Author: Rosencrantz O'Dowd

What a difference a day makes.

Yesterday the isolation of a few days off work gave rise to dark thoughts about how long I’d have a job for.

My Thai co-teacher was making ( via Line , the Thai chat app ) ominous noises about the volume of work coming up as mid-term exams appraoched. It looked like some sloppy bureaucracy from either him or the school would create a truck-load of extra admin work for me.

I was uncertain about what kind of reception I’d get after four extra days off ( on doctor’s orders ) nursing the foot.

I’d come to dislike where I’ve been living for the past two weeks – no shelving at all ( not even in the bathroom ). A marble-tiled floor which is nigh impossible to keep clean. The sacrifice of inside floor-space for a deck. Watching the power bleed through the meter..

Not enough sleep, and a foot which is improving too slowly.

So it hasn’t been all beer and skittles.

But I forced myself through the morning routine, and got to work in time, tie ‘n all as usual. And just got through the classes.

Turned out there was no committee waiting with a pink slip. Turned out that none of the classes were a total disaster. Turned out the Thai teacher had done quite some legwork patching up the record-keeping.

Police Clearance

The Thai police clearance came through from the Bangkok run. Another hurdle cleared with bruises in the tender bits.

Teacher’s Registration

And so the wheels keep turning. I supplied SOM-who-must-be-obeyed with the required mugshots, and my teacher’s registration is on its way. In two months or so.

I hoped a wallow in the surf at Mae Rampehung beach today might turn a corner for the infected leg and bike accident wounds.

They cleaned out, but a few hours later are as swollen as before. Maybe it’s an overnight cure.

I had an alterior motive for going to the beach. Yesterday at Makro’s ( the King Kong of bulk food bargain stores ) I ran into a couple of English Likely Lads. They’d been in Thailand for 6 years, up North at Khon Kean.

On eyeing my cheese-laden trolley, one says he has cheaper, better cheese, which he imports in bulk. Today, I went to find out, and indeed, it was so. Blue cheese and cheddar, good quality stuff, for around the same price as back home.
Not only that, bacon galore, at bargain prices.

Meat is cheap in Thailand, and it’d be very easy to live in Pork, eggs, and fish. I almost do.

So cheap that while at Makro, I decided it was time to cash in on it. I haven’t done so already, because the only cooking equipment I have is a kettle, and microwave. So I gambled on a rice cooker, thinking that it would work like a slow cooker. And voila, perfectly slow-cooked pigs trotters last night!

A couple of days ago, I got very tired of hunting down early-opening local coffee shops. So I bought a filter coffee-maker. While it’s way better than instant, experts tell me it’s all in sourcing the good beans. So that’s next.

After pay-day this month fell on the 28th, below is an assortment of my recent extravagances.

It seems good things, as well as bad, come in threes.

And good things came yesterday in the form of news.

No chop-chop

First, the hospital doctor who originally treated me told that I was in no danger of losing ( to amputation )  the injured leg or foot. Yes, it would have been an extreme outcome, but Mr. Neurotic over here worries about such things.

The Thai doctor showed a lot of grace and patience in explaining the situation in [ good enough ] English to this farang.

Along the way, I learned that it seems (m)any Thai public service interfaces – e.g. Hospital waiting rooms, consulates, police clearance check  – operate with all the order of savannah watering holes . But despite that, they work, in a clunky kind of way, based often on numbered paper chits, as opposed to our more familiar electronic systems.

Police Clearance

Anyway, all that aside, I also got back the rersults of the Thai police clearance check on did way back on May 27th.  I didn’t insist on sighting it myself but was told by English Teachers’ sorceress Som  ( a.k.a ‘God’ when it comes to anything bureaucratic ) that it was all fine. Sometimes it’s best not to question God.

So that’s one more step along the long and winding road of getting my teacher’s .. permit ( ? ), clearance( ? ).

Time Off

The above Som had ordered me to get a doctor’s certificate during the follow-up. Of course, that started more fretting about what mysterious bureaucratic machinations may be afoot.

On being asked, the doctor originally wanted to stipulate something like two months’ ( or was it 6? ) rest. But when I explained to him that that would probably leave me jobless and on a plane back home, he reconsidered. We settled on two weeks (  from date of accident 19th June to July 3 ).

When I got back to the office with that, a co-worker, Janet, explained that the school takes doctor’s certficates seriously. I would be fine taking the directed rest, and paid. Janet is a Filipino who has been at the school foreever, and whose English is as good as  ( better than many   ) a native speaker’s. So I’m betting she can be relied upon.

So, I now have about five days to get the foot ( much more ) right. I’ll also be using the time to do schoolwork via Google Classroom.

 

 

Im a highly-strung sort, which has its own challenges.

As GrandMaster Flash said way back “don’t push me cos I’m close to the eedge / I’m trying not to / lose my head”.

That high-stringing, fuelled by an active imagination conjuring up the worst, sometimes feels close to snapping.

That’s the case with this damned leg.

I’d like a document – signed in blood and promising a first-born sacrifice – reassuring me that my ( very swollen ) leg is safe from the bogeyman of amputation.

I don’t know whether the document or the amputation is less likely.

But at times like these, far from home and with a language barrier – the imagination runs amok.

The leg feels a little better, but I’m not convinced I’m out of the woods yet.

A GP visit yesterday shed no further light.

I’m banking on a scheduled follow-up visit to the hospital tomorrow will put an end to my grappling.

Meanwhile, most things are more of a struggle than they need to be.

 

 

 

A Little Progress

It may not look like it, but this is progress.

A couple of days of scrambling, with no clear plan, had left the wounds pus-filled and looking ugly, threatening.

I tried Iodine yesterday. That hurt. It’s hard to know whether that’s the good kind of hurt ( that pain when the body is working hard to fix something ) or not.

Then the landlord turns up to look at the WiFi. On his return, armed with a potion, he explains that he’s a traditional Thai doctor. ‘Leave the wound open, at least inside, and don’t put stuff directly on it, rather in the surrounding skin’. I thought so.

This morning at least the bloody things are ‘closed’ up.

---

A couple of seconds of lapse, or stupidity, and everything comes undone.

One second yer cruising along, overloaded like the Beverley Hillbillies, on your way to a new abode. The next,  bits of your ensemble and pride are spread out all over the road. Half a dozen Thais are leaning over you, eager to help, and something hurts.

It’s yer foot, dumbass. It’s stuck under the bike, and it hurts.

It got there when you lost concentration, and forgot the heavy ( 25kg ? ) suitcase loaded on the back of the bike. You were cruising along at maybe 35 – 40 km, forgetting an upcoming corner. When it came, you leaned into it to get around, which is when the bike went down.You persuade the smal crowd of beseechers to help me re-load the suitcase onto the bike, and complete the move. You send the school dramatic post-accident photos, as proof of legitimate skiving from work. You look like an escapee from a hospital ward, and you are in no condition to be in front of teenagers.

The H.O.D English at the school persuades you to go to hospital. That eventually tells you you have fractured four metatarsals ( toe-bones ) in your foot. The thing looks like a swollen aubergine.

But the visit is costly. Not too bad financially ( 1600 b ). But they keep stretching the time before agreeing to discharge me, taking an ultra-conservative approach. First, they scare you into staying overnight. Then the spectre of surgery is raised. Then they demand I show them I can use crutches. Then I need to tell them who is picking me up ( they want to ensure payment ). All of which add up to a lot of stress – sleep is hard to come by, it’s stifling hot, they won’t always give you fresh water top-ups, the food is really bad, and you’re a curiosity to the other patients.

It’s not fun, and I almost blew a gasket once or twice at this …. [ splutter ] … incarceration.

Home now, and I think I’m expected at work tomorrow. But right now, I can’t see how they can realistically expect to put me in front of a bunch of teenagers. And be taken seriously.

Which may mean – if I have no income –  my adventure is nearing its end.

Watch this space.