My wife has left me, and not a day too soon. Actually, it was a day too late and it was all thanks to some cheese.
We have an Italian windsurfing friend who spends a day a week locked in his kitchen creating cheese. It’s good cheese, but not really to my taste as it tends to be too soft and creamy for my palate. But my wife, being Thai, is up for almost anything involving food consumption; so she accepted his offer of a morning watching how cheese is made.
I stayed at home and did manly things like making coffee and staring out of the window; until the phone rang. It was my wife who had finished the cheese making and tasting and headed with the rest of the cheese appreciation society to the windsurfing club. Two of the party, one being her, were now comprehensively ejecting cheese from two bodily orifices and she was not happy. I was summoned to the rescue.
It’s about twenty minutes from the windsurfing club to our home. The journey was to take considerably longer as my passenger required me to drive really slowly next to the kerb and then stop on a regular basis so she could throw up. Each time, she returned to the car looking more haggard, so we extended the journey even further and headed for a local hospital.
If you are going to be ill, Thailand is generally a good place to be; provided you have cash or insurance. There are government hospitals which you can use, but you will there for a long time and may leave less well than when you entered. But the private hospitals range from adequate to amazing. When I lived in Bangkok I developed a suspicious lump on my lower stomach. A trip to the hospital on a Tuesday confirmed it was a hernia. The surgeon checked his diary and was quite apologetic that he could not operate until the Thursday morning. And of course, all the nurses are really cute.
So I take the wife to the emergency room where the doctor first asks some questions to confirm this is not an extreme case of morning sickness, and then pronounces the fairly obvious diagnosis of food poisoning, has a drip feed attached to the hand, and tells her to stay overnight. Once crucial documentation has been completed (mainly the provision of my credit card), it is off to the room where the cartoon channel has been left turned on at full volume as a form of welcome.
After an hour or so I am feeling hungry and she is feeling better and decides she doesn’t want to stay the night. I leave to get some food while she negotiates an escape. First I get a phone call to say the doctor says she has to stay. Then I get another phone call to say she has found another doctor who says she can leave (presumably on condition that we pay for a full night accommodation).
So home we go and she is soon considering a snack. However, the planned departure on the following morning, to go and stay with her mother for a week to help her move house, is postponed for a day. I manage to resist the oft-repeated suggestion that I should accompany her on the trip, the new reason being that she is in a weakened state. I give my standard answer, I have to stay at home to play Grand Theft Auto. Following the consumption of a comprehensive breakfast, I take her to the airport where she shovels down a hearty lunch before getting on the plane. I think she is cured, although I doubt she will be eating cheese for a while.