Cold War Hospital Stay

Its 1 am and I lie wide awake on a hospital floor next to my host mom and a women I never met until today how I ended up on this floor I will get into but this will be one of those stories that will unfold in various sequences. This hospital floor is not any floor but some smaller run clinic to the soviet hospital; yeah really there are still things with the name soviet in it even after that wall came down. I am not going to lie the way this hospital looks and is run is pretty much how you would think some 1970’s propaganda ad might be made by America except its not propaganda and I am living it as we speak.  In fairness it seems like they tried to spiff it up but just miss the mark where the walls are chipping away and brown streaks run down them. The beds are in a row of 6 the mat’s given to the patients to sleep on is full of rips and tears. Due to the fact the hospital has no one to do the nurses assistant job its left up to the families which adds about 20 to the room I am in while we all share the floor and bathroom together. However when your poor in Cambodia this is upper scale at 350 dollars for a 5 day stay and surgery its pretty pricy and if this didn’t exist maybe some people would be worse off always a catch 22 ay.  I know some of you are frantically wondering why the f*!@$ am I on this floor did I die did peace corps forget about me no no nothing like that have no fear it all started about 2 weeks ago… my host sister developed a cyst it was drained but it just was not getting better so come this past Monday I went with her to the Japan hospital where she was informed it was infected and had to be cut off (japan hospital was to expensive) anyways the next day she went back with my host mom and found this gem I came later that day in order not to have them over pay due to my white skin. So I arrived while she was already under the knife and did not really know what to except its been a week now of life on this hospital floor so I think its fair for me to talk about my cultural observations and how mentally draining it is to ignore all your own cultural normative behavior in a serous situation like being in a hospital. So they wheel her out and the drs get her on the bed where it becomes apparent they did not just numb the area where the cyst was but her whole lower body thoughts on this is that it seems odd and I am pretty sure there was not special person doing the drugging which is the next thing I notice sever itching on the skin feeling which I am pretty sure is a side effect of using to much morphine. Due to being numb from the waste down they put a catheter in her and not well might I add ill get to that later. She was not in to much pain at this point in time until the dr came out with the cyst to show us it was pretty freaking big and this made her cry and I think from that moment on she just let down her emotional block bc she is just that type of person who pretends things are always fine. I also think that its really hard for her to get my host moms attention which I feel bad about bc its so easy for me to get her attention I sometimes wonder if this ever got to jentee with me living with her but I don’t know if she would ever admit it to me or not (coming soon is a whole post on my theory on host families). This caused my mom to stop selling and freaking out on her and give her attention and I think this sort of allowed her to be more expressive with her pain if that makes sense to you the reader I don’t know. That first night I did not get to sleep one because I was in charge of having to change the pee bag I WILL NEVER TAKE FOR GRANTED HOSPTIAL ASSISTANTS THAT DO THAT STUFF FOR REAL! The other was bc im pretty sure they put the stupid thing in wrong so she was up all night crying that it was pitching her and ill be honest I did not know what the f!#@$% to do bc there are no real drs or nurse on staff just some guy you can call to change an iv bag if it goes empty. So I did the only thing I could do stay up and hold her hand which im still not sure if she wanted this is one of the cultural things I notice there is not so much touchy feely stuff but part of me just went with it and hoped it was not annoying her. Well after the dr got there the next morning and me auguring for them to take out the stupid thing next came 6 shots of I don’t know what this bothered me that there was no real charts to look at or they never tell u want they are giving u and what for consent all of that stuff I assume you have to do as a dr. well that first day she was getting better but then bare with me for a min bc you will all think im crazy bc u don’t live in Cambodia but just trust me okay… these shots that were supposed to be helping ended up causing such bad back pain she could no longer sit up and im convinced they did it because of me. Why because of me bc they wanted to make her stay longer to charge her more money and my presences is a social mark of wealth and I feel supper shity about this that one these people could be so heartless to causes someone pain and im part of the reason makes me feel so sad and empty. I know luis is reading this and saying u don’t know that and a lot of u most likely think the same thing let me back up my claim the lady next to her who had to have throat surgery was way worse off then her and they stopped giving her shots pretty early on and she recovered one to three no issues it was only my host sister and one other guy in the room who happens to come from a wealthy family that just seemed to get worse I don’t think this is coincidence. Knowing this I would love to have asked what they were doing but I had to save face and cultural norms so I stayed silent even though it still killing me now. Most of you know me I barely fit into American culture bc I don’t know if I believe in normal I just go with what feels right and sitting there with someone in so much pain they cant sleep it does not seem right to treat the drs around her like god and keep silent. Sigh okay lets fast forward a bit I have spent 5 days in the hospital now and got to know the people in the room quite well read there palms “fit in enough” im pretty sure I shaped there few of all Americans which is odd. My sister still cant sit up I keep putting hot pads on her that I have been buying and putting khmer medicine on her to rub into her muscles I don’t know that its helping her that much. I have to leave because im moving into my new apartment today then I will be heading back with my host sister jentu to have a sleep over. I guess I should mention jentu hates hospitals, which is why I was staying over night and not her but jentu is the emotional sister you can ask my mom and my aunt about her personality anyways she was crying the taxi ride back. She still really doesn’t get what’s wrong with jentee but that’s okay eventually jentee can get her to understand bc im to lazy and worn out. To add to all of this there have been other things going on with other people I am close with in this country. One of my students called me up crying and explain to me that the women I met when I ate rice at her house was her aunt not mom that her mom died she is a an orphan. I am all like okay but then she informs me her aunt beats her and kicked her out of the house because she not really her daughter. Then the girl I think I have mentioned be4 on this blog Sopennith who was studying to be a dr had to drop out bc of money and I tried to help her write letters for scholarships ect with no avail =( now she dropped out of college will she ever go back I don’t know. Next is the cream of wheat guy no giving a shit his wife is in the hospital making very little effort to help her I had to write an email today to ask for money which makes me so sad that I have to do this. On top of that with him I keep lying to jentee so she is not sad telling her that he has been email asking about her I figured its not good for her to be hopeless while trying to get better sigh is that the right thing to do I have no idea. I know life is not fair and I know we tell kids this all the time I just wonder why it has to be unfair and why do we want people to accept it? Some days its harder then other to accept that my presents can not really change things and people as much as I wish it could and in the two years since being in my village I have only really had the chance to work with a few people closely and even at that I can not change there socioeconomic status enough to make sure they achieve there dreams. Its hard to say that I am a failure bc in some ways im not but in other ways it is pretty evident I am but it is this complex dynamic of working in development that has helped me grow as a person. So until next time peace out from the other side of the world!