At least I had my health...

I'm back in the game, and by that, I mean I've recovered from the horrible Javanese bacterial infection that totally immobilized me for about a week. It's unfortunate I didn't get a free "holiday" to Singapore, so that I could have visited an internationally recognized hospital, but my experience with Indonesian medical care was certainly memorable. St. Elizabeth's will always be a landmark for me in the city of Semarang.

I entered the facility through an outdoor waiting area, complete with many dismally furnished aquariums, containing very lonely fish. I was feeling quite ill, so on the advice of the director of Fulbright, I made my way directly to the emergency room, since apparently things are supposed to move pretty quickly in Indonesian ER's. And I will say that this was certainly the best thing to do; I absolutely cannot complain about how this Indonesian hospital moved people in and out in such a timely fashion. Alas, this economical system of seeing, treating, and releasing patients left open a substantial gap that could presumably be filled with quality care.

I drug myself into the ER waiting room and was hit straight in the face by a wave of heat that curiously and exactly matched the outside temperature. This lack of air conditioning did not mix well with the second-hand smoke that was being created by hospital employees. I sat pretty miserably for about 15 minutes, but hey, I was promptly moved into the OR, where I got to observe a sizable chunk of some poor soul's surgical procedure and received an education comparable to one's third year in medical school. Politely closing the curtain, after about 20 minutes, I got to have some intimate time with the nurse. The apparent teenager approached me with a surprised expression, which couldn't be misconstrued as anything other than an excitement to be treating a bule (foreigner). She put the thermometer in my mouth, prepared to take my blood pressure, but suddenly became distracted with nosy whispers coming from the other side of the curtain. Sitting slightly irritated, with a thermometer in my mouth and a half-filled bag of air around my arm, I grudgingly eavesdropped on a poorly concealed Indonesian conversation about yours truly.

A doctor entered the scene a few minutes later, puzzled by why I might still have a thermometer sticking out of my face, and she speedily checked my vitals by herself. After this, she directly began asking me questions in Indonesian about my condition. Luckily, I had studied the “At the Doctor’s” section of my Teach Yourself Indonesian booklet, and I knew how to explain to her that I had a headache, that I vomited twice, and that my diarrhea was still a big problem. Giving a nod and a smile, she returned with a shot that, immediately upon being injected, rendered me horribly dizzy and gave me somewhere in the vicinity of 20:200 vision. Of course, these side affects did not ware off until after I had to fill out all the paper work at the end of my treatment and after I had to explain my insurance claim form to an Indonesian girl who worked at the pharmacy.

Once the dizziness subsided, I looked in the goody-bag of pills I had just received and noticed that, on top of some mystery bonus set of pills, I had with me a separate baggy of medication for each symptom I had described to the doctor. A diagnosis was clearly secondary to a quick fix, which was to entail my taking seven pills before each meal of the day. This lasted about a day and a half before I could no longer force sweet, bitter, sour, and papaya-flavored tablets down my throat.

But, I’m better now. Alham-freakin-dullila!