Here’s to focusing on the positives.

We made the trek to Bangkok yesterday. We left around 2:30 or 3am and drove the 7 or 8 hours with a Karen family we are friends with through Partners.  I must say they are really wonderful people and probably another highlight to the day.

It was a long drive. For an interstate, the road was awful. For Thailand and the roads we usually drive along the border, it was pretty amazing. And for having an ear infection, it was just so unfortunate. I did a lot of praying and a lot of wishing I was somewhere else.

We arrived a little after 10am and saw the doctor by 11 something. He did much the same thing as before, just with a little more care, compassion,equipment, and education. He sucked the life out of my ear, again, which wasn’t pleasant and made things even more hazy.

But, it turns out I have a double infection in my left ear: a bacterial infection on top of a fungal infection. A fungal infection? Yes. Gross.

Basically, we’re aware of how much things mold here during rainy season. We are very careful to stay ahead of the game with laundry, to not hang wet things up in dark rooms, to wash our towels constantly, etc. I have various areas in the house I watch for mold. I didn’t think to watch my ear. And as we have been swimming and showering and living in rain, it was never drying completely. And then we were adding ear drops as suggested for a bacterial infection. And a moldy-like fungus began growing in me.

Anyway, that’s repulsive, so we’ll move on. He cleaned out my ear, gave me strong painkillers, and I’m one one more antibiotic to knock the bacterial infection. And I’m supposed to go back to a legitimate doctor in one week to do a followup cleaning and evaluation. We’re looking at Chiang Mai since it’s a little closer and less costly than Bangkok, but we’ll see.

We then enjoyed the next few hours. After the light headedness cleared away, I had painkillers in me, and I could hear properly for the first time in a couple weeks. We then discovered the Au Bon Pain restaurant inside this very nice hospital, and we had lunch.

That was the highlight of the day. Really good bread and good cheese to make a toasted sandwich. And Stephen got a salad because he was so excited about that.

And this really was the highlight of the day.

There was a also little shops inside this very nice hospital, so while we waited for our pickup, we found wheat germ and whole grain oats that we don’t have in Mae Sot.

Shortly, we were back in the car again. We did have some good conversation with our friends, but it was uncomfortable. That was a long way to drive for a hospital and a long way to go in one day. There were also five of us in the cab of a truck, and a small cab, where the backseat is simply a small bench without seatbelts.

We arrived home around 11pm, and we were thankful. We felt we’d made the right decision. I was thankful to feel better and to have pain medicine.

Unfortunately, I woke up today back in the same excruciating pain. We haven’t gotten my ear wet, I’m taking the pain meds, and I’m not sure what to do now. I’m just sitting here trying to write this optimistically while I wait for Stephen to get back from his men’s breakfast this morning. And honestly, I’m just praying for a miracle. I’m not sure I can take another day of traveling; I’m not sure I can spend more money on doctors & medicine & driving; I’m not sure I can handle this pain much longer. I’m just praying for a break.

Thanks to all of you who have been encouraging and prayerful. Please, please keep the prayers up!  Please pray that this will heal quickly and stop hurting. And say a special thanks for our wonderful lunch at Au Bon Pain.

 

It was a good day.

We got up early-ish and went to our favorite Burmese tea shop for a Burmese breakfast of chickpeas, naan, and Burmese tea. A very good start.

We then went down the road to the Burmese market to buy fresh vegetables and fresh flowers.

We then went to run & swim at the gym. We were greeted at the pool by a very large crab stuck at the bottom. Yes, a crab. About 7 inches across and very large pinchers. I didn’t feel so comfortable swimming laps with him inside the pool, so we had one of the staff handle the situation. He was very quickly removed and taken to the hotel restaurant.

His day probably was’t good as ours.

We were the only ones in the pool, too, being ten in the morning. And, for about eleven minutes, the sun came out on us!  It was lovely.

We came home for lunch, and then I worked in the garden, weeding with the neighborhood kids. It was beautiful to look out over the garden and see corn, okra, pumpkin, banana, papaya, and a whole lot of chili peppers growing strong.

We visited a night market in town, where we purchased two new handmade, bamboo baskets.

And then we came home with friends and made pesto using fresh basil from the garden.

Good day.

My heart is just bursting with pride. I received an email this week from The Spero Project, an amazing NGO working in Oklahoma City. One of their projects is with international refugees resettled in Oklahoma City, and it was unabashedly my favorite part of my job there. Well, the refugees and Kim.

This week, I got to hear a song that was written by some of the high school aged girls. They are all refugees from Burma, but of different ethnicities. And they wrote this song together:

Burma, Burma,
You are in my heart, though we are apart.
Rangoon, Mandalay,
We will pray for you; we will pray for you.
Burma, Burma,
You are in my heart, though we are apart.
Rangoon, Mandalay,
We will pray for you
and will see you again someday.

Absolutely beautiful. And I’m so absolutely proud!

I’ve had an ear infection for a little over two weeks.

I had some ear drops that were making do, but I was really just hoping it would heal. I hate medicine, and I really hate doctors. Even now, as I write this, Stephen has come and forced me to actually take the medicine the doctor gave me. I hate swallowing pills.

After a little over week of not being able to hear out of my left ear, Stephen decided I should visit the local clinic. It was getting annoying enough for him to always sit on the right side of me and to hear, “I’m sorry. What?” nearly eighty times a day.

So we visited the local ENT doctor yesterday. As I sat in the “waiting room”, the doctor came out, and simply looked at me with raised eyebrows. I assumed that was asking why I was there, so I said, “Ear infection,” while I pointed at my ear with a pained face.

He turned and walked away, so I assumed that meant I should follow.

“Sit.”

He then stuck the otoscope (I just Googled that one.) in my ear–the uninfected ear–along with a long tube. And he turned on a machine that then began to SUCK THE LIFE out of my ear.

It wasn’t pleasant.

He then stopped, and switched ears. He again put the otoscope in with the long tube and turned on the machine. And this was far more than unpleasant. Within a few moments I was pulling away with tears in my eyes. He stopped to say, “You can’t go away. Stay.” I tried to tell him it was infected and very painful. He then asked Stephen to hold my head still while he continued.

This went on for way too long. By the time he had finished, I was lightheaded. He confirmed I had infection and gave some medicine, but that was all a bit hazy to me.

I can hear a little better now. And I’m hoping this medicine works.

But I will continue to avoid doctors unless absolutely necessary. Maybe even more so.

“I came here tonight to be congratulated. But today when I visited the Red Cross camps, overwhelmed by the flood of refugees fleeing from the horror of Kazakhstan, I realized I don’t deserve to be congratulated. None of us do. Let’s speak the truth. And the truth is, we acted too late. Only when our own national security was threatened did we act.

“Radek’s regime murdered over 200,000 men, women, and children, and we watched it on TV. We let it happen. People were being slaughtered for over a year and we issued economic sanctions and hid behind a rhetoric of diplomacy.

“How dare we? The dead remember. Real peace is not just the absence of conflict, it’s the presence of justice.

“And tonight, I come to you with a pledge to change America’s policy. Never again will I allow our political self-interests to deter us from doing what we know to be morally right. Atrocity and terror are not political weapons and to those who would use them, your day is over. We will never negotiate. We will no longer tolerate, and we will no longer be afraid. It’s your turn to be afraid.”

Stephen’s been enjoying quite a few movies over the past few days of being sick, and one of them was Air Force One. This speech is given at the beginning of the movie by the US President, played by the wonderful Harrison Ford, and it got us thinking about Burma. We just thought it was interesting to see the similarities: the refugee camps, the economic sanctions, the letting it happen. We predict it will probably play out same, where the world will remain uninvolved until they feel threatened themselves.

We also decided it was a pretty convincing movie, and we’d probably vote for Harrison Ford if he ran.

 

We drove back from Mae Sariang today after finishing up with our last team. It’s about a five hour drive along a shady border, from one shady little border town to another.

And it was uncomfortable.

Stephen was on day three of being sick with fever, chills, and stomach pains. He was uncomfortable.

Due to his discomfort, I was driving. And thus I was uncomfortable.

I hate driving. And I really hate driving in the rain. I know Dad would have been so proud–I was in and out of 4wd; I was climbing hills in low gears and using low gears to avoid using the brakes; I was checking my mirrors and extra aware. But I was very uncomfortable.

And the other woman in the car with us–I can’t tell you most of her story, but she hasn’t spent much time in a car. We knew this early on, when she took off her shoes before she got in the car, and we nearly left without them. She was loaded up with Dramamine and given about ten plastic bags before we left. She then spent the entire trip with a death grip on the back of the passenger seat and her head against the seat trying to sleep. She wasn’t comfortable.

It was a long day. We were thankful to get home. Or here–whatever this is–and be more comfortable.