holidays, hospitals, haircuts

so apparenlty ianto has been making free with his blog access. hmmm. he's also failed to actually keep up to date with posting my real posts. perhaps i will be forced to revoke his privleges. we'll see.

also, i would like to point out esp for the benefit of certain people who have "given up trying to read this" that i dont actually run my words OR paragraphs together usually. Terrible grammar and use of punctuation, yes, but yahoo is responsible for the worst of it. so dont criticise! dont read it if you dont want, its more for my benefit than anyone elses anyway

I'm going to miss a bunch of days and try and pick up where i left off, even though ianto hasnt posted the last post yet, so it will get a bit disorderly.

yesterday morning we woke up in nha trang, a beach side resort, ready for a day of boating and relaxing. i was somewhat disturbed by the continued worsening of my asthma, which has progressively deteriorated from totally managed when i left home to a pretty constant issue. i realised yesterday morning that i was heading for hospital within the next few days, but after consulting with our tour guide decided i could handle a day of sitting around doing nothing, and planned to get him to take me somewhere in the afternoon for medical attention.

we set off on the boat and went out a ways to a beautiful area where the others jumped in and went for a swim. knowing that there was every chance that would tip me over the edge breathing wise i was forced to stay on the boat and get a massage. we then headed to a beach where laura went up in the air attached to a parachute being pullled along by a boat while i sat under a beach hut thing, enjoyed a chocolate icecream and got a manicure and pedicure (why not really). the weather was less than perfect, but whilst occasionaly raining and being overcast it was still warm enough to be very pleasant.

we then headed off to a seaside lunch, which involved a short taxi ride in one of the round fishing boats that i'd been looking forward to seeing. another unnecessairly large but good meal, and we began the boat journey back to shore.

arriving back on shore the bus dropped the group back at the hotel before our tour guide took laura and i on to a local hospital. he briefed the staff on my issues, and what treatment i was looking for before they came and saw me, and i explained some more about my history of asthma, and that i needed a nebuliser, and if possible a spacer that would have meant i could more effectively deliver my inhaler. whilst spacers were unheard of (i've since come to the conclusion that they dont use my puffer style of inhaler but the crushed tablet ones) they new all about nebulisers and soon had been breathing in foggy goodness. no medical hisory, no list of other medications i'm taking, no taking my heart rate. no peak flow meter. they did listen to my lungs, but i dont think they heard much, as i wasnt wheezy just really really tight. ah well, i was pretty happy with being able to self diagnose and prescribe - i knew what i needed! we drew attention from a number of doctors and nurses wandering around - i dont think many westeners end up there - we even took my photo whilst on the nebuliser with some of the doctors - its all part of the experience you know! thank god for our guide, or i think my holiday finances would have just suffered a major hit, instead they gave me a bill for $25 australian dollars, and a script for a preventetive medicine i've taken in the past...

our guide then returned us to the hotel, with me a little high and jumpy from all the ventolin. after a quick change we headed out again for a hairdresser. after deciding that i might regret following our guides lead and getting my head shaved, we headed down the street to a "beauty palour" where through a series of gestures and "same same"s we established that i wanted by hair cut off quite short. which she did a fine job of. and then she charged me $2.

later than evening my asthma began to deteriorate again. i became a bit concerned, knowing we were heading to a smaller town today, not to mention that we were supposed to be riding 120kms. becoming increasingly unsure about what to do i went into crisis mode and called my parents. the problem with my asthma is that its not fast and chronic attacks, but a slow build up to a really unpleasant level, but it makes it hard to judge when it is necessary to take treatment to the next level. obviously this is really a massive advantage, because i dont have to fear chronic attacks. anyway, my parents gave me the only sensible advice they could and told me to ring my uncle who is a gp. after running through my circumstances and medications etc, he concluded what i had hoped he would, that i should return to the hospital and go back on the nebuliser. also that while i had upped my preventative medication to double what i was on at home, i could double that again.

so laura, inspite of my claims that i was able to go alone, once again accompanied me to the hospital, via taxi. inspite of my insistance that i was fine on my own, i was very grateful to not set off on this adventure alone. a taxi dropped us out the front of the same hospital and we wandered in and wandered around until we found a counter with someone behind it (and turnstiles although there was only one other person their) eventually the lady looked up and saw us and yelled out to someone else what i would translate as "there are two western girls out there, they must want emergency, take them around their" the second lady then appeared made a vague gesture that we took to be "follow me" and led us back to where we'd been earlier that day. one of the doctors remembered us from earlier, and understood my comments of "more more". he sat me down and again listened to my chest. he made some comments to the effect of my lungs sounded ok. i made strangling gestures and explained that my chest was tight. he basically again conceded to my self diagnosis. another young doctor came over and actually took my pulse!

they then told me they were going to give me a injection into my vein of something which sounded like gluco something or other. to which i was pretty much, whatever, give me what you want. laura meanwhile began freaking out. while ostensibly her concern was about me being given some medicine that we didnt know for a purpose we were unsure of, her *real* concern was the needle. my response was "they're wearing white coats, it will be fine"

more nebuliser and i was feeling much better. we watched the goings on of the emergency department which remarkably enough seemed to not even *have* a waiting room, and was possibly over staffed! eventually they came over to give me my jab, while laura cowered at the other end of the bed and i made soothing noises in her direction...

they then got laura to go over and complete the paper work (required information: name, date of birth, age, nationality and address in vietnam) and pay up the $5 (!!!) fee. i remained on the bed, feeling the drugs rushing through my system and my heart rate accelerating (normal response to nebuliser). One of the older doctors who spoke the most english came over with a student doctor and started chatting to me about my asthma, and what it was reacting to (humidity, car fumes, dust) and then proceeded to attempt to set me up with the student doctor, although his mixing of personal pronouns had me somewhat baffled for a while. eventually i heard laura over at the desk, surrounded by about doctors and nurses saying something about ER as in the tv show, and drew the conculsion that she was no longer conducting official business. i went over to discover they were attempting to set her up with another young doctor, and were generally having a hilarious time trying to converse in broken english. we ran through our collection of poorly pronounced vientamese and they were reasonably entertained that about 50% of our phrases were vietnamese versions of "cheers" and drinking expressions.

they gave me a script for 3 drugs, of which i sought of got the gist of 2 (an antibiotic and ventolin in tablet form - something i'd never heard of). i had no idea how many i was supposed to take when but we trotted off to the chemist, who pulled out a sheet of tablets which were the antibiotics, a couple of other sheets she cut up to give me the tablets prescribed (the ventloin) and then she counted out small organge tablets into a plastic bag (the ones i dont know what they're for) packaging? who needs packaging!

we walked back to the hotel with me in a state of drug induced delirium and laura highly entertained by it all.

this morning, whilst feeling much better, i knew there was no way i was getting on a bike. instead we talked to the tour guide and decided to get a separate bus from the group rather than spend the day travelling at 20kms an hour trailing the riders. laura again insisted on coming with me, which was very generous given that she had otherwise maintained a perfect record with the cycling on the trip. another girl in the group had also injured her foot the previous day on the beach, and so agreed that our plan sounded far more comfortable. the three of us had a pretty pleasant bus ride to dalat - the honey moon capital of vietnam. while i'm still not feeling great, and am not really coping with a great deal of excertion, we've been for a short walk around the town, and have also organised a tour of the town for tomorrow with a highly recommended group of motorcycle guides. possibly this is not the most responsible thing i could have decided to do, but the guides are amazing, speak fantastic english and do awesome tours of the surrounding countryside that i wont otherwise see... and if i get worse i'll just get them to bring me back. of course, the fact that this also requires me to sit on the back of a motorbike is an entire other issue.... but sometimes you've just got to get with the programme or something.

anyway, we'll see how things go. but most importantly, i'm ok, i've got a million drugs and i'll be in saigon the next day anyway, so nobody worry ok? (clearly that means you mum and dad)