For those of you who don’t know I got sick and had to go to the hospital this month. The trip to the hospital was quite the experience, when I shared it with my parents, my dad suggested that I share it. Its a little long, but here it goes….
It’s our first week in Vietnam. Mallory, Sarah, and I go grocery shopping only to find that nothing is in English, and surprisingly we have yet to learn to read Vietnamese. I was looking for some type of meat for dinners and find a bag in the frozen section with a picture of a chicken on it. My thought is “Yay! Chicken! I know how to handle chicken!”
WRONG!
We let the bag of chicken thaw in the fridge. Two days later I pull the bag out, open it, and stare in confusion as an entire chicken falls out of the bag. What I had assumed to be chicken pieces turned out to be a chicken that had been plucked, stuffed into a bag, and frozen. It still had it’s beak, claws, and innards. Needless to say I have never prepared a chicken like this before. So we ask one of the teenagers at the school to help us because we had no clue as to how to disassemble the mostly dead poultry.
Once Caleb finishes the dismemberment, I heat up some oil and fry the chicken. I look back and really wish I would have taken the time to bake the chicken, because in my hunger-driven haste I don’t think I fully cooked my piece of chicken.
The next day I wake up and my intestines feel as if the chicken had reanimated and was trying to peck it’s way out. I was exhausted even though I had a seemingly restful nights sleep. I had a few other symptoms that might definitely be considered TMI.
But me being me I just let them go for a day (or two). Finally, I couldn’t deny it anymore, I was sick and needed medical attention.
So I told my amazing team leader Mallory who in turn told our host Mai, and in less than 10 minutes we three (kings of orient are… oops sorry. Back to the story…) were in a taxi heading to the hospital.
We walk in the front doors, straight past reception, and into what I can only describe as a emergency room circa 1750 a.d. It was a large open room with eight cots and nothing else. No equipment, no curtains, nothing but beds.
I’m immediately ushered to lay down in the cot nearest to the door. The nurse comes over and takes my vitals, let’s me know the doctor will be with me soon, and leaves.
As soon as the nurse leaves Mai asks me if she can take a picture because I “look so cute.” I looked at Mallory, she looked back at me with an expression that said, “She cannot be serious!” But she was… I responded with, “I would really rather you didn’t…” But it was too late. The iPhone was in hand.
She proceeded to take pictures of me laying on a hospital cot, in my bright yellow polo and printed maxi skirt. Then she lays down next to me to get the all-coveted selfie. I glance at Mallory, and she is staring at me with a look of shock, concern, sadness, and confusion
.
After about five minutes, the doctor comes over, and I describe to him, in excruciating detail, every symptom I had been experiencing over the last couple of days. He waits for me to finish to look at me and say something to the extent of “I don’t believe any of those symptoms are true, but I will order blood work and an ultrasound just to appease you.”
As he walks away I’m almost in tears at the absurdity of the last 10 minutes. The nurse walks over to take my blood. She spends fiveish minutes unsuccessfuly searching for a vein, instead of asking for help she sticks the needle in anyway. Turns out she doesn’t find a vein but instead she finds my bicep. She wiggles the needle around for a minute until she finds something out of which she could draw blood. I’m not positive that it was a vein, but if it was she blew the vein because the bruise was huge.
Another nurse came over to usher me to my ultrasound. We take the elevator up to the second floor and she sits me in a chair in the waiting room, because I was obviously unable to sit by myself. Once I’m successfuly sitting, she turns and walks into the ultrasound room.
As the only white girl in the waiting room I receive a lot of points and stares. About 15 minutes later, the nurse returns and calls me into the room. She lays me down on a cot, pulls my shirt up and skirt down without any sort of warning and starts the ultrasound. As it turns out, curtains aren’t used anywhere in this hospital because every man, woman, or child who walked into or out of that room (about 7 in all) got to witness my ultrasound with great interest.
When the technician finished, she informs me that my intestines were inflamed, but on the bright side I don’t have appendacitis. The nurse led me back to the waiting room. The highlight of my time in the waiting room was the lady sitting across from me leaning as far forward in her seat as possible staring at me for at least five minutes.
Once the nurse finishes whatever it was she was doing she led me back to the emergency room. The doctor comes over, tells me he prescribed me medicine without a diagnosis, and leaves. I pick up my prescription from the nurse, pay, and leave.
When I get back to the hotel I call my parents because I basically think I’m dying and the doctor didn’t believe me. (Yes, I can be dramatic when I’m sick.) But we went over all my symptoms and conclude that I definitely have salmonella poisening, and it so happens that the doctor prescribed me the proper medication.
So now I feel much better, and I have a funny story to tell. I just hope my stories from here on out are a little less painful.
