Patrick and Mary Go Round

Jumping from beachtown to beachtown has given us a spectacular opportunity to taste the flavors of Southern Thailand and the Indian Ocean. We flew Thai Airways from Bangkok to Phuket to spend three days exploring the island’s beaches. Next stop was Krabi town, a riverside fishing village well-suited to ferry visitors to nearby beaches and limestone rock faces. Compared to Phuket, Ao Phra Nang was slightly less crowded, considerably shadier and provided a cool vantage point for watching local rock climbers shimmy up negatively-sloped crags.

While swimming in the cove’s gloriously bath-warm waters, a jellyfish seems to have mosied up to Mary’s thigh and gave her a nasty sting. The burning was bearable, but we checked-in with the Thai pharmacists to discuss remedy options. After describing the Jellyfish to the pharmacy staff, they nodded knowingly and said: “Ohh, you mean a Jerryfish?” We’ve been repeating this to eachother for days and smiling. We bought some cream and got the fleshy part of an aloe plant, which combined to soothe the burning and now have the sting under control.

From Krabi, we took the advice of Julie and David, from Washington state, and rode up to Ranong. On the 9:30 ferry to Ko Phayam, we met Julius and Natalie – Germans staying just down the beach. There are no cars on the island and the ‘road’ is smaller than many walking trails back home. A motor bike ride to the other side of the island meant stowing our backpacks between the moped driver and the handle bars. Our drivers appeared to be hugging our bags and the bags seemed to be navigating. We checked into our bungalow and already anticipate a great deal of trouble once it’s time to leave paradise. The island, only reachable by ferry and speedboat, has no electricity and is extremely tranquillo. We live right on the beach and have been lulled by the crashing waves for the last 24 hours. It’s spectacularly mellow here and the guidebooks have been spot-on about the prices, thus far. Our beach front, private room, private bath bungalow costs US$11/night – why would we ever leave?

From the beach, we plan to ferry back to Ranong on Friday, hop a bus to Chumphon and take the overnight train to Bangkok. We’ve planned a one night layover in Bangkok and will train up to Chang Mai on Sunday evening (all seats are 2nd class Air-Con). Only a few days left of beach-bumming before we head to the north for some (hopefully) elephant trekking, cooking classes, Thai boxing and then onward to Loas.

One thing that’s certain, Thailand has been getting us pumped for a great summer at Seneca Lake.

Went to see the surgeon and got some good news about continuing the trip. We’re green-lighted to resume our travels, which is most fortunate that nothing will be severely messed up with our plans to visit South East Asia. I am allowed to fly on long plane rides, eat weird foods, fight off the infamous “Bombay Belly”, swim, sunbathe and go trekking. The only thing I need to watch out for is to ease back into carrying heavy loads; previously, I was restricted to stuff only less-than-10-pounds. My pack weighed something like 35 lbs. in South America, so we’ll take it slow in getting the abs back into tip-top-hauling-stuff-around shape. I uncovered a picture of that fateful Christmas Day that we all spent chilling in the West 6th (AKA surgical wing) of Highland Hospital.

Enjoy:

This is definitely good news and we are starting to look at the calendar, predicting how many more days the old man needs to recover and talking up our travel agents to change our original tickets. One thing that has been helpful during this process is our travel insurance company, TravelGuard, who have been very helpful during this slightly challenging time. Also, I think I’m speaking for both the patient and his nursing staff when I say: It’s time to get off the couch and back out into the world!

We’re starting things off with a quick overland, weekend trip to the land of DC to see our friends and family down in the dirty District.

What a week it’s been… well, technically 2 weeks, but a whirlwind nonetheless. We started with some stomach pain at the ER in Huaraz, Peru and wound up in the OR at Highland Hospital in Rochester, New York. Everything went smoothly and we are very fortunate to have made it back to the USA for surgery. Here’s what happened:

We talked to the Peruvians about the prognosis and Dr. Antignano (of Rochester Gastro and a family friend) who recommended a rapid return to Rochester, ASAP. As we’ve posted before, we were able to make it home from Peru with the help of our Travelers’ Insurance and without ANY help whatsoever from LAN airlines. Plenty more ranting about LAN and how oh-so-unhelpful they were later…

Needless to say, we’ll never fly on LAN and would highly recommend that nobody else does either.

After getting screwed by LAN, we bought tickets from Lima to NYC on Spirit Airlines and connected to LaGuardia through Fort Lauderdale. Sticking to the BRAT diet while traveling is pretty challenging and we were ohh-so-glad that Jerry and Caitlin brought fresh supplies when they picked us up from the airport. We drove direct from NYC to Rochester and got in at about 7:30PM on the 23rd — a mere 36 hours after beginning our trip home from Peru. American showers and some good food got us all ready to crash in our bed for the first time in 3 months. Unfortunately, I woke up to some pain in the middle of the night and was able to get Dr. A on the phone for some cross-country medical advice. I developed a fever on Christmas Eve and spent the afternoon writhing in pain (again) in the Emergency Room. I must have failed whatever their ‘tests’ were and spent the night prepping for surgery at Highland Hospital. They did an excellent job with the Christmas Day surgery and Dr. Burns’ team told us that the old man’s gall bladder was super-infected and about a third dead by the time they got in there. Fortunately, they kept it all laparoscopic, which halves the recovery time, overall pain, etc.

I spent 3 nights in the hospital on antibiotics and some groovy pain meds before they entrusted me to the top notch care of my at-home nurses. Since then, Mary and my whole family have been taking good care of me while I rest-up and recover. The prognosis looks really good from here and I feel much stronger everyday. Also, the constant visitors have kept my spirits high (also getting off the Vicodin really helps me feel normal again). While I was saddened to leave Peru so suddenly, it’s obvious to me that it was good to take Mary’s advice and get home — fast. If it weren’t for her, I’d probably have stayed in Peru, needing to have the surgery in Lima or somewheres worse.

Thank God that she’s got such a good head on her shoulders!

Lust like the song: We’ll be home for Christmas…you can count on… us… (I guess it’s close)

Another change to the schedule this weekend means that we should be home in Rochester for Christmas. In a whirlwind yesterday, we were able to activate our travel insurance, get everything figured out here in Huaraz, book tickets back to the US and arrange a very rapid return to Rochester. Our plans will put us on a flight to Lima Monday morning at 10AM and a direct flight from Lima to JFK on LAN, overnight on Monday. This will put us into New York City early Tuesday morning and then we’ll catch a ride with Jerry and Caitlin to Rochester.

If you’ll be in Rochester, looks like we’ll be seeing you soon!

Thursday night we had some excitement here in Huaraz when my Gall Bladder seems to have freaked out, prompting a trip to the private Emergency Room for an ultrasound. The doctors in Huaraz were very professional and took excellent care of me. Currently, I have a couple prescriptions to manage the pain, which are working very well. Also, I am on a strictly no-fat diet and have activated Dr. V’s recommendation to stick to the BRAT (Bananas, Rice, Apple Sauce and Toast), which I think could translate to spanish as dieta de SAPP (or something like that for Salsa de Manzana, Arroz, Platanos y Pan).

It’s important to note two things: we are not planning to have any surgeries while her in Peru and I am very comfortable here at the house — resting in the cama and keeping to my PJs. We’re still trying to get all of the medical tests figured out here and are looking at how this development could affect our travel plans. One thing is for certain: I am EXTREMELY lucky to be with Mary and to have her as my permanent travel companion. She has been wonderful at holding my hand (even during needle-time), getting me to the ER and translating back and forth, under pressure. A big hooray for that lovely lady!! We’ll post again later today or tomorrow with any updates.

In case you’re curious about what exactly is going on inside, here’s the ultrasound image that we got from the ER:

My apologies if this looks like I’m pregnant… I’m not, I assure you!

Just a quick post about my amazement at prices in Peru. First off, I’ve been sick with a cold that I can’t seem to shake. When I missed school during an afternoon this week, we decided it was time to head to the doctor. We didn’t know what to expect, but wanted to make sure that my cough wasn’t something serious… it’s not. We got a recommendation for a clinic that our boss trusts and has visited a couple times: Medico Clinico Internacional. It’s nearby and we walked in, waited for about 10 minutes to be seen, got my vitals checked by a very friendly nurse (the gringo-smile goes a very long way in Huaraz). When we were done, the doctor prescribed two courses of action:

1. First, I got a dosage of Cortiprex (20mg of the steroid prednisone) for what the Doc described as a “dry trachea”. It’s not pnemonia, not a problem in my lungs, but might be what we know as Bronchitis in the US. The dosage is 1.5 pills every 12 hours for 5 days = 15 x 20mg pills.
2. Second, I have a problem with Radicels Libres (Free Radicals) running amok in my chest, which causes either too much or too little oxidation (still unclear) on the cellular level, which makes new cells die too quickly. For this, I have Fluimucil which come as 600mg effervescent tablets that (when taken with copious amounts of water) will gobble up and eliminate the free radicals. I’ll take one pill everyday for 5 days.

Finally, I’m on strict rules not to eat chocolate, fruit juices, cookies, soda or other overly-processed foods that will likely spike the free radicals, until I’m healthy again. Because my body is a temple, I’ve coined the phrase of going “Buddhist Monk” on the sweets (i.e. cold-turkey using mind control).

The grand total for everything: S./35 for the doctor’s visit (all told, $11.35 USD). For the drugs, it was S./22.50 for the prednisone and S./17.50 for the fluimucil (all told, $12.90 USD for the drugs). Keep this startling fact in mind, for nearly-immediate, walk-in service at both the pharmacy and the doctors office, I spent roughly $25 and I’m talking about payment-in-full, these-ain’t-no-copay prices.

A second example of prices in Peru (AKA how we are traveling for 8 months on our savings):
We’ve had a few dinner parties here at the house on nights when our deliciously-inspired amiga doesn’t cook, such as on the weekends and holidays, etc. They’ve been really good and we’ve only contributed towards the drinks for the table, for example maybe a $3 box of wine or some soda. We decided that tonight is our turn and have prepared one of our specialties: baked chicken, mashed potatoes, lentils to feed an army and sauteed spinach. We bought everything this afternoon for our dinner party and have just put the 6-pound bird in the oven. The food to feed 10 people very well and we’re expecting left-overs cost just under S./35, which amounts to about $11.30 USD. Let’s call it an even $1/person for what may prove to be the closest thing to an American meal we’ve had in Huaraz. The funny thing is that we feel, relatively, that this was a splurge or doing-something-nice-or-at-least-our-fair-share-for-the-housemates. The thing that I’m most proud of is the lack of rice in my diet today.

I went to the travel clinic early this morning in DC and saw Erin Bagshaw about some final immunizations before our departure. Our plans (currently) include Bolivia, which requires us to have Yellow Fever shots and carry a card in our passports. So, I got that one in my left arm along with a Polio booster, which might be needed for going to India. I also got a flu shot this morning, for general good measure. Then she pulled out the Typhoid pills from the fridge and gave me an ice pack to get them home (they must remain cold and be taken on an empty stomach).

While we were in New York, I got a physical, a tetanus shot, Hep A and a Meningitis inoculation for while we’re staying in hostels, etc. In addition, I picked up some prescriptions for Cipro (a remedy for travelers diarrhea) and 275 Malaria pills (to be taken once daily for the next 8 months). Erin and I decided on Doxycycline, which may cause increased susceptibility to sunburns, but is only a single 100mg pill once per day.

I conquered all this before 9:30 this morning and did so without a lollipop.