The Return To Dr Bear's House

It's Wednesday, the day before I leave Thailand - and I have finally decided to follow the sage advice of a 4 year old named Sarah who, with great wisdom, has been continually telling me "Go to Dr Bear's house - they have the bandaids there!"

From the day I first arrived I've been having these disgusting red welts popping up all over my neck - they're huge and angry looking and itch and scab and I went to pharmacy where he gave me some cream and it seemed to be helping, but more have been coming up and I've been scared that all the proverbial villagers are going to start running from me!

And then today - I woke up with my right eye swollen not quite but almost completely shut.  It went down a little as the morning progressed but then again, someone who had maybe a little more :) experience then Sarah requested that I just go to the hospital and so I decided that I respected him and his opinion enough that I'd just go.  I suppose I thought somewhere in the back of my head, it could be some Thai flesh eating bacteria that only the Drs in Thailand would know about.  So thanks to Sarah and Sean - I finally decided to head their warnings and go!

First of all - I just point out that Dr Bear's hospital is technically not called that but has been renamed by clever Sarah due to the very obvious bears that encompass the hospital.  I felt much more comfortable going to Dr Bears Hospital rather than....

Whatever that name is....:)

I decided to just pay to see the eye dr and then get her opinion if I should see a dermatologist. 

We checked in and then went up to the eye clinic area.  I had weight, height and blood pressure all taken - I didn't eve know that two of those things are related to me eyes!:). And then I had to go in with this little girl and do these three crazy eye tests.

The first one you put your head in the machine - chin and forehead like at the dmv.  And then she says in Thai English "look at green light" which is at the left - but she doesn't bother to tell you that when you look at the green light then at the right, there's a red light and it shoots this crazy blast of ear and your eye and you jump a million feet.  And she does it like 5 more times and you're still silly enough to keep on jumping evey time.  

And then you have to wait for the little girl to finish at station two and they immediately tell you to sit down where she was ... It's the crazy decontamination freak in me .... Without even wiping any of the equipment off:(. So I had to grab wipes and do it myself :).  And then they more lights that she shines in and she keep "yelling" at my swollen eye "open your eye!  Open your eye!"

Argh!!!! That's why I'm here!  I can't "open my eye!" 

And then station three.  Once again - wait for girl to finish and not wipe equipment down.... I've gotta get everything I know out of my head;)

And this is the reading the letters thing where they cover one eye and you read.  Which of course, everything was blurry with my swollen eye!

We wait outside the exam rooms longer

And then I finally go in and see the dr who looks at me for about 3 minutes and then prescribes medicine.

Rach had told me that they are medicine crazy here.  They'll prescribe like 5 things for you no matter what it is...

She gave me two - drops and ointment and said its probably just an allergic reaction.

And then Rach asked if we should a dermatologist about me neck and she looked at my neck and made this seriously hilarious face like it was the grossest thing she's seen which - it very may well have been!

So then we go to the floor up to the dermatologist and I have all the same height weight things done and this time it's pretty quick they bring me in to this guy sitting behind a desk who asks a few questions and then, I think my neck is so gross that he didn't even want to touch it so he used a magnifying glass to look at it and said they're bug bites that I've had a reaction to and told me to stop using the ointment I've been using and start using a different one that he prescribed.  

So then I have to the cashier which I then wait to be called and then I go up and pay (2500 baht -- like 60 some dollars) and then I walk over to the pharmacy and get the medicines and I'm done.

And then we go down to the parking garage and get in the car and drive home!

And I get my newly washed scarf which I will use to cover my frightening neck on the flight tomorrow so people don't think I have the plague - and I pray my eye goes down so I don't look even scarier.

Oh ....

At least I didn't have to go to the Snoring Clinic.... :)