Mumps and other re-entry bumps

The day we landed in Laos I came down with a cold, and two days later my ears started to hurt so badly I could hardly see straight. The minute Mike came home from work we put Dominic in the stroller and set out for the doctor who runs an after-hours clinic out of her house at the end of our street.

We got almost to the end of the dirt road outside our house before a familiar tawny shape gamboled past.

Zulu has taken to slipping out the gate whenever anyone goes in or out of our compound. Normally this isn’t a big problem – he darts around the neighborhood for a while, wild with excitement at the chance to play with other dogs, and then comes running home when they start to pick on him. He is not what you might call the world’s bravest dog.

When he gets out right after we’ve left, however, he doesn’t stay in the neighborhood. He follows us. When we scold him and order him home he puts his tail down and slinks back towards the house, but the minute we turn around to keep walking, so does our golden shadow.

On Tuesday he didn’t even pretend to obey us when we ordered him home. Instead he ran out into the middle of the paved street we were approaching – a road that (unlike the one that runs past our house) is actually trafficked by motorcycles and cars. In addition to not being the world’s bravest dog, Zulu is also not what you might call incredibly street smart.

We called and whistled to no avail. He pranced around near us while motorcycles weaved around him, but never near enough for us to grab him.

“Let him go,” Mike finally said with the fatalistic weariness of the very jet lagged. “If he dies on the road, he dies.”

“If he dies on the road,” I said with the desperate pragmatism of a stay at home mother, “I lose my best baby toy.”

Zulu followed us another forty meters up the road and into the courtyard of Dr Payang’s clinic, where Mike grabbed him and hauled him home and I settled down to wait my turn.

Going to the doctor here is a little different than going to a doctor at home. There is no such thing as an appointment. The clinic opens when the doctor comes home from her work at the hospital at about 5:30, and she sees patients on a first come first served basis.

When you arrive at the clinic you take off your shoes and pick up a number outside the door. Then you wait your turn on a bench in the front of the room while Dr Payang sees people in the back of the room where she has set up a desk, a chair and a camp bed. The waiting area and the consultation area are only separated by a large dresser that acts as a partial screen.

When it was my turn, Dr Payang looked puzzled and declared that I did not have an ear infection.

“I think maybe an infection here,” she said, drawing me a diagram and marking a spot underneath my ears. “I don’t know how to say in English. I only know in French, Thai, or Lao.”

She wrote something down in French on a scrap of cardboard and showed it to me. My rudimentary French wasn’t nearly up to the task of translating it, so I tried to guess what it might be.

“Strep throat?” I offered.

“No,” she said.

“Sinus infection?”

“No,” she said. “I call colleague who know how to say it.”

She picked up her mobile phone and dialed a friend. Then she wrote down the word mumps.

“I have the mumps?” I asked when she got off the phone. “But I’ve been vaccinated.”

“Same but different,” she said. “Infection in the parotide gland. Same as mumps but not as bad.”

So I’m on antibiotics for the fourth time in three months. This time for a case of “sort-of-mumps.” Except, after having consulted Dr Google I don’t think Dr Payang’s got this one quite right. My money’s on an inner or middle ear infection. Again. And if it doesn’t resolve soon it’ll probably mean a trip to Thailand. Again.

Needless to say, I’m not incredibly eager to get on a plane with severe ear pain so I’m sending good vibes to all the amoxicillin I’m pumping into my system to fight the good fight. [Insert Notre Dame fight song, cheers, whistles, catcalls, victory chants and all other forms of encouragement here.]

I know many of you travel or live in unusual places. What interesting medical dramas have you had while overseas?

"That dog has no idea what's about to hit him now that I'm crawling"