August Visit Cut Short :(

Hey Everyone! Well my last trip out to Forgotten didn’t really go as planned. Before I headed out from Chiang Mai I decided to make a visit to the doctor because I was having difficulties breathing and wanted to make sure that everything was okay before I left. At the hospital the doctor told me that from the chest x-ray it appeared that I had pneumonia, which he said was very peculiar because I was showing no other signs of having pneumonia i.e. cough, runny nose, general feelings of being sick, etc. I actually had no other symptoms at all aside from having difficulties breathing. Me being the way that I am though figured that I could still make the trip out to Forgotten and stay for the planned duration of two weeks. The doctor prescribed me with the antibiotics for pneumonia and I was sure that the medicine would be more than enough to cure me. Unfortunately though, this wasn’t the case. At Forgotten I continued to get worse and worse to the point that I had to sit up during the night in order to be able to breathe reasonably comfortable. It was a pretty scary experience and I didn’t seem to be getting any better as the days passed. It didn’t help me feel any better either seeing the worried look on Manat’s face as he came by ever so often to poke at me in order to make sure that I was still alive..ha I therefore decided after 4 nights that it was probably best to cut the trip short and go to a larger city where I would have access to better medical care in case things got any worse. I decided that my best option would be to go to Bangkok where I could stay with a friend that had a comfortable spare bedroom and a hot shower that I could use. I thought that maybe just some good rest and a hot water would be enough to snap me out of the black lung death that I was suffering from and get me back to normal again.

While in Bangkok, I saw another doctor and this time the doctor told me that from the chest x-ray everything looked fine. The scary thing was that I really didn’t feel any better. I decided to listen to the doctor regardless of me not feeling any better and started exercising a little bit here and there as was recommended. Unfortunately, even with exercising, I continued to see only little signs improvements in my breathing. It has been about a month and a half now since I started feeling like this and literally only just a couple of days ago did I start to see the first signs of serious improvements. For the first time I was able to actually cough stuff up out of my lungs in the morning instead of just trying to cough stuff up in vain. It was kind of freaky the first morning because so much junk came out, but it sure felt good. At the moment, I am still coughing stuff up in the mornings but the amount of stuff coming up has decreased and I feel that my breathing is greatly improving more and more each day. I actually feel like I am starting to get back to normal again. I just hope that things continue to improve the way that they have been and that whatever it is that I have will be healed up and out of my system here soon.

Okay, that is enough about me being sick. I wanted to share this experience with all of you as a reminder of just how blessed we truly are. When I was out at Forgotten feeling sick I really felt that my situation could possibly become dire and that if things got any worse I might seriously not make it out of there. And that is why I decided to leave. And what I want you all to think about is how I actually had the choice to make this decision, the decision to leave. I had the choice to either stay or go. This is something that we commonly overlook and take for granted in our lives, the luxury of having options. This luxury of having options is something that the Karen people that we work for living on the border are not fortunate enough to have. For them leaving is not a possibility. If they get sick they can’t just pack up and go. They can’t just decide that the best option would be to go and seek out the best medical care possible or to call up a buddy that has a nice comfortable bedroom for them to sleep in with a hot shower or bath for them to use until they get better. Out on the border the Karen people do have access to some very minimal healthcare, but if the situation is serious, for the most part they are out of luck. If you get sick out there you simply have to stay in your very minimal living conditions and more or less just hope for the best. And just about any sickness that you get out there can be a serious one. You could have a common cold that seems to not be that serious, but then you combine it with malaria and all of a sudden it becomes life threatening. The Karen people that we work for have never slept on a comfortable bed, taken a hot shower or had the comfort in mind to know that if one of their children gets sick that they will have a safe place for them to go. These people are faced with a very difficult situation and their options are minimal, and this is why Forgotten is here.

I hope that by reading this it will encourage each and every one of you to get involved and do what is in your power to help meet the needs of the less fortunate. Whether it be in your own community, country, or off in a distant land, I hope that you will reach out and find someone that can use your help.

As always, I would like to thank you all for reading my posts and for being a part of Forgotten. I will be heading back out to Forgotten tomorrow and look forward to updating you with new stories after I get back :)

I hope that all of you are doing well.

Much love… Jon