Saturday, July 14, 2007

Daily Report: Not So Perfect Pattaya Day

I knew it as early as Tuesday: The cruddy sickness that I had been suffering from back in New York had not completely left my body. I had been getting little signs here and there that I was not well... but I chose to ignore them. I also kept on getting 6 or 7 hours of sleep. It's the kind of thing that my father would admonish me "is going to catch up with you."

It did.

I woke up at 5:17 this morning. This time, I knew it was Poopy Cat who woke me up, looking for attention. I woke up with a sore throat and what I will call the opposite of "light headedness"... "heavy headedness." I sat down at my computer with my coffee, worked on the blog, and read my news sites for about 3 hours, but things continually got worse: My body stiffened up, my joints ached, my head was spinning, and my sinuses felt awful.

So, instead of working, I did what I always do (in Thailand) in these situations: I sent Maid Go to the market to buy a big bag of oranges, and to the drug store to buy some amoxicillin. I put myself on 1 gram of amoxicillin 2 times a day; 1 Tylenol, and 1 ibuprofen 4 times a day; drank a tall glass of freshly squeezed orange juice; and then climbed back into bed.

I woke up 4 hours later feeling a little bit better. I ordered a Subway sandwich (Jared style as per usual, for those of you prone to berate my eating habits), and then had an hour-long massage from Maid Masseuse Go (trained at Wat Po, she is) to work out all the pains in my joints... and it worked like a charm. The drugs, O.J., nap, sandwich, and massage had me feeling about 90% improved.

So, finally, at about 3:00 in the afternoon... 7 hours late... I got started at work. I only put in about 3 hours of work before it was time to go out to Willie's birthday party at Rick's bar at 7:00. Pui, Pot and I rode my scooter, while Maid Go rode with Mike and Riza.


I forget how small Pot is sometimes.
Here he is with a 3-year-old on the
left, and a 3½-year-old on the right.
(Pot is going to be 6 this October.)
There was piles and piles of Mexican food for dinner (making this the fourth day in a row I've had at least some Mexican food to eat), and all of the gang were there: Rick, Bob, Willie, Jerry and his brother Neil, Mike, and Yon (not sure how to spell that... he's Swedish, so it could be "John").

At about 9:00, I headed home to bed... still not feeling 100%, and the Tylenol and ibuprofen having worn off. I went alone, and left Pui to ride home with Mike and Riza. Pot is spending the weekend with little Sarah at Rick's Bar, probably with a visit to Willie and Kak to see their kids, Bird and Gong.

I was in bed and asleep by 9:30. At least I got that part of my day right.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Today let's not berate your eating habits, but your self-medication. I thought someone like you who spends so much time on the Net reading would know about the folly of using anti-biotics to treat any sort of ailment they feel coming on. Have you not heard of the serious and worsening probelm of drug-resistent bacteria? Do you know why the problem is worsening? It's folks (and doctors) like you who throw anti-biotics at anything.

You almost certainly have a VIRUS for which anti-BIOtics do nothing. Zero. Nada for your mexican starved brain. All your doing is contributing to the problem.

Sheesh, you're amazing.

Jil Wrinkle said...

Actually, considering that I work in the medical industry, I am probably far more aware of how to (and how not to) self-medicate than you are. All I do all day is listen to doctors prescribe (often over-prescribe) medications for URIs.

I didn't bother to get into details, but since you came in here shooting your mouth off: I've been sneezing out and coughing up bright yellow phlegm on and off for the better part of 3 weeks. I've had swollen submandibular lymph nodes off and on during that period as well. (In case you didn't know, Dr. Anonymous, yellow/green mucus and swollen lymph nodes are a good sign of a BACTERIAL infection.) I had the stuff beaten until Pui gave it back to me upon my return from New York: She went to the clinic and was put on antibiotics, but despite my insistence, she stopped taking the pills she was given after the first day, saying they weren't working.

Anyway, Dr. Anonymous, take your blind, long-distance, and symptom-ignorant diagnosis, and stick it up your ass.

Oh, also... if you'll notice, I only use first-generation antibiotics, and have turned down other advanced antibiotics from doctors on many occasions precisely because of MDRB proliferation, which (as apparently you don't know, Dr. Anonymous), are caused primarily by doctors prescribing second and third generation antibiotics such as vancomycin and clindamycin all the time, instead of sticking with the simple antibiotics, such as amoxicillin and ampicillin, which don't cause drug-resistance.

Like I've always said on this blog: It amazes me how people like yourself can't accept the possibility that other people aren't as smart as they themselves are. Stop commenting until you can grasp that concept. It's annoying... especially when you add insults to your ignorance.