Word came in the mail: The good news is the results from James' blood work at airport quarantine show he doesn't have Dengue fever. The better news is he didn't die of an aneurysm yesterday, like I thought he would.
A couple days ago James went to the doctor like the folks at quarantine ordered. The doc' told James not to drink any cold liquids. He prescribed a bag of pills that looked pretty much like the ones the Chinese woman gave him in Cambodia.
James took the first set of antibiotics that night and quickly developed a pinching headache behind his right eye. The next morning he awoke at 10 and took another pack of pills which triggered the same headache behind his eye. So he took an Advil and laid down.
We planned on going to the fun and touristy Danshui for the day. But 45 minutes after he lay down, James didn't feel any better. He just slept. Three hours passed. Then four. Five. Six. All he did was sleep while I worried about the blood vessels no doubt bursting in his cranium.
James was going to die. I knew it. He would leave me all alone in Taiwan - me whose Chinese is only good enough to order steamed pork buns. But then at 5 he miraculously awoke, and just in time for happy hour.
"I'm done taking pills," he told me.
Today, James is alive and mostly well. As for our health care: I learned how to make a tourniquet in a sixth-grade babysitting class. If the ailment doesn't require a defibrillator or a catheter, I think we can take care of it at home. We'll be fine, right?
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