sanook!

5.18.06

we were released from the hospital on tuesday morning and headed back to the hotel where we have been hanging out fairly relaxed ever since. kay's first check-up with the surgeon is tomorrow (saturday) and we're looking forward to that; i'm particularly looking forward to learning his updated prognosis for her recovery because it will largely define whether or not we're able to leave chonburi for more beach-oriented locales.

the city is an industrial center and there's not much going on here other than that; i've poked around the streets a bit and, like all tropical cities that aren't major cultural metropolis', i find it difficult to understand why anyone would choose to live here, particularly if there are lovely beaches just a bit west or south! i remember thinking the same thing of limon, on the caribbean coast of costa rica; although, in comparison to chonburi, limon had much more to offer exploration-wise.

we upgraded our room class since we'll be here for at least a week and the 'deluxe' version is quite nice, although they don't differentiate between smoking/non-smoking rooms and so it's a bit stinky every now and again when someone in one of the rooms around us lights up. i purchased a can of glade "wild lavender" which bills itself as smelling just like a field of wild lavendar but which really smells like cheap musk cologne one might purchase from a drugstore perfume counter.

kay has been tasked with drinking serious amounts of water, so i make a trip each day to the little mall down the street which has a "supermarket" -- a term which only roughly correlates to the supermarkets in the states. it would be interesting to document the different approaches to markets around the world, because i've found them to be an adventure in and of themselves. i think it's because they're a largely american invention and so other countries adopt the style but the products they choose to sell and their methodology around display and organization appears incredibly random from my perspective. the supermarket here devotes roughly 25% of its available space to laundry detergent; the rest of the products are roughly associated with eachother and crammed randomly into the shelves, while the laundry detergent is organized quite nicely and even includes little sample displays along the rows after rows of shelves so you can touch and smell the detergent included in the little plastic bag prior to purchasing. after you check out, there is a woman sitting behind a large, yellow plastic (assumedly refrigerated) case with a dome lid pulled back that is filled with varying kinds of meats, some ready to eat (such as what looks like bologna or ham) and others that need cooking (long strings of tiny sausages and raw pork or chicken that is sliced so thinly it looks as if it was shaved off the bone) and i continue to wonder if she is related to the store itself or if she is an independent store that is simply camping out front of the supermarket's exit aisle. incidently, there is a sushi ingredients stand to her left that has all the items for making sushi on offer.

perhaps the experience is even more perplexing because written thai is, thus far, a riddle to my mind. i attempt to correlate transliterated phrases with the written and spoken version, but when in the throngs of a little supermarket crammed to the gills with laundry detergent and instant raman noodles, it all slips away from me and i feel terrifically surreal; my mind shuts down and so i elect to just wandering through the aisles in order to determine what little prizes they've shoved onto the shelves for my perusal.

aside from adventures in marketing, i spend quite a bit of time helping kay adjust to life outside of the hospital and talking with the other women who have also just recently gone through this experience. we go to the clinic every so often but we haven't spent much time there as kay is still spending a lot of her time napping and resting as she's healing. i've been glad that i brought so many books with me, and last night we started to watch the series 'roots' which kay had on dvd and i'm glad we brought it to watch...it's one of those american cultural icons that i'd always thought i'd seen because i'd heard so much about it (and how many times has kunta kinte been referenced in socio-politically-minded hiphop or rap?!?!?!) we also watched a few films that scooby lent to us--solaris (which was wonderful) and re-viewings of spirited away (i love that movie so much!!) and lawrence of arabia. after my marathon viewing of twin peaks whilst in the hospital, i'm understandably a bit burnt out from movie/tv viewing.

the weather has been terribly overcast, rainy and hot the past few days; i do hope we'll be able to leave the city soon, as heat like this is far more bearable when one is not surrounded by asphalt and concrete. our room looks out over a neighborhood of tarpaper shacks, topped by rusted corregated steel rooftops and, in the distance, the mountains that hug this city closer to the sea. the mountains or more large hills, really; they remind me of the blackstairs in ireland, with their gently sloping tree-filled curves.

sun slice

5.14.06

it's monday afternoon; the morning has brought several mini-adventures: kay's catheter was clogged, so the room filled up with a bevy of nurses trying to correct the situation; the thai newspaper 'bangkok post' led the news with reports of an extraterrestrial jelly blob-like worm found in 5 different provinces that turned out to be gel & silicone "cooling pads" that arrived with the monsoons...no one is quite sure from where, however; i ate my last serving of hospital phad thai, which proved to be a bit of a let-down compared to the other servings i've recieved; spent the morning working on the mystery tale i started while in the hospital.

we're to be released tomorrow, mid-morning perhaps, and then we'll move back to the hotel down the street from the clinic. we are visited each day by one of the clinic assistants; our visitor yesterday brought along her crazy hot girlfriend who was duly embarrassed by the assistant's continual focus on kay's new "boyfriends" that she seemed to think were incredibly huge, though they don't seem inordinately large to us...probably because we're perverts.

it's sunny and lovely outside and everything is effortlessly calm; i keep hoping we'll be able to retire to the beach in about a week because the idea of hanging out in chonburi for another three weeks isn't that titillating. i've decided i'll amuse myself by shopping for other people...getting souvenirs and fun clothes and stuff. supposedly you can get fitted for clothing here for relatively cheap, which is appealing for my differently-proportioned bod!

my twin peaks marathon is coming to a close today, if i have anything to say on the subject; it's far more complex and has a lot more to it than i remembered...i guess i just didn't watch all of it, tho i thought i had. just 4 episodes left; i really appreciate that it's not focused on explanation. it would never work on television today because the majority of media has devolved to this place where it is only legitimate if it can be explained within the logical realm; it's indicative of our society in many ways--we believe that something can only exist if we are able to explain or analyze it within the parameters of our perspective. if it cannot be explained then it cannot have merit; while i appreciate the advances that scientific developments have afforded us as a species, it is unfortunate that the flip side of it is the belief that anything that exists outside of it is bullshit. i found this to be particularly true with regard to medicinal practitioners calling those that practice a less scientifically-documented method of healing 'quacks.' i wrote a paper for school about the double-edged sword of research in touch therapy: i believe it will increase the appreciation, acceptance and client-base for bodywork, but i also have concern that certain practices within the bodywork family (namely energy-based therapies) will be lost in the context of the hard-rule of science.

if our collective life experience as a species has taught us anything it is that we have always attempted to explain life's great mysteries with the tools available to us at the time; science, to me, is just another in a long line of lenses used to view our world and understand our place within it. it's unfortunate, however, that those that adhere so strictly to its parameters refuse to recognize that we learn new things everyday and simply because a particular state, event or action cannot be explained within the context of the information we have today does not mean it won't be explained tomorrow, next week, or in two hundred years when we've further developed our tools.

how narrow, and decisive, we sometimes allow our life experience to be.

ctrl

5.12.06

this morning the doctor took off kay's bandages and the draining tube; it's so peculiar to see her body changed so drastically, but it does look normal in a way. through this whole process, i feel like she has "normalized" and looks more like herself than i've ever known her to; i think a lot of it has to do with the relative comfort in one's body...something that has increased over the past few years. it reminds me of my friend chris who always had ridiculously huge breasts for her body frame; when she got a reduction in her early 20's to reduce them from ddd's to b's, she looked like she always should have looked and that big-breasted broad was some ridiculous alien being!

so, i had a little pity party last night & this morning: cried myself to "sleep" (i don't feel like i can ever actually sleep here because the bed is so goddamn uncomfortable--which likely accounts for a large portion of my exhaustion and disconnectedness) then woke up and cried in the shower, dressed and read a bit while kay's dressing was removed and then cried through breakfast, my tears mixing with the juices of the pineapple i was eating and becoming a sticky mess all over my cheeks, chin and lips. so i washed my face, took a deep breath and calmed myself; i'll never get over the curative powers of crying--it amazes me that there is so much negativity around the process of purging and sobbing, because i always find it to be a relief and, at the other side, i feel grounded and calm again.

i realize that no one will ever understand what it is like to experience this, with this person and this circumstance and that's ok. my feelings of disconnectedness didn't suddenly appear out of nowhere--i felt removed from the majority of my social circle even when i was back in seattle and just a few blocks away from them; no wonder it is feeling more profound now that their lack of support is amplified by thousands of miles of distance.

everyone tries, i know; but they're working on their own shit and that takes precedence. i understand, but it's still disappointing when i learn (what seems like over and over again) that the level of import these people have in my life is not similar to the level of import i have in their lives, and they make choices that reflect that they view our relationship differently. i can't blame them, we all choose who we want in our lives and to what extent, but it doesn't mean i can't be disappointed or a bit hurt by the differences. my struggle is to not let that effect how i relate to them...which i am able to do, successfully, about 20% of the time! eek--lots of growing to do.

i do have a fabulously supportive family--my mother & brothers & sisters have been so wonderful throughout this entire process, and for that i'm terrifically lucky. i suppose the transient nature of platonic friendships does pale in comparison to the love and strength i feel from my family; in many ways, i feel that this whole experience has brought me closer to them and for that i'm incredibly thankful.

in the light of the new day, things don't seem as bereft as they did before, and i feel positivity and happiness that kay is completing this huge step in her journey; that is the most important thing and i know that this week in this neverworld of hospital timelessness will be just a blip in our history and it all won't seem as difficult as it feels now.

just take a deep breath, kat; and come up for air every now and again.

road bump

5.12.06

this is fucking hard.

caretaking for someone, completely disassociated from my reality, unable to truly communicate with those around me....very emotionally draining. because of a bad headache, we had to keep the drapes shut all day, so i have spent most of the day in the dark, adding to the insular and removed nature of my current experience. i occasionally go out on the terrace to survey the city below and catch a hint of life because even though it's just been a few days, i feel utterly removed from it.

it's sort of a micrcosm of my experience over the past few years as the partner of someone processing this. there is all kinds of care, support and empathy for the person that is working through this, but very little is available for those that support them; perhaps it's because so few people stick around, i don't know...what i do know is that this has been my experience, too, and has been difficult and oppressive, sometimes, drowning...

it angers me; i feel taken for granted, occasionally invalidated. my time here is spent caring for kay and that is my primary focus, but then i feel so seperated from everything, she sleeps most of the day and when she's awake she's not the most pleasant of patients and she treats me poorly and it just pisses me off. but i love her and i know she's in pain and not herself so i just let it go...but i'd be lying if i said it didn't take it's toll on my mental state.

just engaging in a little self-pity because i feel disconnected and have nowhere else to piss and moan. just feel alone.

the good doctor

5.11.06

fell asleep last night at around 10:30pm and, except for a few midnight turns of the patient, slept through until 6:30am. the sun is out today, which is welcome and in wonderful contrast to the trend of charcoal clouds of the past week. we've aircon in the hospital room and since i rarely leave it i sometimes forget that it's up over 100f outside.

one of the nurses brought flowers in the middle of the night, from the good doctor. he is kittenish, soft-spoken and gentle; his manner very confident and quiet, he pops his hands over kay's belly and taps loudly, then checks her bandages, her tubes and inquires about her overall status. he smiles often and is very efficiently caring; when we checked in earlier this week, one of his assistants told us he performs this surgery 4 - 5 times per week--sometimes with the addition of facial cosmetic adjustments or breast implants, bringing the surgical time to almost 12 hours! each morning he makes his rounds before he goes into surgery, checking in on all of his ladies and making sure they're feeling ok.

while i know quite a bit about his technique and experience in this field, i know only snippets about his history; what i do know is that he began his career as a reconstructive surgeon for people with deformities or who had suffered disfigurement from accidents, etc. that eventually expanded into standard cosmetic surgery and eventually into this field, in which he has made significant advances technique-wise; to hear him talk about or read is abstracts on his methods, i get the feeling that he enjoys the challenge of this work most of all...but i'm sure helping people in such a profound way is also quite a reward.

i do sometimes wonder what he thinks about all this; thai people seem to be terrifically down to earth and even though we're far away from home i'm very relieved that we're doing this here, with these people, who are so happy and supportive and caring. i don't feel like we'd have received the same kind of care had we gone to one of the surgeons in the states or in canada; i'm sure it would have all been just as well in the end, but the recovery process would have been quite different.

tomorrow is the day all of the bandages come off and then on sunday kay will be able to walk around for the first time since tuesday morning. time to childproof the room!

timelessness

5.11.06

i haven't left the hospital since monday evening and my exits from this room are fairly minimal, usually just down the hall to the nurse's station to request things for kay. i wake up in the morning, shower in our little bathroom, our breakfast is delivered and we eat, i help kay through the morning, lunch is delivered and we eat, i help kay through the afternoon, dinner is delivered and we eat, i help kay until she goes to sleep, i go to sleep and toss restlessly on my cement-esque bed and achieve a couple of rem cycles before dawn raises its weary head at around 5:30 am...then it all begins again.

there's a timelessness to it all; i can understand how people in institutions or who are filthy rich and just hang around all day in their fancy penthouses or flats, being served everything without really lifting a finger, might lose touch with reality. the only things marking time here are the delivery of the meals, the regimented visits from the nurses to capture relevent stats re: blood pressure, temperature, saline solution content, etc. and the afternoon monsoons.

the jet lag is beginning to wear off, however, and i'm now able to stay up past 7pm without feeling like the walking dead; pity that improvement doesn't apply to my humor.

it's a monsoon!

5.10.06

the rain is cleansing chonburi; it falls from militant clouds and bursts upon the terrace, pregnant droplets becoming tears that slowly slip along the railing, down onto the cement walls, and into the tiny drain shoved in at the last minute in the left-hand corner of the walk.

throughout the day, the light begins as buttered rum, morphs into corrugated steel, takes a hiatus as shifting aluminum and ends as muffled black cotton. every hour or so, the power hiccups, causing the aircon to shudder to a halt, rebirthing momentarily with a gust of over-cooled air into the damp humidity of the hospital room.

each thunderous strike is only occasionally accompanied by lightening; it seems that the deeper the thunder, the more absent the lightening--and the rain disregards them both entirely, driving further and faster into the asphalt, cement and sand of chonburi's surfaces.

the wetness cleanses the city of it's tropical stench; sulfurous and with just a hint of rotting organic material, the whiff of diesel gives the senses something to hold onto, hang their hat on, suss out of the myriad of aromatics something solid, perfectly identifiable, industrial and calming in its familiarity.

the hills in the distance seem inviting in comparison to the peeling cement apartment buildings (the one across the way has a completely empty top floor which is simultaneously intriguing and a tad creepy) and soiled streets. during the rainstorm, all activity seems to stop--at least, the minimal activity i'm able to gauge from the top floor of this hospital in the streets below; although on occasion a tiny person can be seen scuttling along an alley, postage stamp backyard or sidewalk carrying a newspaper over their head...a gesture which seems to be more for dramatic effect than offering any kind of reprieve from the rain.

sawasdee kha

5.10.06

in thailand!!

it's incredibly lovely, warm and sufficiently exotic.

we are in aikchol hospital in chonburi and kay is recovering well from surgery. she's a bit of a surly patient, but that's to expected (and she's generally surly when she's well, so....!)

since tuesday, i've been reading, writing, watching films and hanging out in the room with her. i'm leery of leaving her because she is getting sick often and i feel bad about leaving her alone. everyone talks about how amazing morphine drips are -- they never talk about the near-constant nausea that they induce. she tries to keep a bit of food down each day, with limited success so far.

the nurses here are wonderful; i know that in the states our healthcare system is nearly bankrupt with regard to talented and caring professionals because of the back breaking labor and poor pay. here nursing is a far more respected profession and the women who are caring for kay (and me, too, because they're constantly checking in on my welfare as well) are terrifically positive and helpful; you don't get for a moment that they detest their work or that they are overstressed in anyway.

i've been reading a book called 'travelers tales: thailand' -- it's a wonderful series that i'll have to look into in the future whenever i travel again because it's a very comprehensive collection of experiential writing that dates back over a century for the location on which it's focused. i'm currently reading the "essential thailand" chapter which speaks extensively about the thai playfulness and approach to life--that even in work, there should be fun. it's a sentiment i heartily endorse because i find too often in my life in the states that there is far too much emphasis put on the future, with little care for the present. that one should enjoy oneself in all things is often lost in america; we're so focused on achieving something, anything, that we can't be bothered to appreciate what we have today.

perhaps it is the buddhist influence that causes thais to not focus so much on all the things they want, and instead on what they have. whatever it is, i appreciate the approach tremendously, particularly because it reminds me to incorporate that more into my life.

i applied for my massage therapist license before we left the country so am hoping that it will be waiting for me when i arrive home. i haven't really given much more thought to my practice, what to name it, how to market it, etc., largely because i needed to take a break from massage for awhile and also needed to focus on planning for this excursion and preparing our life for our return. i'm hoping to take some thai massage classes while i'm here, but we'll see if that will happen; the women in the clinic are very helpful so perhaps they'll assist me with finding somewhere to take the class.

kay spends much of the day sleeping, so i've got a lot of time to myself to read and think. i'm looking forward to when we're out of the hospital and can have more time to ourselves; we are thinking of going to pattaya if she feels up for it and a few days at the beach would be wonderful.

i have been updating my livejournal since we've arrived, but i think i'm going to stick to this one from now as it's easier to manage.