Ready for more?? If you haven't read part 1 of our hospital adventure in Thailand, click the link below!
http://alysasharp.theworldrace.org/?filename=thailand-hospital-adventurespart-1
Bethany-X Rays
We’ve been waiting WAY to long for the x-rays. Jake was having no relief and in fact they were getting worse. I was SO tired as I had got no sleep the night before. I sat on the chair next to his bed trying to help Jake breathe through the pain, but nodding off and doing everything I could to keep my eyes open. We finally get the OK to do an X-ray and I immediately feel a wave of hope come across me.
Wrong.
To say the x-rays were stressful is an understatement. We had no interpreter and no one that spoke English. I stood in the x-ray room with Jake feeling completely helpless and the nurses and I were playing charades to try and communicate. At one point tears formed in my eyes. I had Jake yelling at me to tell the nurses how much pain he was in, and I had the nurses looking to me to tell Jake what to do. I felt so helpless.
Jake
The X ray process was awful; I was doubling over in pain yet the nurses were determined to get in the imaging. I tried to tell them that I didn’t need an X Ray – I needed an enema! But the language barrier was too much. They wanted me to stand up straight with my chest out, which was basically an impossible demand. I was very thankful to get it done with.
Alysa – Arrival with Ray (our ministry contact)
I arrived with our contact Ray to the hospital around 10:30am after filling out a safety report, sending emails, and calling our squad leaders. It was time to start the insurance process, but I needed that information from Jake.
When I first walked into the room I felt like I was in a scene from a movie. Poor Jake had an IV in him, but still pale and yellow with no pain gone from the wee hours of the morning, I thought to myself, this is going to be a long day.
Little did I know that this was really only the beginning…
Jake
It was a very long day.
Jake – Stomach Pump
Soon after the arrival of Ray and Alysa, the senior nurse (AKA Mama Nurse) and her army of pupils came in to administer a stomach pump to me. Still cramping, and without any form of anesthesia, she began to shove the tube up my nose. The tube was not only extremely uncomfortable but also very painful, causing me to flail all four limbs uncontrollably, grabbing Mama Nurse’s wrist and pushing her and her senile tube away from me. I sat up, looked her in the eye and sharply let out “You tryin’ to kill me!?”. She swapped the tube for one of a smaller diameter, and went back to work. As she pushed it up my nose, my limbs again went crazy, taking all the nurses in the room to half-restrain my body. The pain was excruciating – seriously the worst I’ve ever felt. After a a certain point, I could feel the tube well past my throat. Mama nurse injected a gel into the tube, (Which was used to react with whatever was in my stomach and get it to come up) which got caught in my throat, choking me. Unable to breathe for about ten seconds, my body instinctively went bananas. All I could hear were the nurses repeating the words “breathe” and “swallow”, both seeming like impossible tasks at that moment in time. Eventually, the gel went down, I began to breathe again, and the contents of my stomach began coming up. I calmed down, glad that literally the worst pain I have ever felt in my life was over. I still had severe cramping and now I could feel a tube in the back of my throat, but at least that experience was over.
Alysa
I was just getting information for Jake’s insurance when good old Mama Nurse came strolling into the room. Minding my own business I didn’t notice what they were planning on doing. I heard the word stomach pump but didn’t realize what it was going to take to get the pump going.
I looked up from what I was doing and saw a tube that apparently was suppose to go up Jake’s nose. In my head I thought, I’m so glad that’s not me. Then when they started to proceed to literally shove it up his nose. I was in pain for him. I was a nervous wreck because Jake couldn’t take the pain. I honestly couldn’t look when they were putting the tube up his nose. I went to the window in the room looked out at it and began to pray that God would some how help Jake to just swallow as the nurses were telling him to do. It didn’t work the first time, or second, but on the third time it finally was up his nose and into his stomach!
I did a little PTL fist pump and a thank you Jesus prayer in my head and proceeded to continue to figure out the insurance.
Bethany
Guys, this was one of the most painful things I've ever witnessed. My poor Jake! Alysa refused to watch the process, so she ran to the window to pray. I stood over Jakes bed trying to calm him while his limbs were flailing and nurses surrounded his bed. What a terrible situation……. we were sitting in a small hospital room in Thailand, NO one spoke english, and here we sit trying to get a tube down poor Jakes throat. We had nurses yelling at us in Thai, and poor Jake sitting in the bed having to deal with it all. It could have been a scene from a soap opera!
Alysa and Bethany – Doctor’s Finger
Alysa
Jake finally had a little break and so Bethany and I decided we would try and get one too. Little did we know that when the Doctor walked in he wasn’t doing just a routine check up.
All of a sudden the doctor tells Jake to roll onto his side. Bethany asked “What is he doing Jake?” he turns his head around and simply says “girls he’s pulling my pants down.”
In shock and not sure of what to do Bethany and I buried our faces in the pillows we had in our laps and proceeded to do what any girl would do in this situation: laugh. Oh yeah I forgot to mention we literally were a few feet from the bed sitting on a bench. AIM tells you that there is no personal bubble on the Race and that bubble was popped – more like burst open. Can you guess what happened?
Yep lets just say that the one time I decided to look up from the pillow I got to see a full moon in broad day light.
I decided that it was best to just keep my face buried in the pillow. At times during this check in I heard a few noises come from Jakes mouth. At one point I heard the doctor ask Jake “are you in pain?” Jake answered the only way Jake does, “nope just severe discomfort.” The way that he said it made Bethany and I laugh even harder.
Thankfully after a few more minutes the doctor pulled Jake’s pants back up and said to him “okay now you drink 2 liters of water” again Jake’s response was priceless: “You outta your mind!?”
Apparently the doctor was quite serious and said “yes 2 liters” then left the room. Bethany and I broke the quiet stifles of laughter in our pillows to full blown laughs even Jake managed to crack a smile.
Bethany
When the doctor brought in the 2 liters of liquid that Jake had to drink my mouth dropped to the floor. With Jake in this much pain there was NO way we were going to get this down. I also had to beg the nurse (through a game of charades of course) to give Jake some pain medication through his IV. I could NOT stand to watch him in so much pain anymore. With morphine now in his system and his eyes slowly drifting off to sleep, I was starting to feel helpless. How in the world were we going to get this liquid down?? They couldn't do the CT scan until he drank this liquid. The faster we could get Jake to drink this, the sooner we could get him in for the CT scan.
I had to demand every TINY sip that Jake drank. Little by little we were making progress. "Ok Jake, one more sip buddy." Jake was SO drugged up on morphine. I was prying the poor guys eyes open doing everything possible to get him to drink this. He was a trooper, and didn't hate me after the process! ha!
Bethany and Alysa 12:00 noon
Alysa–
I remember thinking to myself, I should move my shoes away from his bed just in case he vomits. I mean you never know what might happen when one’s stomach is not doing so hot. About 5 minutes later Bethany handed him his last cup but instead of drinking it all of a sudden vomit came spewing out of his mouth.
You couldn’t have seen two girls move quick enough to get out of the projectile zone. I just remember one second I was sitting on the couch the next I was in the bathroom. Yep my track coach would have been proud, pretty sure he would have said I set a new record or something.
After the three times Jake projectile vomited Bethany and I came out of our bunker and came into the room, pleasantly gifted with an acidy gross smell that only made us dash out of the room to get fresh air, and of course to get nurses to clean up.
Yet again Bethany and I couldn’t help but laugh, you can’t blame us we had been up for so long and well laughter is the best cure for things like this. Poor Jake on the other hand was in bed covered from waist to beard in his vomit. Selfishly I thought thankgoodness I moved my shoes, Bethany’s on the other hand weren’t so lucky.
Bethany
Guys….. Alysa is not doing this situation justice. I'm the dramatic one on our team, so let me explain this in more detail to give you a FULL idea of what really happened.
While I hand Jake one of his last glasses of this nasty liquid, I see him start to gag, and immediately I say, "oh no, he's about to blow." Yep! Have you ever seen the movie pitch perfect? In the beginning when the girl on stage projectile vomits on the audience? Guys, that's EXACTLY what it was like. No joke…. projectile vomit. I've never moved from one place to another so fast in my life. Alysa and I hid in the bathroom for a few seconds trying to process what just happened. I peeked my head around the corner to check on Jake and what I saw will never leave my mind… ever. The entire room was covered in vomit….. including Jake himself. It was the sickest thing I've ever seen. (sorry jake) I ran out to the hallway( dodging the vomit that covered the floor) to find the nurses. Again, I begin a game of charades with the nurses to explain to them that we needed cleanup in room 14. Can you imagine what that game of charades looked like?
While the nurses cleaned up poor Jakes room (including the vomit that hung from his long beard) Alysa and I stood in the hallway so we didn't have to smell the most horrid acidic smell I've ever smelled. Yikes! That poor kid. At this point, I was on very little sleep and the stress of the situation erupted all the laughter I'd been holding in.
Jake – CT Scan
After giving me a new set of clothes and putting me in a new bed, the nurses took me to get a CT scan around 1:30, even though I thought it frivolous since the liquid wasn’t in my body. They asked me to lay flat on my back, arms outstretched above my head. While the morphine was still in effect, the cramps had began to come back. This task proved, while not as impossible as the X rays, difficult. The nurses there knew zero english, so I could not communicate to them that I was in pain. They continued to take their time, having me get into positions which progressively became more painful. Thankfully, this experience was short, and they finished within forty minutes. They then wheeled me to my new “VIP” room. For the record, I never did hear any results of this test.
Alysa
Finally once we were able to communicate that we would like to move rooms we were able to move to a nicer room aka VIP, and thankfully one that didn’t smell like Jake’s stomach acid either.
We proceeded to follow them into a room only to move to a different one since the machine for the stomach pump didn’t work, but once we were in the new VIP room we were living the high life…in the hospital…
Bethany
Ok, again…. Alysa doesn't explain how legit our room was. Come on Alysa! We had a TV, TWO couches, a big bathroom, a refrigerator, a table, and everything we could have needed…… at least on The World Race! Our room was huge. You would have thought I just won a new car. I was SO happy for some comfort and a place that Jake might finally find some comfort. Thank you Jesus!
At this point I had already played a game of charades way too many times in one day. I was SO tired, so while Alysa started to take care of some insurance, I tried to get some sleep.
Alysa
Right…back to the insurance!
Some random lady came to me to talk about the insurance, but didn’t speak a lick of English. Thankfully good old Mama Nurse was there for the rescue. After about 45 minutes of trying to communicate that we can’t call the insurance company till later that night because the offices were closed due to the time difference, Mama told me to make sure I called as soon as I could. I told her I would and I went back into the room a bit frustrated.
Alysa-Plastic Bag
I had decided to put my head phones in and try and get some shut eye. I managed to for at least an hour or so. Then it must have been the Lord waking me up because shortly after I turned off my music I here a “oh” come from Jake.
I sit up from where I was sleeping on a bench and ask Jake “What is it?” He doesn’t respond, he sits there…thinking I assume and then I see a small half smile come to his face as if he figured out a mystery.
He finally turns to me and says “hand me that plastic bag.” I look at the bag – it has Bethany and I’s snacks in it. So I ask the most logical thing I can: “are you going to try and eat something?” For some odd reason Jake says “yep” but then proceeds to take out the stuff from the bag and throws it on the floor when I give it to him.
I’m pretty sure I was giving him a look of “boy you are crazy” but then all of a sudden he says calmly (at first) “you and Bethany need to leave the room”. I don’t understand why at all. He then gets a little more harsh “now Alysa, you and Bethany need to go!”
I said “Alright Jake!” as I woke up Bethany and tell her we need to leave the room ASAP!
Stay tuned for part 3…..
