BJ to the ER

First posted 1/4/14 

At 7 pm tonight I was so weak, I went downstairs told Jiab that I need to go to the Dr tomorrow AM no matter what.   He said we go now.  We left as soon as I got my passport and money from my room.  

Trying the eucylyptus oil in hot water treatment with Jiab's encouragement

Efficient, short waits in all processes.  Dx Severe Upper Resp Illness.  Received an antibiotic shot, 6 or 7 Rx's.  Took about an hour.  About $25.00 US.   Saw a young Thai Dr. that understood me and Jiab helped me understand what I could not understand of the Dr.'s Questions.

Nurses wore white shoes and pointy hats....like the 70's in the states, but they put me hopefully on the recovery road. Have not slept at all for 3 days due to incessant coughing.  Confident it was from the 5 hour ride in the back of a tuktuk from Keng Tong, Myanmar - at 2200 feet in elevation - up to 5450 feet up to the British Hill station about 6 days ago. It was about 35 or 40 degrees on the way home and Slim failed to tell me where, how, far, how high, how late we would be returning.  All I was wearing was a lightweight shirt since it was hot at 2 pm when the 3 of us met up for the afternoon.  

All I took was my camera, phone, passport and not a single other layer of clothing  I bought a cheap Burmese blanket...all 3 of us did in fact....that helped a little on the ride down the hill, but we were going to be traveling in an open tuktuk at times up to 20 MPH for 2 hours.  Most ofbthe time we were crawling at 5 MPH because the road was so poor.

The tuktuk driver was laughing at me at the Hill Station.   Sometimes you can just tell what people are saying even if you do not speak or understand the language.   It is usually what you would be saying if you were them.   He was telling some other Burmese "He has no coat!!" and then they all were laughing.  If they could have understood me I would have told them that I was not told about the extent of the trip accurately....I was told we would be back in Keng Tung to go the Akai dance festival at 5 PM.  They did not tell me that it would be after 7:30 pm, cold and dark. Sun sets just after 5:30.

Have not had enough energy to recreate the three days of blogs that were lost in Myanmar, nor transcribe my notes on notecards for that time frame.  Have just been in bed with lights off, with a fever, coughing, sweats, chills, a headache, drinking lots of water and not eating.