the funny side.

There is a funny side to most hospital visits. Perhaps it is God’s way of keeping us sane.

While Aung Moo was in the hospital in a poor condition, there were still funny things going on, it just seemed a little crass to vocalize them. Now that he’s doing much better, I feel better about sharing them. Are the stories still funny weeks later? I don’t know; you get to be the judge.

The day after he was admitted to the public hospital, I asked a friend to come with me to help translate. She knows Thai and would be a huge help with the nurses. I had last seen him the ER the night before, so he should be admitted, but we weren’t sure where. This is where Thai comes in very helpful.

But I also wanted to make sure I had his name correct. I was already in town, so I asked Stephen to confirm with the neighborhood how to say his name and text it to me, which I’d then read on my way into the hospital.  As I’m running into the hospital, late {as always} to meet this {always very timely} friend, I look at my phone to see a bombardment of texts.

What?!?

Despite his great efforts to clear up the pronunciation (or pronoun citation), I had to call him to clarify.

My friend & I then started our rounds at the hospital to find him. We started at the main information desk, but ultimately had to visit at least four nurses stations throughout the hospital, taking us over an hour. It was really worrying me that he might have died, since he was in such poor condition the day before. Each time, we’d say his name, that he was about 40 years old (I was told he was 36 that morning, 38 at the next hospital, and 40 later, so there seemed to be some debate), he had been admitted into the ER the day before for detoxification (what we thought it was at the time).

The funny part, though, was stopping at each nurses station. They would ask the name of who we were looking for. Aung Moo is really a common Burmese and similar to a lot of other Burmese names, so the nurses would then suggest different people: 35, lives in Mae Pa, hemorrhoids, admitted for five days. Is that him?

No.

Then they’d suggest another person, each time telling us their age, where they live, what they have, and how long they’ve been there. It was the most egregious violation of HIPAA I’ve ever seen, and it was difficult not to laugh.

It was also really impressive that we found him, since we didn’t know the correct diagnosis and there were more people with similar names than I could count!

So, now that he’s in a better state, we’re able to laugh a little more at the situation. We’re still praying for healing as he finishes up antibiotics on Tuesday or Wednesday, and they’ll do another spinal tap to evaluate the brain damage from the encephalitis.

Thanks for both praying with us and laughing with us 🙂