Harmony & Amanda at Thailand: the outtakes, part 1

We began at Phuket. Nathan’s drinking proclivities, strongly bent towards blended sweet drinks, were on regular display.  This was before the terrible illness that would occupy us for the succeeding week.

From Phuket we went to Bangkok. Nathan fell dreadfully ill. We wondered if he had caught an obscure bacterial infection from his one hour fish foot spa experience at Phuket. At the Damnoen Saduak floating market he summoned the energy to shop for tamarinds and other exotic items. I might describe his performance that morning as plucky, near-heroic — contact Nathan directly if you would like to see a photo of that hands-on shopping experience.

On my birthday he was extremely sick, admitted to the emergency room at Hua Hin Hospital, diagnosed with the flu, and we spent five hours together as he was sedated and an intravenous solution was injected into his left hand. Meanwhile, Amanda and Harmony went to the spa and then relaxed by the swimming pool.

After being discharged from the hospital, and provisioned with a bagful of drugs and a diagnosis of flu, we proceeded to the other side of the Gulf of Thailand, taking a vehicular ferry across the open sea to Ko Chang. On this ferry I exhibited again the stunning visual effect (slimming) of vertical stripes.

Little did we know that our rakish tour of Thailand was rapidly turning into a hospital tour of Thailand. We would be on an emergency ferry ride off the island a mere 27 hours later, with Nathan unconscious and his family at Canada blissfully unaware of the severity of his illness. All those drugs he was taking for the flu? No effect. For he never had the flu. But more about that later.

While Nathan was bedridden at Ko Chang, we did some rakish shopping, fine dining, and enjoyed the great natural beauty of Ko Chang Marine National Park. Or, we enjoyed it as much as we could in the short time we had there, for Nathan went to the hospital at Ko Chang with a terrible rash and fever while I continued my quadracious training program by running from an elephant camp up a valley to a tropical waterfall. The prognosis at the hospital was grim. He would need to be transferred to the provincial hospital at Trat, so we packed our bags, checked out from the hotel, and rushed to catch the day's last ferry off the island.

To make a long story short, Nathan was admitted to the hopsital at Trat and spent nearly 24 hours there. He was on supplemental oxygen and an intravenous solution. The doctor there found he did not have flu, but could not find the problem, and recommended that we transfer him to a hospital at Bangkok.

Which we did, but not before I freshened up a bit at Trat. For we had been in such a rush to catch the ferry at Ko Chang, you see, that I had no time for a shower after my elephant camp run. This was rapidly turning into an extraordinary tour through the emergency wards of Thailand’s provincial hospitals.

We did return to Bangkok, Nathan went to another hospital, was diagnosed with measles, and recovered. The aftermath of that recovery was documented comprehensively and will be shared in a forthcoming report.