As I write this I can look out the window and watch my third sunset from room 1001 at Bangkok Hospital.  More than twenty-four hours have passed with no fever and this morning my doctor, who came in on her day off to see me, asked me to stay one more night to continue the IV antibiotics and to take another chest xray to see what’s changed since Wednesday.  She’ll come back Sunday morning, also her day off, to look at the results and we’ll see where to go from there.

The nurses seem optimistic that I’ll be discharged then.  But they were saying that during my temperature and blood pressure check at 10 pm yesterday, too.  Ten pm is a busy time.  One nurse is injecting my antibiotics and another is recording vitals.  To me, it was just a blur of activity.

Tawn’s toe is better.  It is now just a bit bruised and the plumish purple has largely receded.  He’s been here all afternoon and charms all the nurses.  That’s his nature.

A few more observations of hospital life:

After a day and a half of nonstop IV drip (saline) and 10 cc in-line injections of antibiotics, the veins in my left arm started to feel painful.  At first I couldn’t figure out what it was but after an hour or so, decided to trust my instinct that something was abnormal and spoke with a nurse.  Sure enough, the veins were irritated from the higher volume of liquid, bruised and abused.  By the time they pulled the IV out, there was a nice red splotch tracing its way from the point of entry to the crook of my arm.

When it came to putting in a new line, Tawn told the nurse about the problems finding a vein during admittance.  She assured him that she would send the most beautiful nurse on the floor, gesturing to one of her colleagues.  Then Tawn said to the other nurse, “You may be the most beautiful, but I need to make sure you can also handle this special case.”  With great self-confidence she looked at him, smiled, and cattily replied that she was the best in the ward on both accounts.

Sure enough, Annie Oakley was right.  She spent about thirty seconds tapping the back of my hand and examining it, then swabbed it and struck a suitable vein in one single, smooth and painless prick of the skin.  As you can see, I’ve not let being in the hospital keep me from working.  This is my version of Sion’s treadmill desk.

Food here continues to be quite decent.  This morning I was served boiled rice, not quite Chinese style jok which I received the morning before.  This is really just watery rice.  My friend Ken really doesn’t like it so I think of him and our trip to Lampang a few years back every time I eat it. 

What really tickled me, though, was the message on this packet of chilies in vinegar: “To keep chilli fresh longer, No preservatives added.”  Anyone care to explain to me what role the vinegar serves?  It isn’t a preservative?

This afternoon Tawn and I headed downstairs to Starbucks.  I wore cargo shorts and a polo shirt in an effort to blend in to the crowd.  I’m not wearing my hospital kung fu pj’s to Starbucks!  I thought it would be funny to shoot a little video about me “sneaking” out of the ward but decided it was a bit more effort than I wanted to invest.

Okay, that’s all for now.  The night sky is now black and the city lights spread out around me.  Thanks for reading.

Sometimes a short staycation is just what the doctor ordered.  Literally.  On my return to the doctor, much as I expected, there wasn’t any significant improvement with my lung infection so I’m doing two to three at Bangkok Hospital.  Thankfully, I bought expat insurance a year ago which covers hospitalization expenses at a pretty generous level.  Didn’t think I’d have the need for it anytime soon but there you go… better to be prepared.

First off, though, a milestone passed last night.  My SiteMeter counter hit 100,000 unique visitors since September 21, 2006, an average of 115 a week.  The highest week was August 24, 2008 with 726, the week I wrote the featured post “Things I Wish I Had Know When I Started Working.”

While this blog serves primarily as a means to keep my friends and family up to date on what’s going on in my grand adventure in Thailand, I’ve been fortunate to receive so many other visitors.  To those of you who are here, who have stayed, and who actively participate in the conversations, thank you!

Having never been hospitalized before, I was eager to have a new experience to blog about.  So far all I can say is, it’s tedious!  Today was a public holiday so Tawn was with me part of the day before returning home to run some errands and subsequently stubbed his small toe, getting a hairline fracture in the process.  When he returned to the hospital he visited another doctor to receive treatment.  The plum purple toe is slowly losing its swell and hopefully he’ll be back in easy walking condition soon.  So now we’re both ailing!

As for me, I had to deal with a ongoing problem I have – elusive veins.  After poking around several times and not finding an active vein into which to run the IV line, a very sweet and apologetic nurse handed me off to someone else, who was able to strike oil on the first try.

Labels and stickers are on so I’m now officially the property of Bangkok Hospital.  Apologies for the Sharon Stone-esque shot.  The nurse did not cross her legs.

The “deluxe” rooms that the insurance covers were fully booked so they moved us to a “superior” room at no additional cost.  No kidding, this place is nearly as large as our condo!

I have an amazing view of the city and enjoyed a fantastic sunset.

The doors are locked to the balcony, though.  Will have to check tomorrow and see if they’ll let me out to take more pictures.  There’s a rooftop helipad just to the right of this picture.  If there’s a lifeflight arrival you know I’ll be filming!  =D

The food service is provided by Sodexho and I receive a menu for the following day.  Two choices for breakfast, lunch and dinner in the genres of Thai (oddly labeled “Oriental” food), Western, Vegetarian, Halal (labeled “Arabic”) and Japanese food.   I’m going with Thai meals as they are tastier and half the cost of the western meals.  Not clear what the prices are for the vegetarian, Arabic and Japanese meals but maybe if I stay longer I’ll experiment.  Here’s lunch as a sample:

Fruit plate for dessert, a clear soup with dark leafy greens and braised beef, ground pork with broccoli (which needed some fish sauce added for flavor) and a fried white fish with onions, green onions, carrots and cilantro in a sweet and sour sauce.  Huge amount of food and actually, not too bad!

A quick observation: I’ve been on an IV nonstop, a litre of saline slow dripping into my arm with injections every eight hours of this liquid antibiotic.  When they plunger it into my veins, I can feel it making its way up my arm, relatively cool (I guess they refrigerate it) and like an extra wave of blood heading for the heart.  Not painful but a very unique sensation.

Anyhow, I’m here for at least a few days.  No excuse not to stay on top of my blogging, I guess, as I have plenty of free time.  Ciao.