A Rabid Kiss Goodbye - Bangkok Diaries Vol. 5

Greetings from Bali!!! Yes, I am officially here living the dream with my fishy friends. There will be plenty of posts to come about my (mis)adventures here on the island of the gods but before I let loose with the dive talk and the Balinese dreams there is the need for one final Thailand tale.  Never one to leave without a Bang (or crash) I managed to spend my last week in Bangkok partaking in one of those fabled, often spoken of in terms of “you won’t believe what happened to a friend of a friend of mine in Bangkok” type urban myths of Asian traveller lore.

I got bit by a rabid dog.

Ya, this looks about right...

Yes, now you too can honestly say “hey that happened to a friend of mine” or if you are one of my more loosely associated readers, I am more than happy to be your “friend of a friend”. Yes faithful fans, these lovely Canadian legs proved just a bit too irresistible to the frothy mouthed, half bald, limping, scabby alley dogs of Bangkok. Chow down my lovely canine friends, chow down.

Now, those of you who know me know that I can be a smidge stubborn when it comes to certain situations.  Acknowledging the severity of a gapping, rabid saliva filled wound on my leg being no exception to the rule.  So, instead of proceeding directly to the hospital after my little run-in, I decided that a more suitable way to deal with the situation was to pretend it didn’t happen at all and go to the movies. Yes, clearly going to see The Great Gatsby is just what the doctor ordered. Rabies be gone! Leonardo DiCaprio will surely rid me of these foreign pathogens!   Unfortunately, Leo’s charms and F.Scott Fitzgerald’s timeless tale of lost love and the American dream soothed my soul and my thirst for something associated with my literary past but did nothing for my now swollen, bleeding and festering wound (dear Esplanade theatre, I am sorry for the blood stain on your cinema seat, I was in a state of denial…). So, after 7 hours of prime Princess Inaka style stubborness, I returned home to Momma Sammut’s stern glare and direct order to get my now rabid ass down to the hospital (thanks mom!).

Stop #1 Bumrungrad International Hospital:  Silly me, having not learned my lesson last time I attempted to get medical care at the country’s most expensive hospital where the emergency room nurse took one look at my leg and said “Oh my god” and looked like he was going to vomit.  After, that my wound was cleaned and I was told by the doctor that because I had a “stage 3” bite I needed not only a course of rabies and tetanus shots but also an emergency dose of “immunoglobin” .  I was then presented with a quote of 30,000 baht…that’s 1000 dollars CDN.

I quickly realized that denial is a much more affordable approach to the situation but having been told that it was imperative that I get this treatment or I could find myself at death’s door in a matter of months I realized I had no choice.  So, off to the public hospital I went with dreams of affordable medical treatment dancing in my head. 

Stop #2 Ramatiphodit Public Hosptial: My dreams of affordable health care soon became a reality when I was provided with a quote for 4000 baht (that’s 150 dollars) for the exact same treatment.  Not only did I save 850 dollars by rolling “Thai style” I also got hit on by a nice young doctor with impeccable English and had a gaggle of Thai nurses chronicle my entire ordeal on their mobile phone cameras.  Unfortunately my imunoglobin shot consisted of a 4 inch needed attached to a syringe the size of a turkey baster being injected directly into my wound. I didn’t scream, I didn’t cry but damn I wanted to. You would figure that after my whole “adventure in liver land” I would have an endless pain threshold but apparently that is not the case. Oh well, just another day in Bangkok…

Anyway, I am now rabies free and have even made it through a trip to the Balinese hospital for booster number 3 (30 bucks!) of 5 for my rabies shots and am eagerly awaiting #2 of 4 for my tetanus shots. Really, who needs money right? I’d rather spread it around the medical professionals of S.E Asia. Hey, who knows, maybe I’ll take a trip to Singapore for booster #4.

And with this final post, The Adventures of Rice Paddy Royalty Thailand Edition is officially closed (for now…)Stay tuned for the Bali Edition coming soon.  

Cheers from the pathogen palace

J