Expat Adventure: Curing What Ails You

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Living the expat life offers many rewards, hospitalization usually not one of them.

Once, while living in Indonesia, I suffered from a mysterious and painful abdominal ailment, which landed me in a Catholic mission hospital in a provincial town on the main island of Java.  It was a small, white hospital built around a central garden compound in the middle of which stood a pretty, serene statue of the Virgin Mary. Western medicine was practiced here, if not all was as might be expected.

Photo © Kaja Dutka used by permission

In many parts of the world, the locals have their own traditional ways of healing and the brave ones among us globetrotters might even try these at times and benefit from them.  In Indonesia, the ancient art of herbal healing is known as jamu.  Tonics, pills and powders are widely available in small stalls and from roaming street vendors.  The photo above shows a jamu gendong carrying bottles of her homemade potions in a basket on her back.

There’s a jamu remedy for everything, from simple fatigue to “bloated heart” and marital strife.  Of course, in many far and foreign places, western medicine in some form or other is available as well, if not always practiced in ways that gives us expats comfort.  So, let’s continue with my tale. (Note:  This is a story I offered up earlier, in 2009.)

The doctor attending to me was Indonesian, short, dark and seventy-two years old, I was told, and he spoke Dutch, which was a good thing because it’s my mother tongue.  In the olden days Indonesia was a colony of the Netherlands and the official language, therefore, was Dutch.  It no longer is, but among the older generation, some people still spoke it.

The doctor was a university professor, a surgeon still operating regularly.  He looked old and frail.  Surreptitiously, I examined his hands.  Were they shaking?  He thought I might have appendicitis, but not acute.  X-rays were taken, and I was administered penicillin, after I was first given a test to see if I might be allergic.  I could have told the nurses I was not, but my Indonesian was not up to the challenge and they spoke no English and most certainly no Dutch (they were post-colonial), so I let them go ahead.

They were tiny, flat-chested girls and they looked to be about sixteen.  They giggled a lot.  This is an annoying (nervous) habit of Indonesian girls and not one that instills in you a lot of confidence when you’re dealing with medical personnel.

I lay alone in my private white room, feeling very sakit and, frankly, very frightened.  An older nun, in habit, came to cheer me up.  In Dutch.  It was reassuring, somehow.  She had a wonderful sense of humor and made me laugh, which wasn’t so easy considering where I was, having the threat of surgery by a shaky old doctor hanging over my head.  Having been brought up in the Calvinist tradition, I had never had a close encounter with a Catholic nun, but this one surely was a comfort to me and didn’t at all resemble some of the ones I’d heard about from American friends who’d been educated in private Catholic schools.

Being a foreigner, I served as entertainment for the nurses, whose contact with aliens of my ilk clearly had been limited.  Two at a time they gave me sponge baths, discussing my painted nails while they were at it.  I knew why.  The polish covered the entire nail.  How much more elegant and dainty the nails would look if I hadn’t polished the moon-shaped cuticle!  We all have our ideas of glamour.

They were mystified and amused by my wish to have my tea without sugar, but the greatest kick they got out of me was seeing my consternation at finding a cat roaming the halls.  Assuming the scraggly feline had slipped in by mistake, I dragged myself out of bed and immediately reported the discovery, speaking my fractured and limited Indonesian.  I had expected a certain amount of uproar from the nurses.  There was none.

They smiled prettily and giggled.

Assuming they did not understand me, I persisted.  “Kuching!” I kept repeating, gesturing wildly into the hall. “Kuching!” Finally, they came out of the nurses’ station with me and I pointed triumphantly at the feline, who, right on cue, came arrogantly strolling out of one of the little supply rooms where a cart with sterile stuff stood at the ready, possibly to be used for my surgery.  I wondered if going the jamu route might not have been a better choice.

Packages of jamu.  Photo by Mayu

“Kuching!” I said again, just to prove I knew of which I spoke.  The nurses giggled some more, and nodded.  Indeed, a cat.  They looked at me as if I were a mad woman.  I was beginning to feel like one.

Defeated, I went back to my room and contemplated the situation.  Perhaps the cat was there to keep the rats away.

The next day I was cured and released.  Don’t tell me it was the penicillin.  It was mind over matter.
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NOTE:  This was many years ago.  Hopefully no more cats in Indonesian hospitals.

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Have you had any interesting or scary hospital or doctor stories in foreign countries?  Go ahead, tell me your tale and terrify me.