Thursday, November 19, 2015

Hospital Time!

After stepping on the nail in the dump I decided to finish out my days shooting. Making the photo is of paramount importance, what's a little blood and pain to further your art. :))

I inspected the nail after I rinsed the wound in the dump it looked newish and not rusty. I guess I should call the nail a small spike as excluding the board it was in it was around 3 inched long. So this non rusty mini spike went through my boot, sock and punctured my skin on my left foot drawing blood. This was not a deep wound but still a dump spike even a non rusty one has to be very dirty. Should I go to the hospital? If so how difficult would that be?

I was always told that if I step on a nail it is best to get a tetanus shot. So I decided it was better to be safe than sorry and made my way to the Government run public hospital of Me Sot. Now this turned out to be a long, and tedious 3 hour ordeal. in that 3 hour period between the time I entered the hospital and the time they stuck a needle in my arm I visited and spoke to people in 11 different offices, stalls, desks and windows. It was a frickin convoluted and maze like 3 hours fo confusion requiring lots and lots of patience!

Eventually after all those steps I was injected with a vaccine. I need to do a follow up shot in 1 month in Canada and a third needle in 6 months time. They also gave me two types of pills to take, one a pain killer (will not take that one) and the second I think is an anti biotic, 1 pill 4 times a day before meals.

The cost was only 144 baht (around $5.50 CAD)which means I paid the same amount as a Thai or Burmese person. The process is very slow and laboured but the costs cheap. It was quite interesting to see the mix of hundreds of patients waiting with me. Every size, colour , age, shape and physical condition (I was the only farang). Some folks spend an entire day like this 3, 4, 5 times a year to get their meds.