The day I gave medical advice on a bus

Hi again.  I am beginning to think that I am going to continue to be plagued by shite internet wherever I go.  I have been in Laos for 4 days now, but the internet signals have been painfully slow on the shared computers I’ve had to use because there is no wifi (that works.)  Argh!!  Ah well, we will continue with where I am now:

After 3 days in Luang Prabang, the old capital of Laos, my new Dutch friends and I are heading to Vang Vieng, small tourist city known for tubing and pink eye.  The former thing we knew about, which was why we decided to go there in the first place.  The latter we were not aware of...

The beautiful Mekong...

Two days ago, we were sitting outside our guesthouse when a woman walked out of the building and sat down next to us.  As we started chatting about the normal ‘where have you been, where are you going next’ stuff, she took off her sunglasses and we all gasped.  Both of her eyes were beyond bloodshot.  Before we could even ask what was wrong, she had obviously read the horror on our faces as she told us that she gotten pink eye in Vang Vieng, and that apparently it is an epidemic there.  She told us it was a ‘rite of passage’.  Um....

So, anyway, off we are to go tubing down a river (we hope it’s not the Mekong because after 2 days in a slow boat down that river and after seeing a dead body floating in it, I’ve had enough of the Mekong) and to apparently get pink eye.  I can’t wait.

But first, our ride of transportation to get there!  Let me tell you about it!  

We had the option to get to Vang Vieng via local bus, bus with air conditioning, VIP bus (their name, not mine) with tv, air conditioning, toilet, or minivan.  Those are listed in ascending order of cost.  After little debate, we settled on the VIP bus, because come on, we are VIPs for sure.  

A pink bus!

The next day, we rose early so we could eat breakfast before being picked up by our tuk tuk.  At 7:20am, our tuk tuk driver was 20 minutes late to pick us up and we were attempting to get our guesthouse to call for us but with no luck as they wanted us to pay the equivalent of a fresh smoothie just to make the call, and we refused.  So much for customer service!  Finally, a good samaritan took pity on us, called for us, and announced that the tuk tuk would be there in 5 minutes. 

When we got to the bus station 10 minutes later, we saw her: our beautiful hot pink VIP bus.  She had curtains with tassels and everything!  How pretty!  We climbed up to the second level to find our seats.  

Me: What the hell is that smell? (Except I didn’t say ‘hell’ but I’m trying to keep this blog as clean as possible.)

Carola and Rozan: Ewwww.

And so it begins. 

I sat down in my seat, fearing I might catch something in addition to pink eye on here, and realized that I was alone in my row.  Perhaps I would have the 2 seats to myself?  Now THAT’S VIP, baby!  People filed on, and I continued to keep the 2 seats.  7:50am: still alone.  7:55am: still alone!! 7:59am: SHIT!  A Lao man sits next to me.  8:00am: bus pulls out of the station.

We all remember my blog entry about riding on the World’s Deadliest Road.  Why didn’t anybody tell me I was going to be riding the World’s Second Deadliest Road today?  Seriously, the fact that I am even typing on my laptop right now is amazing.  This road is a series of amazingly barf-inducing twists and turns and I am fairly sure that if our bus fell off of this road, we would be just as dead if we had fallen off the road in Bolivia.  

Within 45 minutes, one of my Dutch compadres is laying on the floor of the bus, afraid that she may throw up, and my Lao seatmate is pretty much sleeping on me.  VIP my ass.  Half of the bus is asleep and I am wondering how it is possible for anyone to sleep when the bus is constantly breaking and going around 45 degree turns.  

Bus: has a tv, but it doesn't work.

But then something happens to distract me from my wondering.  I could hear shallow breathing, like someone was hyperventilating.  I turn around and a girl is bent forward in her seat, sweating, and looking miserable.  Within a minute, the person sitting next to her is yelling that we need to stop the bus.  The bus attendant comes up from the lower level to survey the situation and now there are 4 people yelling to stop the bus and, as always with my nervous laughter, it comes out at the perfect time.  *Sigh*

I pull myself together.  I start to put the thinking cap that I haven’t used in a long time back on.  Alright, she’s sweating, she’s freaking out, she’s not breathing well.  I heard her say something about not being able to breathe or move her tongue. Is she having an allergic reaction? If so, I have 6 epipens on me, so we’re all set.  

Just then, the bus stops and she, along with my nauseous friend, exit the bus.  As she’s walking out, I ask the girls who were sitting next to her what she was saying and they tell me that she said that at first she was just car sick and then she couldn’t get various muscles to relax and that she felt like it was hard to talk.

I went out to her and as she was sitting down, I told her to relax, that I’d dealt with this sort of thing before... Who cares if it was when I took an EMT-like course at GW in 2001?  Who wants to hear “I’m a personal trainer and I vaguely remember the things that are about to come out of my mouth?”  The poor girl was traveling alone and was freaking out.  It’s not like I was claiming to be a doctor.  I felt bad for her because I knew that at some point on my trip, that girl could be with me and that girl could need someone to get an epipen out of her bag to stick in her ass.

So I continued to sit with her and instructed her.  “Focus on your breathing -- you’re hyperventilating.  Your body is struggling to keep enough oxygen to your brain so you don’t pass out.  You’re going to be fine, you just need to relax.”  Once she was back on the bus: “Alright, now when the bus starts moving, look at the road while we’re driving along.  Don’t stare at the same point or you’ll start to get nauseous again.”

Getting back on the bus, about to lay on the floor again.

Things cleared up pretty quickly.  Within a few minutes, she was breathing regularly and her face wasn’t beet red anymore.  She thanked me for helping her out and I went to sit back down, first having to step over my friend who had once again resumed her position on the floor.

Luckily, 10 minutes later, the bus stopped at a planned stop point so we could all stretch our legs, use the bathroom, etc.  The girl came over and thanked me again, saying that she really had needed someone to talk her through it.  She thought that because she had been fighting off the need to throw up and was stressing and clenching her hands, that things just escalated from there.  I told her it was no problem to help and that we’ve all been in those situations before (like when I barfed the whole bus ride from Arica, Chile to La Paz, Bolivia.)  

We got back on the road and now things are as they should be: We are sitting on the side of the road with a bus that will not restart, my friend has resumed her position on the floor of this filthy bus, and a Lao dude is using my shoulder as a pillow.  Somehow I feel like I am back in South America again... Let the long, fun bus rides begin (again!)