To be fair, what turned into pneumonia was really good at disguising itself, initially, as no more than a common chest cold, a mere kennel cough I had heard barking its way through most of my expat comrades. When I woke up with a phlegmy brick lodged generally between the area of my throat and chest, I just assumed it was my turn to take up the bacterial mantle and approached the situation with Mucinex and phenylephrine and water.
Having taken those things, I continued on with my fun-filled boat racing holiday generally ignoring the problem. I figured that lots of dancing would dislodge all that junk in my chest and help it work its way out, so off I went. Afternoon naps and hours long brunches after late nights, liberally applied, rounded out my homemade treatment plan.
Look, I never claimed to be a doctor, but I have been accused of being a hypochondriac, so I now approach most health issues with a hyper inflated sense of flippancy, to prove how much I’m not worried. Just a cold, nothing to see here, moving on…
A week after I began hacking my way through the days and applying my dance and brunch treatment plan, I woke up to a serious turn of respiratory events. I really just couldn’t breathe that well anymore. My head ached and I was weak. My lungs throbbed with painful rings of “I’m fuuuuuuuuuuuuuucked uuuuuuuuuuup” echoing from the bottom of my ribs.
2020 Me- sounds like corona
I’ve had walking pneumonia before, so I knew the score. A quick visit to the doctor confirmed it, or should I say, the doctor turned saucer eyed and said “If the antibiotics don’t work in three days, you have to go to Thailand”. After that cheery diagnosis I spent a week first lurking on a floor mattress in the corner of my friends’ house, then having food brought to me once I was back home and feeling better about being alone. Through it all I was taking lots of antibiotics and trying not to have panic attacks when I woke up coughing unto choking unto vomiting. I was also terrified of having another anaphylactic shock episode. So, you know, just good times all around.
I did finally watch the Grand Budapest Hotel, and would end up watching it three times. I slept a lot. I missed sitting upright. I had a plastic water bottle spittoon next to my bed and I do think tobacco would have been less gross. There was no internet 99% of the time, which was good, because I would have googled things I didn’t need to google. I was horizontal with my eyes closed, not talking or sleeping, for hours at a time. In the absence of pneumonia, it could have been a pretty relaxing time, altogether. In the presence of pneumonia plus lovely caretakers, it was bearable.
Speaking of, I need to make a full stop right here and say that during and after I was/am overwhelmed by the kindness of my family of friends here when it came to stepping in and taking care of me.
I was talked to and visited and texted and called and messaged and fed and petted and held and hosted and movie watched with and overall treated to the kind of care that reminds me that I should thank my lucky stars to have fallen in with such stellar human beings.
Y’all Know who you are
I live alone and I love it, but being sick, and being sick overseas, is too much even for my ultra private introvert ways. When I can’t breathe, I want to be surrounded by people who know things like emergency numbers and how to get me where I need to be if I can’t explain it. And I was surrounded by Very Good People. This was infinitely better than last year, when I was fever stricken and puking in the street, pondering throwing bricks at people, and returning home to little more than scrawny street cats. Progress is made.
Today I’m coming to terms with the reality that is taking a week off from work and grad school, which means an epic backlog of both. As a result, I am, of course, lounging in a coffeeshop because my internet at home is, once again, not working. I asked for lemon tea, but they just brought me hot water, which okay, is really just as good at the end of the day.
I write to you while I sip plain hot water in serene bor pen nyang gratitude, watching small children crawl under the table around the chair legs of their parents. The owners are looking on in mild disdain, probably wondering why falang can’t discipline their kids or stay the fuck away from feet. The lights are, as always, buttery yellow. This is a new cafe, and everything smells fresh from the factory; the ceiling looks like an endless 3D field of inverted wooden Tetris (I hope I got that imagery right for you, because it’s gorgeous and I want you to see it).
The best part of all, in spite of no internet and no lemons and lingering pneumonia, is that I’m on a futon, because beds are restaurant furniture in Laos and I am here for it. I’m resisting the urge to lie down, which is very hard because there are legitimate bed pillows on this thing. More hot water. So sleepy. The children are now eating from the floor. The owners have much more than disdain at this point, I’m sure.
I know when I leave that I will go home and crawl into my bed and not need to use the reluctant AC, because the fan and an open window is starting to be enough. As I was riding my motorbike here tonight I felt a creeping undercurrent of cool breeze sifting slow over my bare knees, under the rest of the humid heat. I slowed down and looked up- the night was clear and I could see some stars. The cool season is officially sliding in on the wet tracks of rainy season. I’ve been here long enough to know what happens next, because I was here this time last year. The cycle feels comforting.
I’m looking forward to cold motorbike rides home, the possibility of pants at night, an even more lively social scene of events sure to not be rained out, and sharp clear mornings where my students will chide me about not wearing a sweater because I will get sick.
Maybe I’ve gotten the getting sick out of the way. They’re not doctors either.
But maybe I will heed their warnings this year and bundle up just in case.
Originally published October 19th, 2014 on Blogger.
Narrator’s Note September 2020: it didn’t seem to fit into this story at the time, and I guess I was too sick to deal with it, but I really need to write the experience of having a respected and well known news anchor from Australia get shithouse wasted at the after boat race party and fling himself into our group. He seemed charming, but then out of nowhere as we were dancing, he grabbed the bottom of my shirt and BIT OFF THE BOTTOM OF IT with his too white news anchor teeth. He then proceeded to beg me to come back to his hotel because it was “really nice and I’d have the best night of my life”. He threw in persuasive points like “women would be begging to be you- I’m famous in Australia”. Imagine being a whole professional and traveling to a foreign country on business just to eat someone’s shirt without their consent at a homemade falang dance party in the front lawn of the fishery bureau. Wait, I guess I just told the story. There you go.
