Is there a doctor in the house?

The day after the epic interview adventure my constant headache was, well, still constant. We’d planned to head further north to an even more remote village that was supposed to be even more beautiful and was only accessible by boat. Given my condition though we reluctantly decided to catch the bus 4 hours in the opposite direction back to Luang Prabang so I could see a doctor. I hadn’t taken pain killers for a couple of days so I was getting used to walking around in throbbing pain – but it was probably a good idea to play it safe just in case my head was about to explode.

The bus ride was fairly uneventful and when we got back to Luang Prabang we checked into a hotel then headed off in search of the international clinic. When we got to the clinic I spoke to the nurse on duty and although there were some problems with language I managed to discover that since it was a Saturday all the doctors weren’t working. They’d be back on Monday. Given this why was the clinic even open? This I was not able to determine. I was able to find out that if I required a CAT scan I’d need to go to Vientiane.

So the options were:
1) Hang out in Luang Prabang, which was lovely but we’d already seen, until Monday. See a doctor and take it from there.
2) Save time and head straight to Vientiane. We had to go there eventually to get our visas for China. At least then if there was something seriously wrong with me they had better facilities.
3) Screw medical attention. Tough it out and head back up north.

I really didn’t want to hang out in Luang Prabang. So we saw a travel agent about options for getting to Vientiane. As it turned out we could catch a flight there in a couple of hours. Faced with an overnight bus trip with a throbbing head or a 45 minute flight it was an easy decision: fly.

In Vientiane a few hours later I realised why so many people had told me to avoid it if I could. It’s a shithole. It’s dusty, noisy and ugly. To its credit Vientiane probably had the best food I had in all of Laos.

After checking into a hotel we got a tuk-tuk through the dusty streets to the main hospital a few km’s out of the centre of town. Just before we got their out tuk-tuk broke down, haha! So we had to hoof it the last few hundred metres. Gold.

At the hospital a doctor asked me a bunch of questions and said I’d be better of going to the international clinic. Ok. the tuk-tuk was back in action so we headed back to the centre of town just a few hundred metres up the road from our hotel to the international clinic. By this time it was probably after 9pm. I was too late to be consulted by a doctor but I could see one the next day, Sunday. If needed I could get a CAT scan on Monday.

It was time for dinner. There was a great Indian place near our hotel and we ate a bucketload. I hadn’t had Indian for ages so I was loving it. I should probably mention that despite many days of pain I actually didn’t think anything serious was wrong. Call it my enduring cock-eyed optimism or plain stupidity. You decide.

The next day, surprise, surprise, my headache was still there. Before going back to the hospital I went to an internet cafe and did a spot of self-diagnosis. According to the wisdom of the internet since I wasn’t having seizures, vomitting or experiencing blurred vision I probably had nothing to worry about. I also found out that there’s loads of people that live with constant headaches for years at a time. There’s no way I was going to be having any of that.

At the clinic I saw a doctor. I was invited into the consultation room whilst he was still finishing up with another patient. Maybe he felt the language barrier meant that there’d be no doctor-patient confidentiality issues. When the other patient had gone he asked me a series of questions, mostly the same ones the doctor in the hospital had asked me the night before. Coincidently they were also aimed at determining if I had any of the symptons the internet had warned about.

He got out his tools and did a bunch of tests. Blood pressure, breathing, eyes, ears, throat etc… Then he pronounced that the cause of my headache was an infected throat. What was most surprising about this was that my throat hadn’t been sore once in the last few days. Hmmm. I mentioned this and he didn’t seem to think it was a problem. Apparently it was probably causing me mild discomfort but I hadn’t noticed. Apparently I’d probably also had a mild fever at times too. That was a bit more likely but I’m still not sure. Anyway, the good doctor subscribed me a heap of drugs. Antibiotics. Made sense. Antihistamines. Dunno about that. Paracetamol – enough to take one dose every 4 hours for a fortnight. Crikey!

Within a couple of days I was feeling heaps better and after a few days I was back to normal. So mabye the good doctor was on a winner. Regardless of what he thought there was no way I was dosing up on paracetamol every few hours for a couple of weeks. So I ignored that piece of advice. In fact I’ve still got some of the paracetamol left today.