Getting to know the Thai health system

As some of you may know, I was hospitalised last week with a nasty form of gastroenteritis, which included a bouncing fever between 36 and 39.4 degrees; constant, quaintly artistic dihorrea & vomiting; mass inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract; and some general weightloss over the four days good enough for Australia's Biggest Loser.

The hospital itself is refuted to be the best in Thailand and it's facilities some of the best in the world. I have never known of a hospital where the nurses are so attentive.

Perhaps it was because, as I found out later, the nurses thought I "rook rike George Crooney". 'George Clooney'...come on! I don't look that old!!! At one stage there were 7 nurses in my room asking how I felt, how many times I had gone to the bathroom that past hour and whether there was anything else they could get me.

Either way, the nurses at the hospital were amazingly helpful and made a pretty revolting time much more bearable.

But the nurses at BNH were nowhere near as amazing as my own personal nurse, Clare...whether she was directing a Thai cab driver to the hospital, giving me cool wet washer baths to fight the fever, coming straight to the hospital to see me after a full day at work, or simply working with the doctors and nurses to work out what was wrong with me when I was too lucid from the cocktail of painkillers and antibiotics.

I spent four days and three nights there, taking in about 12L of fluids through a saline drip, a heap of painkillers and anti-inflammatory meds, and about 1.5L of a hardcore antibiotics. My gastro told me that when I came in my white blood cell count was 4.5 times that of a normal person...my guts certainly felt the wrath.

How am I now? Feeling tip-top and terrific.

Napoleon was right on the money when he said that "an army marches on its stomach". After 3 weeks of my guts feeling like they had constantly been pumped up, deflated, punched and prodded, being able to now eat and feel normally has made me feel so much more enthusiastic and confident about my place in this city.

Bring on the chilli.

** By the way, I'm not nude under the bedsheet.