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Going to Thailand
- Thread starter Kat
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One thing I always like to do in new places is go to a botanical garden. There's a giant park nearby which has several, so that's what I did today.
I took a taxi, and they dropped me at an unlabeled gate. It was a little weird, but Google maps did say the park had gates, and a guy immediately opened it for me, so I went with it. The guy tried to get me to follow him to a guiding, but after looking around, I realized it was somebody's house. I immediately bolted back out of the gate, and a delivery van pulled up. So I'm pretty sure that guy thought I was there with a delivery, and didn't realize I was a random lost tourist.
The park entrance was actually down the block and across the street.
It's nice how safe it feels here. Imagine a foreigner who doesn't even speak the local language doing that in the States...
Anyway, here's a bunch of pictures of the park.
There was a cool domed building with desert plants in it.
What is this thing?! Don't get too close, Eevee, it might eat you...
This is how they water stuff in the park, I guess. They drove past me and were nice enough to turn off the water as they did so, but I was so sweaty I'm not sure it would've mattered.
One garden turned out to be under construction, but this one was open. It was small, but packed with interesting plants!
I had been seeing this building the entire time I walked around and had no idea what it was (no Eevee in this picture, was too busy guzzling the cold water I found for sale.)
Turns out it was a museum talking about all the great things the king does for Thailand, and some other stuff about the royal family.
It had great views of the park!
There were so many different bridges.
At this point I was dying of the heat and went back to the hospital, but there was still tons more to check out. I hope to go back soon.
I took a taxi, and they dropped me at an unlabeled gate. It was a little weird, but Google maps did say the park had gates, and a guy immediately opened it for me, so I went with it. The guy tried to get me to follow him to a guiding, but after looking around, I realized it was somebody's house. I immediately bolted back out of the gate, and a delivery van pulled up. So I'm pretty sure that guy thought I was there with a delivery, and didn't realize I was a random lost tourist.
The park entrance was actually down the block and across the street.It's nice how safe it feels here. Imagine a foreigner who doesn't even speak the local language doing that in the States...
Anyway, here's a bunch of pictures of the park.
There was a cool domed building with desert plants in it.
What is this thing?! Don't get too close, Eevee, it might eat you...
This is how they water stuff in the park, I guess. They drove past me and were nice enough to turn off the water as they did so, but I was so sweaty I'm not sure it would've mattered.
One garden turned out to be under construction, but this one was open. It was small, but packed with interesting plants!
I had been seeing this building the entire time I walked around and had no idea what it was (no Eevee in this picture, was too busy guzzling the cold water I found for sale.)
Turns out it was a museum talking about all the great things the king does for Thailand, and some other stuff about the royal family.
It had great views of the park!
There were so many different bridges.
At this point I was dying of the heat and went back to the hospital, but there was still tons more to check out. I hope to go back soon.
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If you re-arrange the letters, it almost says alpha alpha best.
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I tried to run it through that but it refused to do anything. Apparently Google lens doesn't work great if your Internet connection isn't great. (The speed is fast, but the latency seems to be really bad sometimes.)
Earlier I tried to translate a sign and it translated it (completely incorrectly) to "what're you doing". IDK what I'm doing, Google! That's why I'm asking you!
It's so weird not being able to read almost anything. It makes getting food quite the adventure.
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Now that's been a few days, how's your GF holding up? Everything ok? Recovery on track? Hoping all is still well
It's been a rough couple of days. First, let me give you some context for this. (I'm going to use "she" to mean my girlfriend and "they" to mean any medical staff.) She has a crazy high pain tolerance, and is also terrible at advocating for herself. She's told me she doesn't like to ask for pain meds because she thinks they'll interpret it as drug seeking, even though she has no history of that sort of thing at all. There's also a serious language barrier, because most of the medical staff doesn't really know English and our Thai is even worse, so it's tough to convey things sometimes.
So, they quit giving her pain meds the day she had her voice surgery. I didn't even realize she hadn't taken them before the surgery (because you aren't supposed to eat or drink anything, of course) until the nurse came in to make sure she hadn't taken anything. Which happened after they made her dilate, even after she told them she'd had no pain meds that day. (Dilating involves sticking something up her freshly stitched up hoo-ha to stretch it to the right size. For hours.) Which explains why she suddenly seemed so miserable afterwards even though it'd been fine in the past.
I had to go to the nurse station and tell them, "hey, I get she can't ingest pills right now, but you have her hooked up to an IV for hydration. How about you administer some fucking pain meds with the fluids?!" Then the nurse came to see her and was all, "oh are you in pain?" Are you fucking kidding me lady?! They finally gave her an injection of something (they didn't even set up the IV so they could administer other stuff through it, sigh), and five minutes later, she was fine. Hours and hours of horrible pain that could've been avoided if they had just considered her situation for a minute.
Then after the surgery, they gave her a pharmacy full of meds and a sheet that explained what they all were and did. Guess what? NOT ONE SINGLE PAIN MED beyond a throat spray. Like, hello, do you think all her existing pain from the first surgery vanished because she had a second one?! So again I have to insist they bring her some and they act all surprised she needs it.
The next morning, they completely forgot to bring any meds at all, so she went to get them from the nurse station herself. And what was missing yet again? Yep, pain meds. So I go out there and ask them, "can you please put her back on the pain meds she was on before this second surgery?!" And they say they have to ask the doctor, who is generally doing surgery, so of course it'll be hours.
So I parked my ass on her hospital bed and worked on a jigsaw puzzle until they came in for the dilation, which at this point had become obvious they were going to try to do before sorting out the pain meds. The nurses and my girlfriend all tried to get me to move so they could do it, but I told them to fuck off and come back later when they had pain meds with them. Which they did (well, they fucked off, at least).
For some additional context: I reeeeally despise confrontation, and I know she doesn't like a fuss being made over her, regardless of how warranted it is. Plus I had spent the previous day running errands in a city where I can't read anything or talk to anybody and nobody (understandably) wants to deal with my foreign ass who has made my not knowing the local language everyone else's problem. Plus the obvious misery of seeing a loved one in pain and not being able to fix it. So by this point I was stressed the fuck out.
A few hours later, the doctor finally comes in to talk, and luckily says it's totally fine for her to have the pain meds again (yay!) and the pharmacist will be by later with them (which turned out to be hours later, siiiigh).
The doctor also wanted us to move into a fresh room so we'd be in a clean environment after her surgery (I kinda got the impression this was a gentle way of saying we're slobs because we leave our clothes everywhere, rofl). No problem, except we had a lot of stuff to pack and move, and she really needed to rest and was refusing to let me do it all. I had to sneakily grab the heavy bags so she wouldn't carry them to the new room. We couldn't get them all in one trip, and she insisted on helping to get the rest, to the point where I had to yell at her to go rest and physically push her back into the new room. (She later relayed this to her wife, who found it hilarious, because my GF can easily pick me up and I can't even open the water bottles here.)
Did I mention I hate confrontation?! Girl, go sit your ass down, you just had two surgeries, you got dizzy earlier getting water, why are you fighting me on this? God damn she is stubborn.
After aaaall that, the pharmacist FINALLY came with bottles of all her new meds plus bottles of the pain meds she was getting before, so now she has plenty and doesn't have to wait for the nurses to bring it 3x a day (assuming they even remember).
So, they quit giving her pain meds the day she had her voice surgery. I didn't even realize she hadn't taken them before the surgery (because you aren't supposed to eat or drink anything, of course) until the nurse came in to make sure she hadn't taken anything. Which happened after they made her dilate, even after she told them she'd had no pain meds that day. (Dilating involves sticking something up her freshly stitched up hoo-ha to stretch it to the right size. For hours.) Which explains why she suddenly seemed so miserable afterwards even though it'd been fine in the past.
I had to go to the nurse station and tell them, "hey, I get she can't ingest pills right now, but you have her hooked up to an IV for hydration. How about you administer some fucking pain meds with the fluids?!" Then the nurse came to see her and was all, "oh are you in pain?" Are you fucking kidding me lady?! They finally gave her an injection of something (they didn't even set up the IV so they could administer other stuff through it, sigh), and five minutes later, she was fine. Hours and hours of horrible pain that could've been avoided if they had just considered her situation for a minute.
Then after the surgery, they gave her a pharmacy full of meds and a sheet that explained what they all were and did. Guess what? NOT ONE SINGLE PAIN MED beyond a throat spray. Like, hello, do you think all her existing pain from the first surgery vanished because she had a second one?! So again I have to insist they bring her some and they act all surprised she needs it.
The next morning, they completely forgot to bring any meds at all, so she went to get them from the nurse station herself. And what was missing yet again? Yep, pain meds. So I go out there and ask them, "can you please put her back on the pain meds she was on before this second surgery?!" And they say they have to ask the doctor, who is generally doing surgery, so of course it'll be hours.
So I parked my ass on her hospital bed and worked on a jigsaw puzzle until they came in for the dilation, which at this point had become obvious they were going to try to do before sorting out the pain meds. The nurses and my girlfriend all tried to get me to move so they could do it, but I told them to fuck off and come back later when they had pain meds with them. Which they did (well, they fucked off, at least).
For some additional context: I reeeeally despise confrontation, and I know she doesn't like a fuss being made over her, regardless of how warranted it is. Plus I had spent the previous day running errands in a city where I can't read anything or talk to anybody and nobody (understandably) wants to deal with my foreign ass who has made my not knowing the local language everyone else's problem. Plus the obvious misery of seeing a loved one in pain and not being able to fix it. So by this point I was stressed the fuck out.
A few hours later, the doctor finally comes in to talk, and luckily says it's totally fine for her to have the pain meds again (yay!) and the pharmacist will be by later with them (which turned out to be hours later, siiiigh).
The doctor also wanted us to move into a fresh room so we'd be in a clean environment after her surgery (I kinda got the impression this was a gentle way of saying we're slobs because we leave our clothes everywhere, rofl). No problem, except we had a lot of stuff to pack and move, and she really needed to rest and was refusing to let me do it all. I had to sneakily grab the heavy bags so she wouldn't carry them to the new room. We couldn't get them all in one trip, and she insisted on helping to get the rest, to the point where I had to yell at her to go rest and physically push her back into the new room. (She later relayed this to her wife, who found it hilarious, because my GF can easily pick me up and I can't even open the water bottles here.)
Did I mention I hate confrontation?! Girl, go sit your ass down, you just had two surgeries, you got dizzy earlier getting water, why are you fighting me on this? God damn she is stubborn.
After aaaall that, the pharmacist FINALLY came with bottles of all her new meds plus bottles of the pain meds she was getting before, so now she has plenty and doesn't have to wait for the nurses to bring it 3x a day (assuming they even remember).
The other good news is the new room is on a higher floor so the view is even better. I'll post some pics of that and some other things we did in a bit. That crazy woman made me walk around a giant mall for hours. I was exhausted, idk how she was even upright.
And to answer your actual question: everything went smoothly during the voice surgery, and she's recovering well from both besides the above debacle. She isn't allowed to talk for two weeks though! Wish me luck trying to get her to obey that... I think I'll go to the beach today so she can't talk to me.
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Time to buy a whiteboard and markers and make it a bit fun. Maybe also some earplugs so if she tries talking to you, you can just take out your earplugs, plug them in, and point at the whiteboard
Sorry for all the hassle you two are going through though. Sounds miserable and painful
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Ah, she's a lot like me. I have a history of pain issues and have been placed on some kind of list at one chain of hospitals as someone likely to be looking for meds, so I don't ask, either. Not good I'm her case, a surgery like that...no, you need those meds!!
They made her dilate BEFORE surgery?? That's inhumane! You can't go shoving things up a freshly crafted vagina raw! I'm furious on both of your behalfs, holy shit. That's absolutely terrible!
Aww, I'm so sorry she's had to suffer so very much
Fucking hell. That's pure incompetence. Maybe, as @shortkut said something in there suppresses pain? Irrespective, I can't believe she had no pain meds. Ugh.
Just awful.
Good, you did the right thing, 100%. Thank you for advocating for her. She should never have to grin and bear that, that is just 100% out of order.
Aww, hon. She's a trooper, but she has to learn to let others help her. I understand her type, for sure.
Yay
Lol, she really is something! Able to do that after so much!
The not talking part is what I would struggle with, lol, but it's so important she doesn't, she needs to let her vocal cords heal!And to answer your actual question: everything went smoothly during the voice surgery, and she's recovering well from both besides the above debacle. She isn't allowed to talk for two weeks though! Wish me luck trying to get her to obey that... I think I'll go to the beach today so she can't talk to me.
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Here's the sheet they gave us. The throat spray just says anti inflammatory and is also a painkiller so maybe that's true of one of the pills too. I'm not familiar with them and haven't googled them.
The pain meds not listed are paracetamol (which is just Tylenol IIRC) and tramadol. I'm not sure how common it is since tramadol is supposedly not habit forming, but I've been on it before and was cut off of it cold turkey, and the withdrawal symptoms were awful for me.
Which part is concerning?
I did get a white board and she sometimes uses it. The ear plugs is a good idea, I might have to do that.Time to buy a whiteboard and markers and make it a bit fun. Maybe also some earplugs so if she tries talking to you, you can just take out your earplugs, plug them in, and point at the whiteboard
Thanks for that. I was starting to feel like I was over reacting.
I'll post pics shortly. She took some and I need to get her to send them to me first.
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etoricoxib is a strong NSAID (better than mobic/meloxicam for prescription or ibuprofen and aleve for OTC)
Prednisone could also reduce the pain if, as expected, it is caused by a lot of inflammation.
Tramadol is a strong painkiller.
She was on 3-4 (counting the Tylenol) pain relievers
Leaving her with the bottle
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She wasn't getting the Tylenol and tramadol, that's what they stopped giving her, but good to know about the etoricoxib.
Why? You worried she'll take it too often? She won't.
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Why is it more concerning than filling a 30 day supply at a pharmacy? It was maybe a week's worth.
Picture time!
We went to a mall called Central World. It was eight floors plus two basement floors so ten total (we didn't go to the basement floors but I think it was just shops like the rest). It's hard to show the sheer scale of it in a picture.
Everything was very colorful (I guess you get to see a picture with both me and Eevee).
Fountain out front of the mall.
The building just to the right of the fountain.
Overlooking the street in front of the mall. The mall is the big building to the left. The entire fountain in the previous picture is behind me (err, Eevee), to give you a sense of scale.
This thing scared the shit out of me.
Imagine seeing this in a Macy's.
Legos here are even more expensive than at home!
Obligatory Eevee and Pikachu picture.
Apparently this is what Thailand thinks Americans are into? We actually have a thing where we dress up on the fourth of July in tacky patriotic clothes, which this would've been perfect for, except it was $150. In other news, some people presumably pay $150 for this.
Obviously it's a giant tourist trap. All we bought were jigsaw puzzles.
We've mostly been shopping at the nearby market which has different vendors every day. This often includes weird snacks.
Even the money is colorful.
Here's the view from the new room.
And this was the sunset last night (not quite from our room, but from a window in the hallway, because our room looks north).
I didn't make it to the beach today because I got busy with other things, but I plan to go scope out some parks and board walks near the water tomorrow.
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Thanks! I got the pants at the same market with the snacks. They only cost a couple of bucks! It's so hard to find fun clothing in Oregon.
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Eh I think it's not a big deal in this case. Some meds get taken with meals, and we're not eating hospital-provided food except breakfast. If we were in the USA, she would be at home at this point anyway. Don't worry, despite my complaints about the painkillers, the care has been really great overall. I think it's just uncommon to have those two procedures done so close together and they didn't think through the pain management for both together.
I attempted to go to a beach yesterday, but found something else. Will post pics later today.
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I went to a place on the water which was labeled as a "beach" on Google maps. This is what turned out to be there. (In retrospect, there's probably some local app with better info, but finding random things is fun anyway.)
It's more goopy mud than sand, and has a mangrove.
There was sooo much litter. I've done litter pickup in the Portland Metro area, so I've seen some gross amounts of garbage, but yikes.
There were a couple of shrines in the area, as usual.
In the mangrove I found a giant crab. No idea why it's here!
Near the crab was this sign for a short nature trail.
Nature trails are another thing I like to check out everywhere I go. I wasn't planning to this trip because I only packed sandals and it's hot as fuck, but it's short and shady and right there, so why not?
Hmm.. this trail may not be well maintained...
Oh, it goes out to the water! ... No, no it doesn't.
Maybe if I back track and use that other route I see?
On second thought, maybe not...
At this point, I realized I was in a swamp with no bug spray, and was getting eaten alive by bugs with god knows what diseases, so I called it off.
However, there was a bridge to a building out in the water, so I went to check that out.
This is a fun spot.
The bridge had some nice views.
The water is brown here (silt from the mud in the mangrove?).
The building itself wasn't too interesting. It was mostly a big restaurant with views of the ocean (I'd just eaten, so I didn't try it out, but it smelled great).
There was this spot, which I used Google lens to translate to something like a photo booth. The food on the table looked real to me.
You can walk through the restaurant to this area behind the building (the square fenced area is open to the water).
I'll have to find an actual beach at some point, but this was an interesting thing to see. It was a new experience to smell both the ocean and a swamp at the same time. I love the ocean and hate swamps, so seeing them mixed together is something I'm still not sure what to think about.
It's more goopy mud than sand, and has a mangrove.
There was sooo much litter. I've done litter pickup in the Portland Metro area, so I've seen some gross amounts of garbage, but yikes.
There were a couple of shrines in the area, as usual.
In the mangrove I found a giant crab. No idea why it's here!
Near the crab was this sign for a short nature trail.
Nature trails are another thing I like to check out everywhere I go. I wasn't planning to this trip because I only packed sandals and it's hot as fuck, but it's short and shady and right there, so why not?
Hmm.. this trail may not be well maintained...
Oh, it goes out to the water! ... No, no it doesn't.
Maybe if I back track and use that other route I see?
On second thought, maybe not...
At this point, I realized I was in a swamp with no bug spray, and was getting eaten alive by bugs with god knows what diseases, so I called it off.
However, there was a bridge to a building out in the water, so I went to check that out.
This is a fun spot.
The bridge had some nice views.
The water is brown here (silt from the mud in the mangrove?).
The building itself wasn't too interesting. It was mostly a big restaurant with views of the ocean (I'd just eaten, so I didn't try it out, but it smelled great).
There was this spot, which I used Google lens to translate to something like a photo booth. The food on the table looked real to me.
You can walk through the restaurant to this area behind the building (the square fenced area is open to the water).
I'll have to find an actual beach at some point, but this was an interesting thing to see. It was a new experience to smell both the ocean and a swamp at the same time. I love the ocean and hate swamps, so seeing them mixed together is something I'm still not sure what to think about.
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Shit like this is why I love travelling places like SEA. You never know what you'll get until you actually arrive at many places. Poorly maintained trails are more fun and exciting than well-maintained ones, IMO 
Litter in SEA is atrocious though. The picture you posted probably doesn't do it any justice because it can get very bad. Worst I've ever seen was a small city in Ethiopia though. There was even a severed goat leg sticking up from the mud and the most awful, ungodly smell wafting from the river bank as people bathed in the water which ran through heaps of trash.
Litter in SEA is atrocious though. The picture you posted probably doesn't do it any justice because it can get very bad. Worst I've ever seen was a small city in Ethiopia though. There was even a severed goat leg sticking up from the mud and the most awful, ungodly smell wafting from the river bank as people bathed in the water which ran through heaps of trash.
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Yeah! You can't really go wrong by picking something marked as a park/recreation area. I want to go to the city center and walk around a bit to find some unexpected fun stuff over there, too (we're on the very edge of Bangkok).
If I'd remembered to bring my bug spray, I probably would've gone over to that other route and tried to jump the gap or use the rail or something to get over. The damn things were really going after me though, and I didn't feel like being itchy all over for a week.Poorly maintained trails are more fun and exciting than well-maintained ones, IMO
Ewww! And I thought the dead rats and probable human poo in Portland were bad.
I have noticed a lot of litter in general here. Normally I pick up litter I see while walking around, but there's so much of it and so few public garbage cans that it's not feasible here.
There's so much plastic used here in general. Pretty much everything is individually plastic wrapped (even cookies in a package of cookies), all containers from the store (like hot sauce, sunscreen, etc) are completely wrapped in plastic, towels and drinks from the hospital are plastic wrapped (maybe that one is just a hospital thing), vendors will take things from your hands to put them in a plastic bag even if you're already holding a reusable bag, etc. I already feel guilty about the amount of plastic I typically use, so it's driving me a bit crazy. I haven't seen a single recycling can either.
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More weird snacks and drinks.
Mmm, Eevee juice.
What even is this? Why is this?
Normally I'm firmly in the "more cheese is always better" club, but cheese ramen? IDK...
I'm not sure if this has CBD or THC or if it's just pot flavored (ew). The translation just says it's 99.8% "marijuana leaf juice" which sounds suspiciously like a somehow grosser version of aloe vera juice.
Mmm, Eevee juice.
What even is this? Why is this?
Normally I'm firmly in the "more cheese is always better" club, but cheese ramen? IDK...
I'm not sure if this has CBD or THC or if it's just pot flavored (ew). The translation just says it's 99.8% "marijuana leaf juice" which sounds suspiciously like a somehow grosser version of aloe vera juice.
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I mean jelly drinks are basically boba but not using a sort of tea as the base.
You get even get boba with grass jelly instead of the pearls. It's not bad, but I prefer other things. I also wouldn't want it in a can lol.
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I didn't really understand this post and I think I never want to.
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Bubble tea is good. I don't get to drink it very often, but I like it FWIW.
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That's my main problem with it. With boba tea you have thick straws to make it easy to get into your face-hole, but with a can, the jelly chunks all dam up the opening of the can and make it hard to drink. It's just annoying.
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Yeah that makes sense.
Also going back to your rec on pocari sweat: I agree. It's a good one to try out. I haven't had it since I was in Japan though.