Day III Medical Research March 22, 2014

It is really smoky this morning.    We decided to stay home and just have some eggs and toast for breakfast.  It is difficult to get eggs "over easy" here because, most Thais cook with an extremely hot frying pan. That means the eggs usually come out "over hard". 

Daeng is an excellent cook and can make eggs "over easy" in a perfect manor, soft yolks with no runny albumin.   

After breakfast we are going to go to the hospital clinic for my appointment with the dermatologist.  I have been taking the antibiotics four times a day and washing the skin area with the special soap they gave me.  

It was very smoky and there was a Buddhist function happening so the street was very crowded.

It is my understanding there were suppose to be 10,000 monks in this event. 

We arrived at the clinic about 9:15 AM.  It was fairly quiet with only a hundred or so people already there. 

My blood pressure was a little high this morning , as well.  

At 9:30 AM I met with the the dermatologist, a very nice lady who spoke understandable English.   She looked at the four bumps on my head and said they were small cysts that had grown in the hair follicles.  

She said they were nothing to worry about but if I wanted she could remove them today.  I also told her I had a tag on the inside of my upper leg.  She said she could remove that, also.  I agreed and she told me to go upstairs to the operating rooms and she would join us in a few minutes.

I got undressed and put the old hospital blue outfit on.  I hopped onto the table and the doctor along with three nurses removed the four cysts on my head and the tag on my upper leg.  She showed me one of the cysts from my head.  It was the size of a green pea. 

She said she had to put a stitch in the area of the large one and to come back in a week and she would remove the stitch. She said that other incisions she was able ot just cauterized.  She gave me some cream to put on the incisions and told me she would see me next Saturday.

I got dressed and we went down to the cashier.  We waited a few minutes for the surprise.  I was hoping maybe the charges would be around 3000 to 4000 THB, a hundred to a hundred and fifty US dollars. 

The charges were: anesthesia 336 THB, medical supplies 465 THB, medical equipment 1550 THB, medical services for 100 THB, service charge 90 THB and physician services 5000 THB making the total 7,541 THB.  At 32 Thai Baht to the US Dollar that comes to around $236 USD.  I forgot about the medical equipment.  That consists of the operating table, lights, cauterization machine, etc. 

Daeng thought that was very high but for what was done, I think it is still a good deal and probably lower than my co-pay on my Medicare Advantage Plan through Anthem Blue Cross.  In the USA, the hospital alone would have been at least a few hundred dollars, plus doctor, plus, plus, plus. 

On the other hand, maybe my insurance would not have paid anything. They probably would have said that the remove of these small cysts were not medically needed. 

I'm going home and take a nap. Daeng is going to a neighborhood funeral.  Here when someone dies the whole neighborhood shows up to eat and pay their respects. 

More research next Friday.  That will be the first injection into my knees.