A few more ugly details

Some people wanted to know more about Haley’s Dengue episode and my toe issues. Jo is already writing the next blog that we will probably post tomorrow, but we wanted to document a few more things to add to her last post first.

After Haley’s ‘food poisoning’ stopped acting like food poisoning, I got on the internet (where all symptoms lead to the worst diseases ever that often end up being fatal) and diagnosed her with Malaria. To confirm my suspicions, we went across the street to the ‘clinic’ to get a blood test. It turns out that the clinic doctor was great and even had fancy machines that came from France. The blood test cost us $9 and 10 minutes later we confirmed that internet sucks at diagnosing, and that Haley had a mild case of Dengue Fever (otherwise known as break-bone disease because it feels like your bones are breaking – I guess all of Haley’s “I’m dying” and “Make it stop” crying was warranted). Nothing to do but drink lots of water and electrolytes, rest, and wait it out. Haley did that for about five days, and I hung around taking care of her.

the problem with coconut based rehydration is that you have to hold up the 20lb coconut in your weakened state.

haley dying while the doctor blew the blood sample dry with a hair dryer

Meanwhile, one of my nasty toenails had chosen to grow under the skin and cause me pain and infection. I did everything I could to NOT go to the hospital or doctor as we had heard horror stories about the Laos medical care, but eventually it seemed like the best option. Limited English and the 15 doctors in training watching my toe operation made for more excitement and the local anesthetic shots to the big toe made for enough pain that I was swearing like a sailor and wincing like a baby. It hurt really badly (Haley had a really hard time watching and listening to my yelling). Kinda like when they shoot Novocain into your gums at the dentist X 1000. After that they wrapped my toe and told me do NOT get it wet, which I promptly did. You try hopping through 2 foot deep water for 30 minutes without getting your other foot wet. The sad thing is, it got wet when I was just standing there and forgot to hold it up high enough. Anyways…no infection followed the premature wetness and soon Haley and I were both healed up.

now everyone in luang prabang knows how to treat an ingrown toenail

Other things that Jo didn’t mention:

After we were mostly healed, we found an English class where we could all volunteer for 2 hours. Teaching is hard.

say banana god dammit!

One other thing that Jo ‘forgot’ was that she climbed up a tree with all the intentions of getting on a rope swing, but then couldn’t bring herself to walk the last 3 feet required to grab the rope. In her defense, it looked pretty slippery and dicey. Regardless it made for good laughs and was a perfect example of Jo’s reliable go-for-it attitude.

so close

what Jo would have looked like if she could have just crawled those final few feet

The food in Luang Prabang was delicious. One of our favorites were these coconut and rice pancake things that were served in a banana leaf bowl. We ate lots of them. There is also a $1.25 all you can fit on your plate place that was great and if you feel like even better food there’s plenty of that too. May have been one of the best food towns of our trip.