Overseas Accidents
I have never been to hospital in Australia (touch wood) but I have sure had my share of misadventures overseas.
My first and last brush with rabies occurred in Thailand about fifteen years ago. I was visiting Phi Phi Island which is a lovely spot where they’ve filmed a couple of James Bond movies. I couldn’t imagine that anything awful could possibly happen there.
Actually, it did – a few years after my trip, the island was badly hit by the tsunami and I still wonder if the little chap I met there came to a sticky end. I do hope not.
But back to the story. We got off the ferry at Phi Phi Island and waded through the water to shore (yes, it’s not very high tech!). And the first thing I see is a cute monkey sitting on a chair under a palm tree.
Well, I just love monkeys but I have a very short memory. If I had a reasonable memory I would have recalled a Sunday in gay Paris when I visited a market full of cute animals in cages. There was an enormous cage containing a number of big monkeys. One seemed to think I was very interesting and stupidly I thought it was because we had somehow forged a bond, until, faster than the speed of light, a little hand darted through the bars and ripped my necklace from around my neck. The monkey then raced up to the top of the cage where it sat, chewing enthusiastically on its treasure. I never did get that necklace back either.
But back to Phi Phi Island. Making excited goo goo noises, I raced over to the monkey and sat down next to him/her/it. It looked at me with quite a bit of interest and once again my ego kicked in and I thought for a millisecond that my personality had shone through and I’d won a monkey’s heart. Then deju vu! A hairy paw shot out and with amazing dexterity, whipped my necklace over my head and was up the palm tree like a …monkey!
There it sat, chewing on its prize and no doubt laughing at me. I made all sorts of cranky noises and the monkey’s owner came running over. After assessing the situation he hauled his friend down by the chain to which it was tied.
He grabbed the necklace back and then as a final insult, he clipped the monkey over the top of the head. I certainly didn’t endorse the head clipping and I felt sorry for the monkey who was now sitting, rubbing its sore head and thinking, thinking, thinking. I could see its little eyes darting from its owner to me.
Someone had caused it pain and that person would have to pay. But it also realized that its owner could not be punished – after all, he was its owner. But this annoying woman was another matter! It was all HER fault!
I saw vengeance in its eyes as it flew through the air, screaming a monkey scream! Landing on my bare arm it sunk its teeth deeply into the skin as it clung on for dear life. Meanwhile I ran around in circles, waving my arm around and also screaming a monkey scream!
Fortunately, the owner disengaged the monkey from its hold and I collapsed in a moaning heap. Blood poured from the wound as I tried to assess the situation. Could I possibly have rabies?
I’d heard somewhere that if there’s a chance you have contracted rabies you have to take the monkey’s brain to a hospital so they could check it for rabies. The poor monkey had however, suffered enough without me taking its brain, and in any case I had a feeling that a monkey that was tied to a tree didn’t have too much communication with other rabid monkeys so I felt that I was pretty safe. But I wasn’t sure if I might catch a horrible disease from its green teeth.
At the resort they dabbed on disinfectant and assured me that the monkey regularly bit women and they’d all survived.
I did live, and for the rest of my holiday I watched (from a great distance) the nasty creature sidle up to unsuspecting women and steal their sunglasses and necklaces. My boyfriend said he’d give the monkey a talking to.
I watched as he sat down next to the monkey and the little wretch put a hairy arm around him and cuddled him! So it would appear that the monkey was a female with a hatred for all women. Still, I do hope she survived the tsunami. I’ve often thought about her, chained to the tree right on the water’s edge. Maybe she had already gone elsewhere with her owner. Does anyone out there know?
My next brush with death was in South America twelve years ago. No, I wasn’t bitten by a donkey!
I had decided to do a couple of challenging trips – firstly around Eastern Europe (now THAT was a story!) and secondly, around South America. It all started innocently enough in Ecuador and then continued to Venezuela where I did something very foolish.
I let someone sip from my straw!
Actually, I was having a drink in a coffee shop and a very stunning young man who was sitting at my table asked if he could try my drink (we had been talking prior to this question!).
As he took a sip through my straw I had a fleeting thought – I wondered momentarily if he might just have some ghastly germ. It was, as I said, just a fleeting thought, and I’ve never had that thought before. He was a very handsome young man and he certainly didn’t look like there was one nasty germ in his whole body. However, I thought right.
As I waved goodbye to the handsome young man, I was already in agony.
He still looked in tip top shape but I couldn’t swallow and my head felt awful. Unfortunately, I was already winging my way to what should have been a delightful weekend away at a resort. But unfortunately I spent the whole weekend in bed – and the resort sounded so nice in the brochure!
Anyway, I did survive that weekend and on my return to Caracas on the Monday, I felt marginally better, except that I had a nasty cough which made it impossible to sleep at night. I was due to fly out to Uruguay the next day and I really did need some cough-free sleep.
I am not normally a fan of chemist shops but in this case I made the fateful decision to visit one. I asked for something to ease my coughing, fully expecting to receive some cough mixture. However, the assistant excitedly gave me a sheet of enormous pills.
“Take one every eight hours and you won’t cough at all,” she said.
Well, this was wonderful! A pill that stopped people coughing! Who’d have thought it?
I probably should have taken some time out to think just why I was coughing in the first place, but well, I guess if the chemist shop lady recommended it, it must be all right. Big mistake!
Actually, it was super for exactly eight hours, during which time I didn’t cough at all and I slept like a log. However, on the ninth hour I started to feel rather horrible. I developed a pain on the right side of my chest and I was feeling rather weak.
Still, I made it to Uruguay and checked into my bed and breakfast in the old town. Unfortunately, I had to climb a spiral staircase to get to my room and since I wasn’t feeling at all well, this was quite a chore. Still, I was determined to see Uruguay and I battled on. Now I couldn’t sleep at all and I had developed a massive fever which could only be quenched by taking an icy cold bath every night. I spent most of my nights sitting in cold water and praying for daylight to come.
Next stop was Buenos Aires in Argentina, and by now I couldn’t even summon up the energy to leave my hotel room. I tossed and turned in my bed for a week, only drinking orange juice which I ordered on room service. I started the week with about $US 20 in one dollar notes plus a $US100 note, and I finished the week with maybe $US5 left. I had apparently given as a tip $US100 to someone! They didn’t alert me to my error though!
I was fast running out of money but there was no way I could leave my room, let alone go to a bank. I just thought that if I could only make it to Australia, all would be well.
To be at the airport on time, I had to leave the hotel at 7am on Saturday morning. When I arrived at reception to check out at 7am I thought it was unusually dark and reception seemed surprised to see me too.
“Goodness, it’s very dark here at 7am,” I say. “In Australia it would be sunny by now.”
“Well, that’s because it’s 7pm,” they tell me. “It’s Friday night.”
Well that did it. I didn’t know if it was night or day and there was no way I could wait another twelve hours until Saturday morning. I staggered back to my room and rang Australia. My mum got in touch with the insurance company and they organised a doctor to come to the hotel. It was not good. It looked like I had pneumonia but they’d have to take me to a hospital to find out.
The ambulance raced to the Community Hospital and as someone prepared to push me in my wheelchair down a little corridor into the surgery, a dog ran out the door. Even in my befuddled state I thought this was a little odd.
Down the corridor we raced – deftly circumventing a still steaming pile of dog pooh. The surgery was littered with bits and pieces strewn all over the floor, too. Arterial blood was taken and blood pressure checked and when they had assessed my ability to pay (luckily I had insurance) I was rushed off to the British Hospital. On the way out I noticed that cats were sitting in the waiting room with the patients. The dog’s pooh was still steaming in the corridor.
On the flip side, the British Hospital was absolutely pristine. I later commented about the cats and dog to one of the doctors at the British Hospital. He seemed somewhat surprised by my question.
“Well, hospitals have flour and flour attracts rats, and rats attract cats and cats attract dogs,” he replied. Now why hadn’t I thought of that?
After heaps of CAT scans and blood tests and probing, it transpired that I had pleural empyema. This is a gathering of gunk in the pleural cavity. I’ve just googled it and it seems that one cause is gangrene of the lung. Apparently the anti-coughing pill had just caused all the gunk which I would normally have coughed up, to just overflow into my chest. Yuk! I still had a very high fever so they said I’d have to have an operation to drain off all the goop.
In the end they drained off two litres in a two hour operation. I lived, but only just.
My tongue was absolutely purple which means there was no oxygen in my blood and they reckoned I was a day off conking out. However, they did say that if I’d flown back to Australia as I’d planned; my lungs would have collapsed due to the high altitude.
But it was great fun. The anaesthetist took me on a city tour and one of the surgeons and his wife, took me out to dinner. I felt like a star. However, the insurance company was not impressed as apparently the medical bills were ginormous! As soon as a foreigner with insurance goes into a hospital in South America it appears that medical bills explode. That is why travel insurance in South America is so expensive.
My last overseas experience with things medical occurred on my recent trip to Kerala, India.
I think I would be supported by the majority of people when I say that I have always had a fear of Indian hospitals. So it is only fair that I should be admitted to one, albeit only for a very short time.
During my recent visit to Kerala I wasn’t looking where I was going and I fell down some stairs. I found myself rolling, rolling along the ground. I was waiting for my head to be squashed by a passing car, but instead it came to a sudden halt on a rusty stand. I sat, drenched with blood, gingerly probing my head wound, positive that I could feel my skull through the hole.
My driver arrived on the scene and took me to Perriyar Hospital, which is a small country-style hospital.
After my experience in Argentina, I was expecting the worse. However, surprise, surprise, the hospital was clean and the nurses were even gloved up. They cleaned my wound with antiseptic and the doctor, who was a most amenable young fellow, sewed up the wound beautifully. I was given a tetanus injection and sent off with antibiotics.
The cost? A very modest 600 rupees ($15) which was kindly paid for me by the tour company in India (Indian Panorama) which had organised the trip for me.
So, you can see that when I travel I always buy travel insurance. It really is a MUST!
