Medical care in Thailand

Too bad, the antibiotics didn't work. Apparently they were not potent enough, and the bug-bite infected leg got worse. On Friday night, the manager of the Hoa Linh Hotel in Hanoi gazed with horror at my swollen, inflamed lower left leg, and declared, "Oh, must go to hospital! Must have cut!"

Cut? Nah. The crack New England medical team that had advised me via e-mail had warned that whatever I did, DO NOT HAVE AN IV ANTIBIOTIC DRIP IN HANOI. "Cutting" sounded unwise also.

Balancing the risks, we decided to wait a day and take advantage of the reputed excellent medical care in Bangkok, to which we were booked to fly Saturday morning. It was the right decision.

When you set foot in the Bangkok Nursing Home Hospital, on Convent Road, you feel like Paul and Joann arriving at Canyon Ranch. This institution's very existence is plainly for making you---you and very, very few others---feel comfortable and safe and confident that everything will turn out just right.

The smiling BNHH staff, dressed in pale, pale purple, make it all so easy and quick. But not too quick! You never feel rushed. The staff are all so solicitous, you half expect them to smile and present you with an orchid, the way we're told the attendants do in first class on Thai Airways. Walking into BNH Hospital makes you think of how warm and welcoming it must feel for the thousands of men and women from all over the world as they arrive in this hospital for their sex-change operations.

It was our friend Poe who had recommended BNHH---and informed us of the speciality of the house---and the medical care was as top-notch as he said it would be. The physician I saw within 20 minutes of our arrival, a Thai woman in her forties, peered at my leg, and pronounced, "Ah, insect bite." Not uncommon, apparently. She listened to my saga, then soon had me laid out and surrounded by nurses. A local anesthetic was administered, and the doctor proceeded to slice open my leg and squeeze out copious hideous matter. I asked if I could look, and the doctor said, "Oh, no, it is not bee-yoo-tee-fool."

We were in and out of BNHH in just under an hour. On the spot, I was provided with a stronger antibiotic, Zithromax, and an anti-inflammatory, Arcoxia. I received instructions for returning every day for five days to have the dressing changed (I did so today, Sunday), and was directed to return Monday at 9:30 a.m. for a onceover by another surgeon.

Total cost yesterday, $168. Today, $20. Arriving in an American ER the way I did would almost certainly have meant giving up much of the day, and the cost would have been $1,000-plus. I paid BNHH with my Mastercard and received documents that should speed reimbursement by AARP when I get home.

It was bad luck that I was bitten by some wretched bug---and that now I must prop my foot on a pillow and frolic about Bangkok only minimally. But I was lucky to be in Thailand for treatment; each of the other countries in the region could have been problematical. When we phoned Poe yesterday, he said, "Oh, you have come back to paradise!" Thailand is not quite that, but in the absence of the genuine article, Thailand fakes it beautifully.

Last night, the three of us went to an outdoor place called Just One, near our hotel. In a warm breeze we sat under the flowering trees and ate perfect tom yam soup, duck red curry, chicken wrapped in an aromatic herb (whose peculiar name I've forgotten), kale with spicy fishballs, and deep-fried morning glory leaves.

We heard about the snowstorm in the U.S. Northeast, and Joe asked me if I would rather be in snowy Becket or in Bangkok having pus drained out of my leg. Easy answer to that one, believe it or not. As a precaution, we have postponed our Myanmar foray by a week. But we get to stay in Thailand---Joe will go back to Chiang Mai for a few days of cooking classes---and so we can hardly be disappointed.