aka, The Weekend From Hell.
Disclaimer: I am perfectly and completely fine. Szuyin was very very sick, but is now recovered and doing fine. Thank heavens. I just want to update people on why I havent been answering emails for 5 days, and my life is a bit crazy, but you will quickly understand why my priorities were different this weekend. (On the other hand, the time off has given me a chance to update this blog at last. Silver lining! ish.)
So, this last weekend, I had another adventure, but this one was of the definitely-not-at-all-fun kind. Thursday was a national Holiday, since the New Moon marked the Islamic New Year, 1434. Happy New Year!
Szuyin and I took advantage of this by signing up for scuba diving lessons. Bali, and indonesia in general has an incredibly rich underwater ecosystem, with tons of coral, and unbelievable marine biodiversity. But we wanted to know what we're doing before going diving, so we decided to take a course. 'Cause, ya know, thats way safer, right?
We found a very professional dive center, signed up, and early Thursday morning got a ride to Sanur to learn how to breath under water. The first day of classes was a lot of fun. My teachers were lovely. The PADI educational videos were campy but informative. And diving is a lot of fun. On friday we finished up our last few in-pool dives, and headed out to the beach to get our first taste of open water diving. This, too, was awesome. In Sanur bay there is a lovely coral wall, not too deep, with a sandy bottom and tons of fish.
We only made two short dives, and only went maybe 6 meters deep, but still, somehow, afterwards Szuyin was feeling very very sick. At first we thought it was just seasickness form being on the boat, but soon after returning to the dive center, she collapsed. She was in pain, and having difficulty breathing. Luckily we were surrounded by trained divers, and had lots of strong bodies to help lift her into a van and get to a hospital.
And that is when the insanity started. i dont think i should go into too much medical detail here, but suffice to say, no one had any freaking clue what to do. This is a weird case, no one seems to be abel to give us a satisfactory answer as to why she would be affected after such short dives in such shallow water, but sometimes low-probability things just happen.
However, that does not excuse the ridiculously ineffectual care she received. We got sent to one of the fancy tourist hospitals, and they were crap. Seriously. Two different doctors basically did nothing at all to help her. They were not reassuring or convincing at all. They certainly did not take her to a decompression chamber. They didn't even give her pain medication. So she had to go through over 6 painful hours of decompression sickness as nitrogen bubbled out of her blood and her whole body went though muscle spasms, with nothing but her friends massaging her limbs. ay roe questions were asked about when we could get her insurance to provide guarantee of payment than about when her symptoms or medical history.
This is not how a friday night should be spent. Ever.
Luckily, Szuyin is a ridiculously strong human being, with spectacular self control and presence of mind and was able to make it through. Also, luckily, she has a group of friends from work who were willing to drop everything at a moments notice and come rushing down to the ER to battle on her behalf. Half a dozen of our coworkers were there within an hour to translate, call for specialists, deal with paperwork, bring food and water and insist on better treatment. I have absolutely no idea what I could possibly have done if Patricia and Yustiana (in particular) had not come to our aid.
that said, they were up against insane odds. Every paper to sign every cost, every document had to be tripple checked. We were getting billed for things that hadn't happened. It took an age to get documentation, and then it was misspelled. They spelled Szuyin's name wrong, got her birthday wrong. Multiple times, the doctors seemed to diagnose one thing, but treat for the opposite. Pat and Yust were amazing. They literally were checking the doctor's report's spelling at one point. Im mean really. What the hell is that? We were all glued to our blackberry's getting treatment advice from friends and family that knew about diving, because we trusted them so much more than our doctors.
Finally, we switched over to Sanglah, which has a dive accident specialist, a decompression chamber ( which, at this point we were too late to use) and fast, reliable, reasonable doctors that gave us much more convincing treatment at a quarter of the price.
I spent Monday with Szuyin at Pat's house, resting, watching bad movies, and eating. And now, finally, it seems like she is going to be fine. She's physically exhausted, of course, but hopefully all the medical crises are past.
Lessons learned:
1. If you suffer a dive accident in Bali, go straight to Sanglah Central Hospital. Do not go to one of the ritzy tourist hospitals. Go to Sanglah. They know what they are doing, dont give you bullshit, and dont make up random costs. And in general, if ever you think you might have decompression illness, get to a decompression chamber. Dont let your doctor try to drag his feet. Go. Doctors are not omniscient.
2. Never sign any medical waivers, or anything for a dive center without really understanding what kind of insurance they have. "Yes, we have insurance" is not enough. You want personal, all-eventuality-covering real insurance. I have been complacent like this too often. I am stopping now.
3. Dont think "oh, but this is a class, what could go wrong?" Even if everyone is being safe and thoughtful and methodical, diving is a risky risky thing. And low probability events can still happen out of the blue.
4. Friends are amazing. And the kind of friends I have at PTBP are literally life-saving.
5. Decompression Illness is scary as hell.
6. Just, in general, never have a medical crisis in Bali, please. Thanks
OK, that is that for the not-so-fun side of dealign with Bali. Thankfully we had a positive outcome, but still.... waaay too close for comfort. Eeek. I did get a couple of fun underwater pictures from the dive pool, but i'll post those later, once I'm not so angry at doctors everywhere. I hope this doesn't scare anyone away from diving, but I know I will definitely be more cautious in the future.
Disclaimer: I am perfectly and completely fine. Szuyin was very very sick, but is now recovered and doing fine. Thank heavens. I just want to update people on why I havent been answering emails for 5 days, and my life is a bit crazy, but you will quickly understand why my priorities were different this weekend. (On the other hand, the time off has given me a chance to update this blog at last. Silver lining! ish.)
So, this last weekend, I had another adventure, but this one was of the definitely-not-at-all-fun kind. Thursday was a national Holiday, since the New Moon marked the Islamic New Year, 1434. Happy New Year!
Szuyin and I took advantage of this by signing up for scuba diving lessons. Bali, and indonesia in general has an incredibly rich underwater ecosystem, with tons of coral, and unbelievable marine biodiversity. But we wanted to know what we're doing before going diving, so we decided to take a course. 'Cause, ya know, thats way safer, right?
We found a very professional dive center, signed up, and early Thursday morning got a ride to Sanur to learn how to breath under water. The first day of classes was a lot of fun. My teachers were lovely. The PADI educational videos were campy but informative. And diving is a lot of fun. On friday we finished up our last few in-pool dives, and headed out to the beach to get our first taste of open water diving. This, too, was awesome. In Sanur bay there is a lovely coral wall, not too deep, with a sandy bottom and tons of fish.
We only made two short dives, and only went maybe 6 meters deep, but still, somehow, afterwards Szuyin was feeling very very sick. At first we thought it was just seasickness form being on the boat, but soon after returning to the dive center, she collapsed. She was in pain, and having difficulty breathing. Luckily we were surrounded by trained divers, and had lots of strong bodies to help lift her into a van and get to a hospital.
And that is when the insanity started. i dont think i should go into too much medical detail here, but suffice to say, no one had any freaking clue what to do. This is a weird case, no one seems to be abel to give us a satisfactory answer as to why she would be affected after such short dives in such shallow water, but sometimes low-probability things just happen.
However, that does not excuse the ridiculously ineffectual care she received. We got sent to one of the fancy tourist hospitals, and they were crap. Seriously. Two different doctors basically did nothing at all to help her. They were not reassuring or convincing at all. They certainly did not take her to a decompression chamber. They didn't even give her pain medication. So she had to go through over 6 painful hours of decompression sickness as nitrogen bubbled out of her blood and her whole body went though muscle spasms, with nothing but her friends massaging her limbs. ay roe questions were asked about when we could get her insurance to provide guarantee of payment than about when her symptoms or medical history.
This is not how a friday night should be spent. Ever.
Luckily, Szuyin is a ridiculously strong human being, with spectacular self control and presence of mind and was able to make it through. Also, luckily, she has a group of friends from work who were willing to drop everything at a moments notice and come rushing down to the ER to battle on her behalf. Half a dozen of our coworkers were there within an hour to translate, call for specialists, deal with paperwork, bring food and water and insist on better treatment. I have absolutely no idea what I could possibly have done if Patricia and Yustiana (in particular) had not come to our aid.
that said, they were up against insane odds. Every paper to sign every cost, every document had to be tripple checked. We were getting billed for things that hadn't happened. It took an age to get documentation, and then it was misspelled. They spelled Szuyin's name wrong, got her birthday wrong. Multiple times, the doctors seemed to diagnose one thing, but treat for the opposite. Pat and Yust were amazing. They literally were checking the doctor's report's spelling at one point. Im mean really. What the hell is that? We were all glued to our blackberry's getting treatment advice from friends and family that knew about diving, because we trusted them so much more than our doctors.
Finally, we switched over to Sanglah, which has a dive accident specialist, a decompression chamber ( which, at this point we were too late to use) and fast, reliable, reasonable doctors that gave us much more convincing treatment at a quarter of the price.
I spent Monday with Szuyin at Pat's house, resting, watching bad movies, and eating. And now, finally, it seems like she is going to be fine. She's physically exhausted, of course, but hopefully all the medical crises are past.
Lessons learned:
1. If you suffer a dive accident in Bali, go straight to Sanglah Central Hospital. Do not go to one of the ritzy tourist hospitals. Go to Sanglah. They know what they are doing, dont give you bullshit, and dont make up random costs. And in general, if ever you think you might have decompression illness, get to a decompression chamber. Dont let your doctor try to drag his feet. Go. Doctors are not omniscient.
2. Never sign any medical waivers, or anything for a dive center without really understanding what kind of insurance they have. "Yes, we have insurance" is not enough. You want personal, all-eventuality-covering real insurance. I have been complacent like this too often. I am stopping now.
3. Dont think "oh, but this is a class, what could go wrong?" Even if everyone is being safe and thoughtful and methodical, diving is a risky risky thing. And low probability events can still happen out of the blue.
4. Friends are amazing. And the kind of friends I have at PTBP are literally life-saving.
5. Decompression Illness is scary as hell.
6. Just, in general, never have a medical crisis in Bali, please. Thanks
OK, that is that for the not-so-fun side of dealign with Bali. Thankfully we had a positive outcome, but still.... waaay too close for comfort. Eeek. I did get a couple of fun underwater pictures from the dive pool, but i'll post those later, once I'm not so angry at doctors everywhere. I hope this doesn't scare anyone away from diving, but I know I will definitely be more cautious in the future.
1 comment:
ahhhh that sounds crazy! yikes! i (out of all people) know how medical stuff can go wrong! jeesh!
glad you got it worked out and she is okay! hang in there!
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