Being an early Sunday morning, we definitely weren’t expecting the heavy traffic we encountered, exacerbated by the pouring rain, making the drive to the hospital for Elaine’s blood work rather treacherous indeed; driving in Thailand is dangerous enough, without the complication of rain!
After a quick pitstop at the hospital, we headed to one of our favourite restaurants for breakfast, Dean and Deluca, at the Boat Lagoon marina. From there we drove north to Grace Pharmacy to collect a months supply of Elaine’s medications and to collect all the medications and over-the-counter remedies to replenish our offshore medical kit, since most items had expired or were simply consumed.
Considering Elaine’s disastrous experience over the past few months with the new treatment plan prescribed by the doctor here in Thailand, not to mention, the exorbitant costs of the medications we’ve incurred, we’re now limiting visits to getting her blood work done and reviewed, given that we also managed to arrange all her medications through Grace Pharmacy, thanks to the relationship Derrek, the Ao Po Grand marina manager, has with the owner and at a far cheaper cost to that which we’ve been charged over the past months.
On our return to the hospital, surprisingly, Elaine’s consultation was in stark contrast to her previous ones, making her wonder whether or not a phone call had possibly been made behind the scenes from her specialist in Singapore. On this occasion, the doctor seemed to already know Elaine had stopped the Xeljanz and that she had returned to her previous treatment plan, with some minor adjustments made by the specialist in Singapore; he essentially had backed off on his insistence of continuing with the new treatment plan he had previously prescribed. Regardless, Elaine relayed the serious concerns expressed by her specialist in Singapore and what had been agreed for moving forward, all of which was accepted and sanctioned by the doctor here. This, of course, has significantly reduced our logistics for our Indian Ocean crossing and opened up numerous other options and destinations for us, COVID-19 permitting, of course.
Feeling relieved and optimistic, we set off to the Central Phuket Festival mall to peruse Elaine’s Christmas present and to give Roy some ideas of what he might like for Christmas. While there, we enjoyed the Christmas music and festivities that were underway, although it was hard to belief another year has rolled by since we’d enjoyed last Christmas on Penang Island, Malaysia, but our outing today certainly helped put us in the Christmas spirit and portrayed some sense of normalcy, nonetheless. It had been months since we were at this mall and the change we witnessed was astronomical; it was absolutely packed with shoppers! Both feeling a little uncomfortable, though, with the crowds, we decided it was best not to linger, returning to Paw Paw by lunchtime, after a quick stop for some fresh produce. However, with the overcast rainy weather we encountered in the morning, neither of us had brought a hat with us for our return dinghy ride under sunnier skies; no problem, “a boer maak a plan”; just use your mask!
After a lunch of sushi, which we hadn’t had since leaving Malaysia, Elaine had barely finished sanitising our purchases when Justine called from the UK. It was perfect timing for a good chinwag, followed by a light dinner, shower and bed, but not before we enjoyed another lovely sunset and a Fire Dance show on the beach. It was a lovely conclusion to an otherwise exhausting day, especially for Elaine, given that we’d walked nearly 10Km.
While Elaine enjoyed a little sleep-in this morning, Roy decided to take advantage of the cooler morning to clean his cabin and head (aka bathroom), something Elaine had been meaning to do for some time, but other activities kept taking priority and today was no exception. After breakfast, while Roy spent the remainder of his day redoing the sealant in Elaine’s head, Elaine set about labelling and stowing all the medications that had been collected yesterday to replenish the offshore medical kit, noting the uses, dose to be taken and clearly marking those that were not for Elaine’s consumption, either due to her allergies, interactions with her conditions or drug interactions with her regular medications, all things we didn’t want to be clueless about in an emergency, especially when all the new packaging was in Thai.
Afterwards she got busy with submitting the latest medical insurance claims and updating the Inventory of Medications onboard for the Maldives, bringing another busy day to a close.
