Back to Thailand, back to hospital

So the fact that I actually broke my ankle ten weeks ago instead of just spraining it wasn’t the worst medical news we received last week. That was the news that Mike herniated a disc in his back in March bending over to pick up Dominic. Mike’s been in significant and increasing pain for the past five months, so last week on his way to Sri Lanka for work he stopped for the day at our favorite stomping ground in Bangkok, Bumrungrad Hospital, to see a specialist.

The specialist sent him off for an MRI (same day, no waiting, hooray for Bumrungrad) and the MRI confirmed the disc rupture. The specialist used a word you don’t want to hear when you’re talking about a herniation in your spine. That word was huge. He pointed out how the disc was compressing the nerve and he recommended surgery.

After viewing the MRI jpegs and report, the majority of our medico friends scattered around the world concurred that surgery seemed warranted. I’ve written before about how grateful we are for long-distance medical input. I just wish we didn’t need rely on it quite as much as we have this last three years!

So Dominic and I flew from Australia to Thailand on Saturday, Mike flew back to Bangkok after his week in Sri Lanka, and we spent Sunday at the hospital having a follow-up appointment with the surgeons and discussing options.

Given that the original injury occurred five months ago now, he recommended that Mike have the surgery done as soon as possible to prevent any further damage to the nerves. In the end we decided to just bite the bullet, stay here, and get it done now.

So Mike’s booked in for surgery on Wednesday. He’ll be in hospital for a couple of days after that, and then needs to see the surgeon a week later before flying back to Laos. There will be no lifting anything (suitcases and baby included) for two months, and no riding in cars on bumpy dirt roads (ergo no distant field work). It’s going to be a hard season of significant lifestyle change for all of us.

We hadn’t prepared to camp out in Thailand for ten days (hello two changes of summer clothes) so we did a quick shop for diapers and other necessities today after doing all the hospital preliminaries. All will be pretty peaceful tomorrow, we hope. The real fun starts when Mike reports to hospital again at 7am on Wednesday morning. I’m sure Mike’s not looking forward to surgery, and I’m sure not looking forward to limping around being the sole caregiver for our residential manufacturer of endless needs and wants, even if he does have the world’s cutest grin, so it’s a bit of tough times all around.

More later,

Lisa