Waiting To Be Discharged

Hospital rooms have always been my least favorite of places. Something about the stench of sterilized food and air brings about certain feelings of nausea; something one would get in a kind of cold factory prison. I have not left this room for a day. Can you blame me for having just a touch of cabin fever? Every couple of hours, the nurses come in and take my blood pressure and temperature, bring me food and medicine to take, or instruct me on the various functions of the room. I am supposed to pee in a metal container, which they collect, instead of in the toilet, and I am supposed to report on how many times I’ve passed stool or how much water I’ve consumed. It was fun for a day. Now it is getting old. In a desperate plea for human contact, I started a conversation with one of them who had visited Siem Reap. But I have not seen her since.

When I left Phnom Penh on Friday, one of the volunteers said to me that she was jealous that I got to go. Oddly enough, it does sort of feel like a vacation. If I were at site right now, I would be sweating profusely and trying to focus on any little task to take my mind off of the heat. Instead, I have hot showers, a powerful air conditioning system, and three meals a day. The food is not half bad either. For lunch today, I ate salmon, mashed potatoes, green beans, and some corn. I have not seen a fish soup in the last couple of days. I’ll be happy to get better, but I will miss all this fancy stuff.

However, the view I can see out the window is absolutely fantastic! Remember that I live in a dirty country infested with cows and dust everywhere, and this is a modern city. I can see rooftop swimming pools, a canal with boats running through it, some of the tallest buildings I have seen in months, and bright lights. All I can think about is getting on the Bangkok subway, riding it for hours on end, and then finding the nearest McDonalds just to bask in the American empire of commercialization. I can almost taste those French fries.

Soon…soon…