It’s been forever since I’ve posted anything. It seems trite, but it annoys me way more
than it probably annoys anyone else (….yawn, Miles who?). But, I guess for me it’s personal. It’s my bloody record, after all, of what I’m
doing. For me.
So on I’ll go…
I am going to start with the events of today, I think, and
work back to where I last left off.
Friday the 13th – always my lucky day. I hope that continues. As I type I am sitting in a hospital bed in a
town called Sumbawa, on the island of Sumbawa in Indonesia. Htf did I get here?? I’d love to know exactly how/why myself.
Briefly, I spent a great 4 weeks in Flores. Can’t wait to tell you about it. My boy Rory flew up for 10 days of great fun
hanging out in the Komodo National Park.
He left on 2 Sept, and the next day I caught the ferry across to
Sumbawa. Life was great. After a night in Sape I headed 5 hours south
to a Aussie surfing haunt called Lakey.
Remote, but with some familiarity for me – and a great place to catch up
on blogs.
But I arrived and was hit with the world’s worst
gastro. Well, ok, any time I get sick it
has to be ‘world’s worst’… so let’s say I had a tummy upset. That resolved fine in a day or so. The tummy bit – that resolved. But I didn’t.
I was absolutely exhausted.
Exhausted, so when I went to the bathroom I collapsed on the floor in
exhaustion on the way back to bed. Several
times. Exhausted, so that when hunger
eventually drove to get to the restaurant, I collapsed and had to be carried
back to my room. That was just once. I was exhausted.
After a couple of days, I knew it wasn’t getting any better. So I did the worst I could do, but the only
thing I could do. I loaded up the truck,
started her up and drove like a crazy man for 5 hours, heading north. I was a long from any civilisation in
Lakey. I needed to get near a town – a hospital. I had no choice but to grit my teeth and do
that. So I did. I had blurred vision, I was driving into the
sun and I struggled to stay awake. Narrow
Indo roads, bikes everywhere, animals frequent.
But there’s still a bit of the old tenacity in there – I did what I had
to do.
I stayed at a nice joint that night (Sun 8th), somewhere
I knew I could leave the truck for a period of I had to. I was way worse Monday, the drive I guess,
and asked the staff to drive me into the hospital. The assessed me, put on a drip and quite
quickly admitted me. It seems my whole
blood work was screwed up and knocked out of whack by whatever happened to
me. Maybe its been out of whack for
moths, actually. In another blog I’ll
tell you about some pretty awful panic attacks I’ve suffered over the last 2-3
months. Stuff that had never happened to
me before.
But I digress. I am
in hospital in Indonesia, kind of the worst case scenario in any scenario that
I’d played in my mind as I planned this thing.
I’m young! I’m fit! Nothing like that will ever happen to me,
right? The world’s biggest
optimist. Well, it has. And… thank goodness it’s a good health system. They appear thorough, always polite and
helpful. I believe I am in good
hands. But, they do health in Indonesian… But honestly, anything medical for me is a foreign
language where ever I am – I could be on Mars or in Mosman and still not be any
wiser.
I need to my blood, well, an element of my blood, to hit the
number 50. No more information than that. So every afternoon I wait with bated breath
for me bloodwork to come back. Today
maybe. If not today then def tomorrow.
But I am being well looked after, well fed and watered and
generally (generally…) am in OK spirits.
I did hit a glitch early on… Brekky arrived and I was given that Asia style
cold sweet rice porridge. Through hand signs
I said ‘Yuck!’. So they brought be 4
slices of white toast. Perfect. Lunchtime – they brought me 4 slices of white
toast. Dinner – 4 slices of white toast….. I felt like Jake out of the Blues
Brothers. It took a day a bit to break
that loop.
More to follow, but that’s literally how you find me today….
Go well. I think I am.