Viruses and Allergies vs. Peace in Chiang Mai
Whilst my dreams of a wonderful Chiang Mai adventure remain positive, the present week is one I need to get out of my system before the guard shouts “All aboard!†on Saturday evening. As seems to be the case prior to every vacation, I fall foul of an ailment of one description or another. I then traditionally spend the first few days of my holiday in bed surrounded by bottles of pills. When I started a slight sniffle the other day, my immediate reaction was to head off to see a doctor at one of Pattaya’s hospitals and nip it in the bud.
The hospital was relatively quiet — I was triaged and in the doctors office in no time at all. The doctor appeared to me to be rather more interested in making wisecracks than diagnosing my illness as a cold, flu, virus or whatever. I put up with his snide remarks about my not wanting to miss a day on the golf course or a night on the beer. When he suggested that all farangs had it so easy I snapped back at him like a pit bull in a bad mood. I explained my rather busy life that saw me never spend so much as a minute on a golf course and rarely venture out drinking. My rebuke did little to change his attitude and still more remarks were being muttered as he wrote out my prescription.
I returned to the hotel and started to check my e-mails and ordered some food which I would consume prior to taking the medication. I had refused two of the four sets of tablets provided by the hospital pharmacy on the basis I considered them to be irrelevant, I will only take medication that I believe to be completely necessary. This is something you have to watch out for here. Doctors will prescribe an entire goodie bag of brightly coloured pills the vast majority of which are not designed to do anything but increase their income. Anyway my food arrived, I ate and then I took the medication.
As is my way, I checked the information on the packages closely and saw nothing to concern me before swallowing the prescribed tablets. A short while later I glanced at one of the pill packets I had casually tossed onto my desk earlier. The packet had landed upside down and there I saw, written in small letters, the word “amoxicillin.” I froze with panic at the realization that I had just ingested a penicillin derivative — I am allergic to penicillin! How this would affect me I had no idea as I had not taken penicillin in any form since I was eighteen. At that time my entire body, from head to foot, was covered in a blotchy red rash and I was nauseous for several days. I still recall the constant itching and being bathed in calamine lotion to reduce the level of irritation. Not only have I kept away from penicillin since this time, on medical advice, but I have also not been able to bear the smell of calamine lotion ever since.
How my allergy may have changed or mutated over the past thirty-six years I had no idea. I was concerned, obviously, as to the effects and also more than a tad miffed that this frustrated standup comedian — masquerading as a practitioner of medicine — had made such a mistake. He had my case notes and I knew from previous visits that my allergy was clearly marked on my records. Mrs. Boss returned with me to the hospital without delay. Already though I was feeling very light headed and unsteady on my feet. By the time I saw the doctor for the second time that day I was in no real state to talk and Mrs. Boss launched into him on my behalf. The doctor had been forewarned of the problem and, no doubt, my threat over the telephone to inform the local media of his mistake. His manner was now dramatically different as he offered profuse apologies and appeared extremely contrite. He freely admitted this was his error and that the file did indeed make clear reference to my allergy. I was able to muster the strength to tell the doctor how lucky he was. I explained that were we in America by now I would likely be in a lawyer’s office, rather than talking to him!
The outcome was that I was given a full refund and retained in the hospital for a couple of hours whilst my condition was monitored for any reaction to the medication. As it transpired, everything was okay and, perhaps, even the initial light-headedness was a result of worry rather than an allergic reaction. Obviously this incident gave me a considerable scare and unfortunately means I cannot even trust the doctors here now to properly discharge their duties. I appreciate that it is perhaps somewhat unfair of me to be so broad in my criticism for the mistake of one man, but my trust has been severely undermined. Maybe next time though, this doctor may take more time in reading the patients than he spends being a Jay Leno impersonator.
Having survived the flu virus and then the physician’s attempts to poison me I was soon after struck by another virus. This one, however, chose to infect my computer rather than me personally although it is often hard to separate us. My attempts at solving the problem were, unfortunately, marginally less successful than our joking doctor had been at curing me!
I had been browsing various web sites that made reference to my original book and reading the new reviews that had recently appeared. I came across a site I had not seen before which promoted a video review of Riff-Raffles and my interest was obviously piqued. I was sufficiently intrigued to enter the site concerned and read a few introductory lines, which were identical to a review posted by a Pattaya-based web-site only a few weeks earlier. The message went on to say that by clicking on the link below I would be shown the video review — so without a second thought I clicked. A second was, in fact, all it took before I noticed the error of my ways and my computer screen appeared to have as many red blotches over it as I had earlier imagined would be covering my body. The virus protection went into overdrive with zapping noises occurring every few seconds. Unfortunately the zapping tones being emitted were soon replaced by a sound more resembling the last croak of a dying frog. With that my computer just seemed to go limp, the lights faded and the screen blurred before going blank. My laptop was most certainly was suffering an allergic reaction to something very unpleasant.
As reported earlier my attempts at rectifying the problem came to naught and I was therefore forced to call our computer maintenance man for assistance. He shook his head and his face took on a very morose appearance much the way I imagine a vet would look before pulling out his gun to undertake a mercy killing on some poor injured beast. I waited for the computer technician to draw a gun and put my computer out of its evident misery but he still just stood shaking his head. Eventually he sat down and played around for a few minutes before proclaiming my computer deceased. I was duly advised that it would need to be completely disinfected and, in all likelihood, the hard disk would have to be replaced.
As he exited our premises, my laptop tucked under his arm, I asked him to do everything possible to save the My Documents folder. Actually by the time he was leaving it had become more of a plea than a request, with an element of wailing thrown in for good measure. The primary reason for my distress was that sitting on my hard disk was all of my writing. I had not backed up the system and saved my new work to my memory stick for almost two months!
The thought of losing almost half of my new book that I had composed at this point was more than I would be able to bear. Numerous methods of suicide flashed through my brain. Fortunately the need to implement suicide Plan A — having seventeen beautiful women sit on my face until I suffocated to death — was not required. In case you were wondering, there was not really a Plan B as such, more of a fall back position — if it is possible to fall backwards when one is already prostrate and has seventeen people on top of them, which I doubt. Anyway the theory was that were I to put Plan A into operation then Mrs. Boss would undoubtedly hear of my exploits and I would, understandably, end up deceased anyway.
As it turned out my computer technician was able to save the day and, of course, my life. The files I required were rescued and my limited remaining vestiges of sanity remained in tact. I therefore live to write another day!
