Bustin Out!

It is now Thursday morning, October 15. I have been in this hospital in Bangkok going on 12 days, 13 counting the 1 day in Hanoi. They tell me I will be checking out of here today though. I am delighted. I have been pain free for 4 days and fever free for 5. My last ultrasound on Tuesday showed that the swelling in my kidney had gone down, but was not 100%. The dietitian came by yesterday and told me that she wants me on a low oxalate diet. That is no surprise. We had been reading up on it, so we knew what to expect.

The surgeon wants me to jog 20 minutes per day. The kidney doctor wants me to drink 2 cups of water as soon as I wake up in the morning, 2 right before I go to bed, and 2 liters during the day. I have to eliminate chocolate and peanuts from my diet as well as cut back on some other things that I normally eat. Except for the chocolate and peanuts, none of it are too life changing. I need to eat more fruit, which is fine because they are available in China all the time and are quite good.

We are quite fortunate to have some amazing insurance to cover the costs of this whole ordeal. I'm not sure we'll ever see the total bill, but maybe someone can take a stab at what 12 days in a private hospital in the the United States would run plus a private airplane transport and a commercial flight home would run as well as surgery, 2 CT scans, 3 sonograms, and enough morphine and medicine to knock out a herd of elephants.

I won't make some of you cry by telling you how much Jamie and I are out of pocket for this.

We should be leaving Bangkok either this afternoon (Thursday) or tomorrow. It depends on the insurance company and when they book our flight.

I'm looking forward to things getting back to normal. Looking forward to starting my new diet, not looking forward to running 20 minutes a day, but I'm looking forward to dragging Griffey along for the run. He certainly needs to run.

I would like to again thank all of my co-workers and friends in Shekou who have looked after Griffey while we've been away as well as subbed for me and taken care of my classes. We certainly didn't plan to be out for 2 full weeks, but it is nice to know we have such wonderful and caring people to help us out in our time of need. We would like to think that we'd be equally wonderful if the shoe were on the other foot.

This has been the worse experience of my life to date, and I hope I never repeat it. Sure, I'm sure I'll be in the hospital for something again eventually, but let's hope I can take care of myself and delay it, at least for something like kidney stones.