Soeun's health summary/update- now waiting

Soeun was sick all last week, we have been to the doctor many times over the last few months and ended up going twice last week and spending a day in hospital. The cause of symptoms is still unknown but many things have been ruled out.

Our next step is to wait and try the migraine medicine he just got on Saturday, and also to wait for his appointment with EarNose Throat doctor on July 8th. Please pray we can find the cause and manage his pain.

Thankful for all the people who have been helping us throughout this time, and being patient with us. If feel like there are lots of things we have said we will do/ and have wanted to do, but we just don't have the capacity to do.

Feel tired and stressed about this.

His sickness could also be due to a combo of allergy/stress/change in diet and environment. These are harder to pinpoint.

So after the events of last week Soeun and I are having trouble getting into this week. He has been trying to read for his essay which is finally wrote a question for, that his teacher was happy with, but the whole being sick going to the hospital thing is taking awhile to get over. I'm having trouble concentrating or something, I don't know know how to describe it, but yesterday was better than Monday so hoping today will be even better.
My laptop seems to have died, it is about 7 years old and spent time in heat and dust, so no surprise. Just means Soeun and I have to take shifts on the one laptop.

hospital part 2

We only had to wait half an hour in emergency before we saw a doctor. And everything was bulk billed!

hospital

Spent the day in hospital, from 9.30 to 5.30ish. Exhausted, neck and head sore, feel a bit disoriented or something. Its a whole other world in there, its weird being out......and I wasn't even the patient and I didn't even get bad news. I can't imagine what it would be like if I was, it was a weird enough day as it was.

Soeun had a ct scan, and it turns out there is nothing scary lurking in his brain according to the neurologist.

He's feeling mostly ok, headache finally seems to have gone, a bit gross from the stuff he had in him for the scan etc, and his back seems to have got sore since he started the new meds but doctor said not to worry.

So after a rest tomorrow he will hopefully be healthy enough to finally get into the 4000 words he is going to write over the next few weeks.

this evening is much better

thanks for your prayers and concern!

i spent the afternoon wondering if we should go to the hospital and go to emergency (actually i 've been thinking that since yesterday morning), stressful

but

for the last hour or so Soeun has been sitting on the couch, said he felt the pain had eased, not quite back to normal but heaps heaps heaps heaps better.
So maybe the migraine meds are working????which could mean we are at the end of our search .... or it could be the natural end of his headache, they don't normally last for more than a week and its been about a week... or it could just be that its the evening, so far it seems like its worse in the mornings

ps

He doesn't have all the symptoms of migraines but the doctor said to try cafergot and meto something, if they help then it is a migraine , if not it still could be but might not be.

Went to the doctor again

So thankful this morning Soeun was able to get out of bed, we saw the doctor around 10am.

We came away with a form for a ct scan and prescription for migraine meds (2 diff ones).

He took them at 11.30, then he vomited 45 min later on the way home.

I was a bit worried about that but he put an ice pack on his head and went to bed.

he finally ate some rice around 2/3 and had another capsule.

He's got an appointment for the scan on friday, i wish we could get it done sooner though, he's head is still bad and this is the 7th day. I rang the doc when we got home, as I was worried as he seemed to be getting worse. The doctor said to go to emergency at hospital if it gets worse, but we should wait a bit as he vomited only 45 min after taking meds.

end of the day update

This morning was scary and painful, but the rest of the day was less "exciting", just kind of yucky and confusing. We have an appointment with the same GP tomorrow morning. We only just saw him on Monday, and up until today thought we should just be waiting to see the ENT next month.
But this mornings headache was a bit alarming, and he also vomited.
Please pray Soeun will be well enough to get there tomorrow, and for the doctor to be wise.

almost 2 hours after taking med, he is out of bed, still has headache and doesn't want to go out, but seems a bit better than before, hanging out to see ENT doc and see if he has any clues

Soeun seems to be in more pain today than before, I can't really tell cos he's not really talking. The only thing he's said was in response to my question "our housemate said she can drive us to emergency room at hospital", he doesn't want to go- i don't think he even wants to get out of bed. As he has already seen a few doctors he doesn't see what seeing another one would do. I think we are hanging out for the ENT appt next month.
He took some stranger drugs and is going back to sleep.

Soeun is into his 6th day of headache- not happy? What can he take? Is panadine ok? Why didn't the chemist want to sell me any?

eating chocolate - yay!
 husband has headache- boo!
watched confronting tv show on sbs click here

still dizzy

Went to the doc again today. Still don't know why Soeun is dizzy. He doesn't feel like eating sometimes cos he feels like he will vomit (he did vomit when the dizziness started in March), and feel like someone is blowing into his ear, as well as ringing in his ear. All the tests he has been having over the last few months haven't shown any reason why he would be dizzy , although we have found out other things we need to keep an eye on. But he's sick of being dizzy!

one semester down

Well I keep meaning to write about my typical week to give you an idea of what my job involves. People often ask me, so I thought my weekly timetable would be a good thing to put on here, so watch out for that soon. Although now students are doing exams so my timetable will be all over the place for the next month or so, but I'll post my semester 1 timetable.

I'm starting to feel a bit anxious about June and July, without the structure of semester time, I've got all this stuff to do, will it fit into the time i have?

 I think this year any sort of change makes me feel a bit stressed, I was just getting into the swing of things and now its all changing again!!

tired, even though all i did last 2 days was sitting down in the same room, a staff mtg on thurs and a FOCUS mtg today

toilet update

Well, it turns out my mother in law won't be getting a toilet anytime soon. It cost more than she thought, and its hard to build at this time of year anyway. Its rainy season, so the ground is too full of water to dig and install pipes or whatever. It will be rainy until around November.

Imagine not having a toilet

A common type of toilet, often manual flush

My mother in law is having a toilet built out the back of her house. She moved to her new house in a village about 4 months ago and hasn’t had a toilet all this time. I couldn’t imagine living in a house with a toilet, but for many people that’s the norm. We visited that village a few years ago, we didn't stay with a family there as we didn't know anyone with toilet. When Kimsoeun visits by himself, he doesn't mind staying there, but when I went we stayed in a guest house in a near by town.

Although she's past the Cambodian life expectancy age, she gets her water by pulling it out of a well in a bucket, and they don't have electricity either. 

Can I study the Bible?

Last week I had my last Friday small group of semester, and today I had my last Thursdays ones. On Friday we had about 7 people in the group, but both my groups only had one student each today, both from China, and (unusually) both Christians.

After one of them, a girl I had never met before came over to me. She was studying at a nearby table and I guess she had heard us talking about 1 Thess. She asked me if I knew where she could study the Bible from the beginning.

It turns out she is also from China, and happens to have the same (Chinese) name as the girl in my small group today.

small groups ending, exams looming

This week most of us finish up our small groups for this semester. I just dug out a photo of my first ever AFES small group that I was part of when I was in first year. I’ve moved 12 times since then, and I still have the photo!

general update

I had a really encouraging and fun weekend at a work conference, was feeling heaps less anxious- but then once I got back to where we live I was reminded of the things I'm finding hard. But generally things are heaps better than before. Soeun has been able to adjust some things to make it all more doable. I've found people to talk to.

Anyway, some fun things, been reading books and watching DVDs from the library. Such as Jeffery Archer's Cat O'Nine tales and Executive Stress. Also we walked around and looked at lights the other nights, part of Vivid Sydney.

uncomfortable everywhere post script

"An American having the average income of the bottom US decile is better-off than 2/3 of world population." (Milanovic 2002, p. 50)


I'm not really a stats person, but there's ones to go with my previous post. You'll notice it took me a week before I decided to post it, and that I filed it under re entry and rich poor perspectives.

uncomfortable everywhere- unformed thoughts from today (written on monday)

I feel uncomfortable in Cambodia because I'm so rich.

And I feel uncomfortable here in Aust as I'm not sure how to cope when I'm relating to other rich people who don't seem to notice they are rich. I even feel a bit bad writing that sentence as it could come across as arrogant. I guess I've had particular experiences that they haven't so its logical that I will have a different perspective.

Australia doesn't feel like home, yet I know I'll always be an outsider in Cambodia. So maybe I'm always going to feel uncomfortable where ever I am, perhaps one aspect of this is to do with being rich.

I find it uncomfortable being so rich. In Cambodia I'm so so rich. This morning in staff training we were talking about the uneven distribution of wealth in the world, and how we are in the top minority, we're the rich people of the world.

I've heard people say that missionaries feel rich when they are in their adopted country, but then feel like poor people of the society when they return to Australia, as Aussies are so rich. In someways we do feel that, as our living space in Cambodia was much bigger (teachers accommodation, our own kitchen, spare bedroom etc whereas here we live in student dorm type place, not allowed to have ppl stay over, share a kitchen).

But at the moment I'm not feeling poor at all- even though my support level is only at 40% I'm actually feeling really rich. I think maybe it's due to things like

-being able to go to the doctor and have blood tests without paying a months wages, and worrying why am I spending so much on this when my family and friends who I interact with each day could never afford such a luxury - I think I've mentioned on this blog before- I LOVE MEDICARE!!!

-free drinking water out of the tap!!

- nice public toilets, private, with toilet paper and a tap to wash your hands- even soap and towel/dryers

-libraries, being able to borrow books and dvds for free (its hard for me to things to read for fun in Cambodia) i really want to read stuff so i find myself buying books from a second hand books shop, but i only ever read them once, and when i move have to get rid of them anyway, so it feels like a waste of money

-rich generous Christian friends who help us, eg giving us clothes, doonas, rice cooker etc etc

- my "normal" food isn't expensive foreign food, milk, breakfast food like corn flakes are considered basics by many here, if i were to eat them at my mum in laws place she may wonder why i was spending so much money on food!