Monday, April 2, 2012

International health

Our last day in Phnom Penh was rather uneventful. We ate at the historic Foreign Correspondents Club which housed many reporters over the last many turbulent decades and attempted to get in to the royal palace by covering our tank tops with scarves (it's worked at temples in the past and we were on to a yoga class after) but the lady emphatically turned us away. Would've been nice but I'm also a little templed out. But finally got a picture of 5 on a moped!

Then the flight to Bangkok then Phuket. I started feeling a little jittery and then tingly while boarding the plane which quickly deteriorated to chattering teeth, hot forehead and delirious thoughts that I must have malaria since I missed a few pills while in Cambodia. And stupid budget Air Asia didn't even have a blanket. At Bangkok, I put on more layers, took some Tylenol and tried to hydrate and rest. I was pretty much limping due to the leg pains and couldn't think cuz of the headache. We finally arrived at midnight, six hours later to our resort where I was up all night and so decided the next morning 'when in doubt, check it out' and called the local clinic who said I would need to go to the hospital so E flagged me a taxi to Bangkok Hospital Phuket. This clean hospital was really easy to get checked in to and I saw a doctor at the Outpatient Department about five minutes later. They let me rest in a dark room while waiting on labs and were pretty keen on me staying overnight even before we had drawn the labs but after seeing my low K and high white count (and negative malaria and dengue thankfully), I was ok to get fluids and IV antibiotics and go from there. So upstairs we went to a room where I had an excellent view of the sunny day I was missing, tons of English channels and room service even! I hadn't eaten much so attempted some tomato soup and felt surprisingly better a few hours later (IV fluids do wonders!). So after National Treasure finished, I checked out, paid my bill (yup American prices it seemed!), got my meds and taxid home before E could get too worried about me. Not the preferred way to kill 9 hours my first day in the islands but some poolside recovery and a beach sunset the next day sure helped!

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