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August 11, 2006

Melissa Leaves Expedition

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LOCATION: Jinghong, Yunnan Province, China
SEE WHERE WE ARE!
Longitude: N: 22.01393°
Latitude: E: 100.82017°
Miles from Singapore: 2559

Seems like we've been treading water ever since crossing the border into China. The rain, the awful roads and the bouts of fever and sickness have all conspired to slow the pace to an agonizing crawl. Yesterday, when we were just 60kms north of Jinghong heading north to Kunming, Melissa started complaining of nausea, headache and pain in her lower back. Her temperature then started climbing to over 40 degrees and after a temporary stopover in a rural clinic where she tested negative for malaria, we backtracked to Jinghong where we could be assured of at least some medical facilities at the regional hospital.

Well, in hindsight that's a debatable point. It was obviously a cash-strapped hospital that created revenue by sticking everyone who walked, limped or crawled through it's doors on a saline drip, regardless of what was wrong with them. The place was filthy, with little or no hygiene standards to speak of. Doctors smoked openly in the corridors with patients. And the smell of the lavatories beside the temporary beds where Melissa was parked was at times overpowering. There were no basins in any of the Doctors offices or the wards for people to wash their hands with. Ditto the lavatories. And the sheets on the beds had clearly not been washed for 24 hours, if that.

Luckily we had our own first kit with a thermometer with which to monitor Melissa's fever. The nurses had no interest in going anywhere near her unless harrassed to do so. It was one of those scary places that people left unattended to in a corner are liable to die and only be discovered days later after the smell gets too bad.

The upshot of all this is that Melissa was diagnosed with several ailments: bacterial infection; urinary tract infection and a damaged lumbar region. Which one of these she actually had, apart from the obvious bad back, is anybody's guess. But there is little point in her continuing at this point into a region where there really will be no medical facilities at all (between here and Kunming), and with only a week left on her visa it makes sense for her to cut her loses and head for home while she's near an airport. So tomorrow she flies via Kunming back to Singapore where she can make her way to the nearest real hospital and get herself properly diagnosed and treated.

jason

Posted on August 11, 2006 11:28 AM

Comments

Posted by: ROBERT at August 11, 2006 7:18 PM