The problem started a little over a month ago while we were on the train to Hanoi in Vietnam. Ryan woke up with severe cramping in his back but since the bunks on the train aren't all that comfortable he thought that he had slept funny and that the pain would go away. Unfortunately by the time we got to our hotel the pain had only grown more intense. The worst part was that since we had arrived so early in the morning (4am) our hotel room wasn't even ready yet so Ryan had to hang out in the lobby and wander the streets of Hanoi while enduring really bad kidney cramps.
Ryan has had kidney stones before and it wasn't long before he determined that he was having the same pain as last time. When we went to the doctor in Canada they just gave him pain killers and sent him home to pass the stones by himself. We figured since we knew what it was that we would try to just let them pass and not worry about going to the doctor. The idea of going to the hospital in Vietnam was not very appealing anyway.
Fast forward to a week ago when we were in Chiang Rai. The pain still had not gone away. There were good days and bad days but the bad days were becoming the more frequent of the two. One day the pain became unbearable and we decided that a trip to the hospital was in order. We knew that there was one close by as we had passed it many times on our way to the night market on our bicycles. Unfortunately none of the English speaking staff was on hand at the hotel at the time of our emergency but they knew the word 'hospital'. The hotel that we were staying at was a ways out of town and no tuk tuks ever came down that far so the staff grabbed their scooters and we hopped on the back for the trip.
We raced down the road and made it to the hospital but when we entered the emergency room the nurse told us that there were no doctors there at the moment, they were all in a meeting and that we should go to the main hospital further into town. No problem, we all got back on the scooters and raced away again.
At the main Chiang Rai hospital, Ryan was immediately put on a stretcher and taken into the emergency. We became instant celebrities due to being the only foreigners in the place at the time. Ryan was poked and prodded in some very unpleasant places (I won't go into detail), sent for an x-ray and saw a specialist. The staff from our hotel waited patiently with us the entire time and helped guide us to the different departments that Ryan required. One of them even took his urine sample to the lab for us! We left the hospital with Ryan feeling slightly better and some medication to take but his pain soon returned as bad as it was before.
Our flight to Bangkok was the next day so we made the decision to get to the hospital here
as soon as possible once we arrived so that these kidney stones could be taken care of once and for all. Luckily for us our hotel is right across the street from Bumrungrad International, the largest private hospital in south-east Asia. After speaking to the doctor in emergency and having an ultrasound done it was decided that Ryan should stay overnight so that they could keep him hydrated with IV fluids. I ran back to the hotel to pack him an overnight bag and call our travel insurance company while Ryan picked his room (you get a choice from 4 bed shared room all the way through to a royal suite, we went with a 2 bed room) and settled in.
The hospital was absolutely amazing. It felt more like a 5 star hotel than a medical facility and Ryan received amazing treatment the entire time he was there. The specialist came and saw him the day after he was admitted and set up a follow up appointment with us. He was discharged with a gift bag of medications and told that if he has any pain or complications to come back as soon as possible. Since then he has been keeping himself as hydrated as possible, staying away from cola beverages and waiting for the stone (which Ryan has named Scrapie) to pass. He has felt better in the last few days than he has in a long time and now all we can do is wait.
Ryan has had kidney stones before and it wasn't long before he determined that he was having the same pain as last time. When we went to the doctor in Canada they just gave him pain killers and sent him home to pass the stones by himself. We figured since we knew what it was that we would try to just let them pass and not worry about going to the doctor. The idea of going to the hospital in Vietnam was not very appealing anyway.
Fast forward to a week ago when we were in Chiang Rai. The pain still had not gone away. There were good days and bad days but the bad days were becoming the more frequent of the two. One day the pain became unbearable and we decided that a trip to the hospital was in order. We knew that there was one close by as we had passed it many times on our way to the night market on our bicycles. Unfortunately none of the English speaking staff was on hand at the hotel at the time of our emergency but they knew the word 'hospital'. The hotel that we were staying at was a ways out of town and no tuk tuks ever came down that far so the staff grabbed their scooters and we hopped on the back for the trip.
We raced down the road and made it to the hospital but when we entered the emergency room the nurse told us that there were no doctors there at the moment, they were all in a meeting and that we should go to the main hospital further into town. No problem, we all got back on the scooters and raced away again.
At the main Chiang Rai hospital, Ryan was immediately put on a stretcher and taken into the emergency. We became instant celebrities due to being the only foreigners in the place at the time. Ryan was poked and prodded in some very unpleasant places (I won't go into detail), sent for an x-ray and saw a specialist. The staff from our hotel waited patiently with us the entire time and helped guide us to the different departments that Ryan required. One of them even took his urine sample to the lab for us! We left the hospital with Ryan feeling slightly better and some medication to take but his pain soon returned as bad as it was before.
Our flight to Bangkok was the next day so we made the decision to get to the hospital here
as soon as possible once we arrived so that these kidney stones could be taken care of once and for all. Luckily for us our hotel is right across the street from Bumrungrad International, the largest private hospital in south-east Asia. After speaking to the doctor in emergency and having an ultrasound done it was decided that Ryan should stay overnight so that they could keep him hydrated with IV fluids. I ran back to the hotel to pack him an overnight bag and call our travel insurance company while Ryan picked his room (you get a choice from 4 bed shared room all the way through to a royal suite, we went with a 2 bed room) and settled in.The hospital was absolutely amazing. It felt more like a 5 star hotel than a medical facility and Ryan received amazing treatment the entire time he was there. The specialist came and saw him the day after he was admitted and set up a follow up appointment with us. He was discharged with a gift bag of medications and told that if he has any pain or complications to come back as soon as possible. Since then he has been keeping himself as hydrated as possible, staying away from cola beverages and waiting for the stone (which Ryan has named Scrapie) to pass. He has felt better in the last few days than he has in a long time and now all we can do is wait.
Good Luck Ryan. Sounds like quite the adventure, foreign hospital trips are always interesting:) I hope Scrapie comes out fast yet pain free!!! Miss you guys
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