border tomorrow with all these in my bag, morning in Cambodian hospital, afternoon in Vietnamese prison?!), antihistamine to take before bed which will apparently put me in a coma-resembling sleep, and the magic cream that I had initially travelled here for. The real thing that's troubling me is that the nurse has told me I'm not allowed to drink alcohol for the next week whilst on all this medication. I smiled sweetly, thanked her, and told her that I appreciate her opinion but it is New Year's Eve in 6 days time and I'm afraid there's nothing in my power I can do to change this. Tablets Schmablets.
Icing on cake - when I got on the back of the motorbike this morning to bring me here I managed to burn the only bite-free part of my leg on the exhaust pipe. I found this hilarious, laughed my head off the whole way here and told the Cambodian guy driving the bike that I guessed it was a happy coincidence we were going to the hospital anyway, oh the irony! I am still laughing as I lie here now, the motorbike driver and all the nurses looking at me like I'm a madwoman. Sometimes things that shouldn't be funny just are though aren't they, and I like having a proper laugh at myself, good for the soul.
Strangely enough though I'm the only one giggling away on the hospital ward this morning. The boy in the bed next to me had to have an injection in his bum, is a pale shade of green and keeps vomiting in to the empty gasoline carton/sick bowl next to his bed. An old woman in the bed opposite is covered in tubes and wires and catheters with her family sat nervously around her head. Another English woman is being treated with a drip like mine but for heat exhaustion and dehydration. An Australian girl on the other side of me has the worst case of bed bugs I've ever seen in my life - she's basically just one big red mark. Only me and the Doctor are having any fun... he's sat on a bench in the middle of the ward watching Miami Vice on the TV and smoking a cigarette. Couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.
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