Besides the little shoreline fish, the only other aquatic creatures we saw during our tour of Phang Nga Bay were jellyfish. Oh, wait...Katie did spot a pair of porpoises, but they were quite a distance from us. We'd seen a half dozen or so jellyfish of varied size. One drifted by while we kayaked. "He looks so peaceful," I commented to the twins.
Our final spot was a small inlet with an even smaller beach. The boat anchored a hundred meters from shore. We were told we could either kayak around the island or swim and sunbath. A couple of guys jumped from the top deck into the water, followed by yours truly. Inexplicably, I was never afraid of ocean waters like I am lake waters. With very little coaxing Sarah jumped. With a lot of coaxing, Katie took the plunge. She swam as fast as she could for the nearest kayak. Larry had no intentions of getting into the water. "You never know what could be lurking in that cloudy water". He and Katie started paddling around the island. Syd jumped from a lower height, but she wanted to kayak. The three of us started swimming towards the empty kayaks. Syd reached hers and climbed in about the same time I felt something brush my leg. Sarah was almost to another kayak when I started screaming. An excrutiating pain enveloped my entire right leg. Trying to disentangle myself from what I assumed was a massively long-tentacled jellyfish, I feared for Sarah as she was still in the water and near me. The guides immediately rushed over, pulling Sarah aboard. One poor fellow, in his attempt to hoist me up, took a spill overboard. Once back on the main boat, the Thais prepared a paste made from Morning Glory vines and spit. With every second, the fire in my leg got hotter and soon spread to my feet, hands and chest. By the time they began rubbing said paste on the stings, I felt like the stings were all over my body. I didn't care that these guys were rubbing spit-infused weeds perilously close to my nether regions. I didn't even care when they then spit directly on to my leg. They said the Morning Glory would take the fire out and that it couldn't be mixed with water as plain water would cause the burning to intensify. Quite frankly, I didn't think anything could make the pain worse.
By now, the other tour members were returning and crowding around to see. Thankfully, a honeymooning couple rescued poor Syd, who she said I ditched and had been floating helplessly without a paddle for the past ten minutes. Katie and Larry appeared. Katie was mortified. Larry was smugly concerned. "I told you so" was written all over his face.
The thirty minute ride back to the dock was hellacious. I was sure I'd been stung across the chest because it was becoming increasingly more difficult to breath. My mouth even stung. The guides were increasingly nervous. One older man pulled out his own secret medicine stash and handed some cream to the one with whom I'd already become intimate. He rubbed some on the largest of the sting marks. No relief...none.
Talk of sending me to the hospital spread. I insisted I didn't need to go. Geez, I'd been stung before, I could handle this, couldn't I? Here we were in Thailand, enjoying a fabulous vacation. I sure as heck did not want to spend it in a hospital.
An hour later, back at the hotel as I'm vomiting in the shower after Larry tried to relieve the pain by peeing on the stings, it was decided professional medical attention was needed. After another brutal hour in a taxi, we entered the Phuket Bangkok Hospital's VIP wing. The attendants cleaned off the green, spit, urine slime that had caked to my leg and then soaked it in vinegar. An IV was started and the next thirty six hours were pretty much a wash beyond the pain. What I do remember was Katie. She stayed with me, stayed up with me as I cried all night, held my hand, held the trashcan when I got sick, called the nurse when I thrashed around like Linda Blair, and so much more than a ten year old should have to do. She said I was seeing and talking to things that weren't there, like the twins, my mother, and even the cats. She was so strong and brave. One nurse asked her Sunday afternoon if she wanted to be a nurse. Katie shook her head saying, "No way!"
No comments:
Post a Comment