Medical Clinic Visit

Lastg night we went out with Nigel and met up with some people he knew. We visited a couple of lounges, then Court and I went to Burger King for a bite to eat (it's great having some fast food, actually!), then went to a bar called Lava. It's designed to look like you're going down into the earth, into hot lava, it's pretty cool, all black and red. We stayed and danced almost nonstop until about 2:00AM, when we headed home.

We slept in late this morning, got up around 11:30.

Courtney's ear is hurting this morning, she thinks she has an ear infection or something. And we can't dive with ear problems, it's very dangerous, so we decided we'd head to a medical clinic today and get it checked out.

We walked around trying to find a clinic, eventually found one, we went in and the receptionist didn't speak that much english, a little, but she said that the doctor spoke english. She had Courtney fill out a card, and we waited a few minutes, and the doctor came out, and took us into the examination room. It looks like an examination room you'd find in Canada, medical posters and charts on the walls, instruments on the shelf, a bed, a couple of chairs, etc. The doctor spoke excellent english, and he was in his 30's, I'd say, a younger guy. And he's an ear and throat specialist.

Courtney explained the problem to him, and told him she wants to dive soon as well, so first he showed us a poster on the wall showing the different parts of the ear. He then said he wanted to do an examination of the ear. He had a hi-tech toy, essentially a tiny camera mounted on a small metal rod, connected to a monitor, and he stuck the instrument into Courtney's good ear, and explained what we were seeing. He then had Courtney "equalize" (i.e. pinch nose and blow, so as to pop the ears), and we could see the effect it had inside her hear, the ear drum moving in and out. It was really cool. He then put the instrument into her bad ear, and we could all see right away it was swollen and puffy, and we could see the white "infection" on her ear drum.

The doctor prescribed Courtney 3 pills and some ear drops, and also gave her a needle in her ass, in hopes of trying to clear the infection up quicker, so we could go dive. The doctor figured 3-5 days to clear up, and we should be good. I had brought my camera with me, so got some cool pictures. The doctor was great about letting us take pictures of the inside of her ears and stuff. He would hold the probe still while I took a picture.

Courtney also gave him her insurance claim form, so she can claim it back.

After she was done, I decided to ask him about my diarohea, and he said he wanted to give me an examination, so I had to fill out one of his cards, and he had me lay down on the little bed, and started tapping my stomach. I had lots and lots of gas. He said he has a tourists in his office, and the vast majority come and see him about diarrohea problems. The top three diarrohea producing countries are India, Nepal and Cambodia, where we just were, and where I started having my diarrohea. He prescribed me two pills to take for 5 days. We got our bills at the front counter. It was kind of expensive. Mine was 1650 baht, a little over $50CDN. That included all the drugs. Courtney's was 3750 baht, about $125CDN, which included all the drugs, and injection. I didn't expect to ask about my diarrohea, so didn't bring my insurance form with me. OH well, it wasn't that much.

We ended up not having enough baht to pay for it all, so we had to head back to the guest house and get more money, then on the way back, we met Nigel, whom I was supposed to meet at that time anyway, to go see muay thai (Thai boxing). We talked to a tuk-tuk, and he told us the match didn't start until 6:00, and it was only 3:00 right now, so the three of us headed back to the clinic, paid our bill, then went for some late lunch, and Court and I started our drugs.

Courtney wasn't interested in seeing the muay thai, so she left us, and Nigel and I went to hsi G.H. so he could get his camera, it was still too early, so we headed to Burger King for a sundae. I was still hungry, so I had a double cheeseburger combo as well. We sat there until about 5:20, then took a tuk-tuk to the stadium.

When we got to the stadium, everything was at a halt, including all traffic, and there were uniformed people all over the road. Nigel started to cross the street, but a uniformed person in the middle of the road motioned him to stop. Then buglers started playing, and a long procession of cars passed. The king was coming through!

AFter the king passed, we got into the stadium, took a second level seat for 800 baht (ringside was 1500, outer ring was 500), and we went inside.

It was neat spectacle. Before the match, each boxer goes to each corner and bows his head, then they go to the centre of the ring and start doing a routine of stretching and bowing and moving the music, which is being played live by a four piece band. It's just a drum beat with some other percussion added in. There was 12 matches, the last match was just a regular boxing match. Some matches were better than others. One match pitted to Americans against each other, and that was a good match, they really got into it. The one guy beat the other guy to a point of exhaustion, he couldn't stand anymore, so he just kept kicking the legs out from underneat him, finally the ref stopped the match and declared the other guy the winner. We saw a couple of knockouts. During the whole match, the band is playing music, which adds to the whole thing.

The Thai's were really getting into it, especially the good matches. They were yelling and screaming and pounding their fists into their hands. There was some gambling going on between them as well.

The stadium was maybe 25% full. I'd say 40% were tourists, 60% were locals.

The matches started at 6:00, and went until after 10:00. We left and took a tuk-tuk back to the Khao San road, and I walked around for a while, then back to the room about 11:15. Courtney was sleeping.

While Nigel and I were at the boxing, Courtney got her legs waxed, walked around, started watching a movie (Signs), but didn't like it, it was too scary for her.