A Tinker in Thailand

We planned to come to Vietnam for a weekend.

When I woke up early Friday morning with a severe stomach ache I was sure it would go away. When it was time to go to class and it hadn’t gotten any better, Laura said I should go to the hospital. When I came back from class early and it had gotten worse, Laura said we should cancel the Vietnam trip and stay in Bangkok.

Some day I will learn to listen to the wisdom of women. This time, I went to Vietnam with appendicitis.

The cab ride from the airport was amusing. We were the lone car in a sea of motorcycles, I felt like Hunter Thompson in “Where the Buffalo Roam,” the scene where he’s covering the race. Dust in my beer and everything. Unfortunately, the novelty of honking motorcycles could only outweight the agony of whateverthefuck was wrong with me for so long, and eventually I gave up and laid down in the back seat. I don’t know how many u-turns and attempts to avoid the paralyzed traffic later it was that we ended up at the hotel, but we made it.

I suppose I shouldn’t say the hotel, because it wasn’t where we thought we were going, and they didn’t have a reservation for us. Spring House Hotel, Spring Hotel, potato, patato. I nearly fainted while Laura was getting the news that they were “very busy,” so I sat down and got a second wind. This was fortunate, because the hotel around the block where we ended up staying showed us up to our 5th floor room, no elevator. When you haven’t eaten for 24 hours (oh and have appendicitis too) walking up 5 stories in heat is hard. He could have showed us a broom close and I would have taken it if only for the opportunity to lay down.

Laura went to get us some water, and herself some food, and I got some rest.

The next day we went out to get some Pho, of which I was able to eat approximately five bites. Most food I’d had in 36 hours, progress. Still completely sure I just had a mean stomach ache.  After going home and getting some more rest, I decided I was on the mend and we found a lovely place to go for dinner. Walking there was fun – remember that game “frogger?” Every street crossing was like that, except you don’t get do-overs when your weaving in and out of motorcycles!

The restaurant we made it to (The Temple Club) was lovely – matching any top-notch restaurant at home in service, ambiance and food, but with main dishes going for less than $10. I felt awful for being so sick – I barely finished half a beer and a few bites of my cashew chicken. I really wanted to have dessert, but it just wasn’t happening.

We took a cab home, as there was a storm brewing, and headed in for the night. Surely, I thought, I’d be better by morning, and we’d have at least a half-day to see the various attractions that drew me to this city.

Wrong! Around 6 AM I had a dream that I was in a hospital, and they thought I was a doctor. I signed in and was thrown into treating a patient, very confused. I awoke somewhere between shivers and convulsions, completely out of control, freezing cold but sweating, more than enough to scare Laura a bit. At this point I gave in – “I need to go to a doctor.”

Laura (of course) had already looked up the best medical facilities in HCMC, and quickly packed up our things to go. We left the key and some cash with the receptionists (who were asleep on cots in the hotel lobby) and got a cab. Unfortunately, hospital #1 had no doctor! The 24-hour SOS was around the corner.

After an ultrasound, a lot of stomach-prodding and a hypothesis that maybe it was “just Dengue fever,” the team of Vietnamese and French Canadian doctors said I needed a CT-scan at another hospital to make sure I didn’t have appendicitis. As soon as the CT scan was over (but not before I was out of the sci-fi machine) the doctors all rushed into the room, “Appendicitis!” I was a bit confused, but they nodded eagerly and repeated, “you have appendicitis.”

They whisked me back to the hospital, gave me some morphine, and began preparations for my next ambulance trip, this time to the Franco-Vietnamese Hospital.