The Silk Tape Road: Thai edition *graphic.

This picture of my arm is gross.  I know it.  It looks like I have kidney failure and am suffering from severe edema and third spacing.  This is what my heat rash looked like while I was in Thailand last July.  It was bad.  It erupted one night after I indulged in an hour massage and suffered a subsequent fever.  It was so bad I could hardly sit still.  I had heavenly visions of scraping my skin off with a grapefruit spoon.  The reason why I am subjecting my blog to this horrendous graphic is because it helps me tell the story of my run in with the Thai healthcare system, the silk tape road along the silk road, if you will.  

After two days of this, I admitted defeat and proclaimed that I was in need of intervention.  The antihistamines alone were not effective.  I needed steroids.  After a desperate failed attempt to call a friend in the States (thanks a LOT, dr jim) I was directed to our house mom, Pi Dang who tsked her tongue and told me, "you need doctor-skin."  My mind quickly panicked.  The one time I had ever seen a dermatologist I had to wait weeks and reschedule three times before I was seen for fifteen minutes.  I could not bear this.  Luckily, Pi Dang could not hear my inner whimpering and promptly guided me over a street from our guest house to the local "Doctor-skin".

I wish I had a picture of the inside of that office.  What I can offer you is this description:  it looked like the DMV.  Rows of bucket seats packed with people, all waiting for one purpose.  I sheepishly followed Pi Dang as she made negotiations in Thai for me to be seen.  I could feel the glares as people noticed and were horrified by the condition of my skin.  Had it been biblical times, a cloak and proclamation of "unclean! unclean!" would have been appropriate.  At first, the nurse at the reception desk said that the doctor would see me in three hours.  What a relief!  Three measly hours?!  No big deal.  Apparently, however, Pi Dang saw this situation as being more dire.  She waltzed right back up and engaged in some seemingly friendly dialogue, which miraculously ended with my wait time being cut to thirty minutes.  I fervently stammered a prayer to God, asking Him to bless Pi Dang like He has blessed no other.  

After waiting awkwardly in the "dmv" and ignoring the children who pointed and made disgusted faces, I was shown in to the doctor's office.  The cutest gray haired Thai man ever waited for me, with his UV light on.  He intently studied my every extremity twice, before peering over his rimless glasses and declaring: "this is very bad."  I had to laugh, while wondering the cultural ramifications of a foreigner threatening his life if he didn't give me some steroids.  Luckily, this wasn't necessary.  The dear, Harvard educated man wrote me prescriptions for everything I could ever hope for.  

I was then ushered to the front desk, where the nurses of this office filled my prescriptions and explained my medications to me.  I was handed four little plastic baggies with exactly enough pills, and two creams.  As she was tallying up my total, the nurse looked at me apologetically as she told me my due for the six prescriptions and my office visit: 820 baht (read, 27 bucks).  She perked up however, when she told me that upon knowing my ethnic background, she charged me the lower, Thai price.  "Chinese close enough," she shrugged.  I could have leapt over the counter and kissed her.  

Imagine, if you will, what this fiasco would have been like if I were in the States.  Should we even start?!  Nah, let's just grin and appreciate how much better they do it over there.  Obama, take note!