This post discusses illness and medical practice in the Philippines. I have three health things that I’ve been juggling on this trip, food borne illness, a lousy cold, and some wonderful tropical “crud” that has attacked my skin.
Today I finally got the “all clear” from the doctor; no pneumonia. My cold is getting better but way past three weeks of suffering. The good news is that most of my labs are ok as well. My A1C was 5.5 or average blood sugar of 111. The red and white cell counts were just below the normal band but the other labs that I’ve had are good.
The one lingering issue is antibiotics for some kind of skin infection that I picked up. When I told the doctor about it, she wrote me two prescriptions without even looking for herself. The medication she gave me is helping but I may need a proper follow-up later in the week.
So far, medical care has been cheaper than the United States. My doctor visits have all required cash payments, but the costs are nominal. Trying to round-up the drugs prescribed by the doctor has been more of a challenge. One antibiotic required trips to about 5 pharmacies before we started finding partial fulfillments of the prescription. Pharmacy #4 had four of ten pills and pharmacy #5 had another six pills.
As for illness from food, the Erceflora tends to be the best help. Sometimes I just have to say “no” to eating. My girl is letting me eat enough “safe” fast food to keep me going. Some street food is just off limits, and I have to trust the more expensive places to employ minimal standards of food safety. For the most part this has been working. To say eating here is a “crap shoot” is literally a thing which I wish to avoid.
People think I’m nuts for coming here for two months but knowing that you will have down time from food borne illness is just a given here.
It is essential to find a cheap place to stay with a good bathroom setup. A clean room to suffer in is a must. Folks, when in the tropics, you will have to share your room with critters. The only issue is which ones. Three-inch-long cockroaches, ants, termites, mosquitoes, gnats, flies, and lizards are a few of the things that I’ve encountered at various places. Then there are blackouts and water outages. Bathing and flushing are privileges, not rights here. As mentioned earlier, toilet paper is a scarce item that some places just don’t have or provide.
The hotel that I have been staying in is a mixed bag. The water in our room kept going out and we were repeatedly told it was a planned outage. Sometimes that was untrue. One room that we were in—note that we have stayed in three different rooms and switched rooms five times—had zero water pressure while the adjoining room was just fine. It turns out that the plumbing in our third room simply didn’t work. Finally, the hotel had some workers come in for a day and then magically the water worked correctly.
I think the building is settling due to a lack of rain and something got crimped. The hotel swimming pool is directly above the five rooms downstairs. I frankly don’t trust that building standards here are all that good or consistent. I think partial blame goes to local construction techniques.
The other issue here that makes me uncomfortable sometimes is the smell of human waste that you can encounter just about anywhere. Yep, places here can smell worse than Las Vegas. Imaging going to the farmer’s market or local street bazaar and seeing guys cooking meat on an open fire and the waste line is seeping through the ground next to their booth. Or the fresh flower vendor or fruit stand. It is just a reality here that this happens.
Local governments here are spending large amounts of money to improve storm water flooding and drainage but somehow much of the money disappears via graft, bribery, or corruption. It seems to be a joke here that the spending will result in a net benefit for local residents. I think it’s true of sewage as well. Lots were spent for a limited public benefit.
In the last couple of days, both my girlfriend and I have celebrated our birthdays. She is a really kind and generous person. I’m glad she is in my life.
I plan to write a review of my current hotel before I depart. Also, Attorney Mario news is coming, maybe as soon as tomorrow. I will be leaving in just over two weeks. My current plan is for a frozen TV dinner on Thanksgiving Day. Oh, and some honest-to-goodness ice cream would be nice too.
Leave a Reply