Thailand. Day 6. Tuesday

Yesterday morning, we got an E-mail early saying that the servers were still down for the body scan, which was what we were waiting for, so we slept a little later than usual. After getting up and showering, we went down for breakfast on the Mezzanine floor again, and we realized why Eric liked going to the Lounge for breakfast if it was after 7am. It was super busy. There were people everywhere, but we decided to brave it and eat down there anyway instead of going back up 37 stories to the Lounge. The staff was incredible and there was hardly any waiting for us to get our breakfast- with our "custom cooked Omelettes/Eggs" again. It is incredible that they put on such a high quality of breakfast for so many people at one time. Everything is clean and decorated beautifully and well arranged. These people impress me.

After breakfast, we headed to the concierge desk to book a tour for the next day. They gave us a pamphlet of options and we decided to do the floating market the first day, so we had to be ready at 7am the next morning for our tour. Then we got our usual-green cab to the hospital. Eric had continued to improve and they had finalized the diagnosis as immune mediated luticulitis of the t-10, and were treating it with a final day- day 5, of the IV steroids.

He was getting tired and frustrated from laying on his back for 7 days straight, so we rolled him over and took turns massaging, and I popped his upper back for him. It sounded like dominos. Once one popped, the others followed. I bet it felt good ;)

After that, the nurses came in to help him shower (super painful right?), so we went out on our adventures, yet again. This time we took a taxi to Central World. Its crazy how, in this city, it takes between 10-20 minutes to go a single mile. It's also crazy that it's so oddly named and twisty between roads, and so filled with crude men that we would rather pay the 80 Baht cab fee (almost $3) to drive 5 blocks.

I don't know how to describe Central World, aside from saying that it occupies half a block, and is at least 15 stories tall. It is filled with all different kinds of shopping. It's absolutely obnixious, and massive and mind boggling. There are different towers and each are named different things- i.e. Zen, and each tower has halls that connect to the other towers, it's an absolutel maze. Talk about overwhelming.

We walked through a few different sections- Jewlery, Clothes- etc. Then we found the food court and got some lunch. There was a little sandwich shop called Sweet Molly's that looked good, so we sat down to order, and low-and-behold a man/woman (he/she-it) came to take our order.

It's different in Thailand, but transvesdites are commonplace, and even accepted as a "3rd sex." So this- professionally dressed-dolled up- man dressed as a woman came and took our order and made our food and served us. It was just weird- and hard not to grimace. His voice was deep and you could tell he wasn't even trying to sound "feminine"? I just didn't get it...

Anyway-- I got a regular club, and Melanie got a Ham and cheese sandwich. Even though they sound the same on a menu, the food is still different. The breads here are thinner and have no crust. Each slice is perfectly square, and sliced boiled eggs are on almost any sandwich you order. They don't typically use Mayo/Miracle Whip like we do- and the only place you see butter is at the breakfast buffet at the hotel.

While we were eating our lunch, we noticed that kitty-corner from our little sandwich shop was a little Gelato shop called "Ge-la-te". The different containers were dressed up so pretty, we just couldn't resist. I got a mint chocolate chip scoop and Melanie got a Ferrero Rocher scoop. We noticed that in some of the fruit flavored Gelato's the tags were marked with a picture of the king and said "The Kings Projects" on them. Melanie explained that the king had created projects that would help the locals and homeless work to earn food, like farming fruits to sell to the local shops to use to make different foods out of- such as the strawberries used to make the Gelato's. I thought that was cool.
He encourages his people to be industrious and work for what they have and help one another. The Gelato was delicious also.
 They had the coolest little spoons too- they had like...traction bumps on them? Weird, but I loved it- haha.

We got to stop at the Okley Shop that Eric frequents and see his Personal Collection that is on display in the store. We bought some things, then decided to walk back to the hotel and explore the little shops that were in the "Arcade" down stairs. I had been looking for some fresh water pearls and found some at a quiet little jewlery counter, and I was thrilled. We found a ring that Melanie and I both just absolutely loved, but it was big enough that it would match the "flinstone pearls" (the huge pearls Monty got her for her Anniversary a few years ago) perfectly, so I talked her into buying it. I'm sure she won't regret it ;)

After our Pearl adventures, we got a taxi to go back to the hospital. The traffic was terrible and it took us almost an hour to get 3/4 of the way there, before we came to a deal hault and didn't move for almost 20 more minutes. The people in the taxi's in front of us all started to bail out, so we did the same thing. We were right in front of a school and had been having fun watching all the school kids walk out in their uniforms, eating their afternoon snacks. We walked past the school and walked the other 4 blocks to the hotel. We got to pass some pretty rough and smelly street stands, and we were only 1 block away from our turn into the hospital, when we saw almost 30  police trucks and motorcycles that had the entire street blocked off. They were riding in a formation and were making everyone stop in their tracks. We wondered what was going on, if it was a protest? or a parade? or a demonstration of some kind. By the time we had walked up the block, the cops left and let the traffic go again, so we turned and came into the hospital. When we asked Eric what he thought was going on, he said that anytime a member of the Royal Family had to come through town, they shut down every street 5 blocks in front of and 5 blocks behind the car, and the entire city comes to a hault.

They love and revere their king and royal family so much. We learned that the current king has been reigning for 66 years. The longest ruling monarch in the history of the world. Longer than the current Queen of England and King of Spain.

After we got to the hospital, we contacted Destin and he said that the Servers should be up at 9am Utah time, which was 10pm our time, so we caught up on our E-mails and visited with Eric. He decided he was hungry for something Salty, so we got (terrible) directions from him on where to find a 7-Eleven, and went exploring out the back alley ways of the hospital. The 7-Eleven's here are not the same as back home. At all. No coffee/hot chocolate bars. No Dr. Pepper. No crackers. We had to try to decide what things were from the pictures on the containers because none of the writing was in English. We found him some Salted Cashews and some Sun chips and headed back. I took a nap until it was time to do the body scan, then I woke up and got it running.

Destin connected to us and ran the scan and confirmed that the Immune Mediated Luticulitis was in full effect, as well as having Lime disease fully fledged and attacking the nerves. They discussed how it was problematic because the treatments were cotradictory. Suppressing the immune system to stop the attack of the antibodies would allow the Lime disease to run wild, and pumping him full of antibodies to fight the Lime Disease would only compound the problem with the Hyper Active Immune system.

After discussing what we had discovered, Melanie and I headed  back to the hotel. We had the concierge at the hospital get us a cab, like we always did, and this time the driver was a skinny, lurpey little guy. He saw me in the mirror and kept telling Melanie "You have very beautiful daughter. I have no beautiful daughter. My daughter Fat. She love to eat. Like wife. She Fat. She like to eat and she talk too much. Eh? I no lucky. I never have son in law. I no lucky."
He was cracking us up. He asked us through very broken English why we were in Bangkok and if we had been there before. When we told him that we had a son/brother in law in the hospital, he asked "Why here? Good doctor but good doctor study in America to come be good doctor here. You have better doctor in US huh?"
We just laughed and explained that Eric was here when he got hurt so he couldn't go to the US, he had to stay here until he was better. The guy kept saying "Lucky us- we take your money, good for Thailand. Good for me. Good luck for me- maybe my good luck find me a son in law cause me no lucky. My daughter fat. She like to eat. Like wife. She fat. She eat too much and talk too much."
It was hilarious.

 It was nearly midnight before we got back to the hotel and showered and to sleep. We had an early morning so we could be on time for our tour!