Quarantine a la Françoise - my miserable story

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Often when things are all smooth sailing the stories to abound can become quite dull and monotone with repeated use of boring adjectives such as great, awesome, fantastic and excellent. So as a fan of writing I decided to go on the trip from hell in order to stir up some form of masochistic inspiration and a more interesting storyline. Let me begin.

Leaving work on Tuesday I was excited at the prospect of the next three days off work, seeing dad and visiting Paris. On arriving home I started to notice a slight twinge of discomfort in the left side of my throat and as I never get sick this came as a bit of a surprise. Ignoring the annoyance I went to the movies to see a film called Hunger which is about an Irish man named Bobby Sans who spent 66 days on a hunger strike in a prison in Northern Ireland in the 80s protesting Irelands right to independent political representation. When Danny asked if I’d like some popcorn I laughed incredulously and said “hmmm..don’t think this would really be the perfect movie for popcorn, do you?” We headed in and I was surprised to see every single person that came in carrying a jumbo size popcorn and coke. Feeling a little sheepish I settled down to watch the movie. Throughout the movie I could feel my throat slowly getting worse and each swallow became an event unto itself until I was sure Danny was going to turn to me and tell my throat to be quiet! By the end of the movie I was in quite a lot of pain and downed about 8 panadols throughout the night just to get snatches of sleep.

Determined to get to Paris and still have fun I headed off with my little backpack to the airport and climbed aboard the plane. The panadol I was on was only supposed to be taken every four hours but it was wearing off after two and this coincided with my flight. Trying not to breathe on anyone I put my sleep goggles on and tried to concentrate on not creating saliva and therefore not having to swallow. Unfortunately just thinking about saliva tends to create it and so I spent the remainder of the flight utilising my poorly honed meditation skills trying not to think about saliva. When the plane finally arrived in Paris I was relieved to be able to get up and walk around to distract from the pain. I quickly left the airport and jumped on a train to Gare du Nord which is Paris’ main train station. Unsure if my phone would have any reception I took it out of my bag and turned it on, after four loud beeps signalling messages from my phone company welcoming me to France I could see that it did. My first mistake was to then put the phone back into my pocket, pull out a trainline map and practically stick a flashing neon sign to my back saying “NEW TOURIST - ROB ME”. So they did. Five minutes later I felt the need to hold my bag tighter and felt my pocket. That instant I knew my phone had been taken and not wanting to give the thief the satisfaction of making a “FAAAARRRRKKK face” I merely shrugged to show I didn’t care and kept walking. When safely on the train I frantically scrambled through my bag and felt immense relief as I uncovered my ipod - phew, camera - phew, wallet - phew and passport - double phew!

On arrival at the hotel I was surprised when the concierge said Dad and Colleen hadn’t arrived yet. They were due in at 10am and it was past 3pm. Deathly tired I headed up to our room and was grateful to be able to catch a couple of hours sleep before they arrived. Two hours later and my throat was on fire. Still no sign of Dad I legged it to the Pharmacy and asked for antibiotics. “Not vithout a prescription, sorry” so I asked for the strongest painkillers they had. These ones were one every six hours so I downed one of those and an hour later as they pain hadn’t subsided one of my one-every-four-hour painkillers too. After checking my emails I saw that Kate had emailed to say Dad was probably caught up in Bangkok airport which had been filled with anti-Government protesters. As the only English channel on my TV was BBC News I settled in to see what was happening in the Land of the Smiles. It didn’t say much other than there were protesters there and flights were being delayed so guessing that Dad and Colleen would probably arrive the next day I tried to get some sleep. Tried being the operative word. Every four and six hours I would take my painkillers, followed by a throat lozenge followed by an industrial strength numbing throat tablet, followed by more BBC. I eagerly awaited morning so I could high-tail it to the doctors!

8am FINALLY arrived, I knew EVERYTHING there was to know about the Mumbai terrorist attacks and had watched the death toll rise slowly figure-by-figure throughout the long hours of the night. In my opinion Deccan Mujahideen seem like gunnas. They were gunna kill the brits and the yanks but when only 6 out of the 110 that was killed were foreign they don’t seem to be too crash hot at their task. I asked the concierge where the nearest doctor was and he said he’d call me one. I made sure it wasn’t going to be too expensive and headed back to my room. Realising I needed cash though I turned on my heel to head to an ATM when the concierge called me over to say the doc wouldn’t come here for just a throat problem. I felt like hoarsely screaming “JUST…JUST A THROAT PROBLEM??? My left tonsil now resembles a leper’s hardened red raw testicle and you dare use the word “just” in my presence, but thought better of it. The French aren’t known for their patience with foreigners. He suggested I ask at a pharmacy and luckily when I did this she said there was a doctors two doors down. I transcribed the phone number and asked my man to call for me. I had an appointment in 2 hours!!!

Thrilled I headed back out to get some money but pulled up short when I realised that I hadn’t memorised my pin number for my new ATM card. Instead I’d cleverly entered it into my phone as a number under Ally. I.e. 0412 86 4 777. Trying desperately to remember I punched in some combinations being careful not to overdo it and donate my card for good but each time the machine said I had insufficient funds. When walking back to the hotel trying to formulate a plan I realised it hadn’t said “incorrect pin” so I logged on to the computer and low and behold my account was empty. I thought I got paid on Thursdays but as it turns out I get paid Fridays. Never mind I thought - I’ll just chuck her on credit!

Back in my room I’d manufactured a “spit bucket” out of a cup in order to reduce the number of necessary throat agitations known as swallowing to a bare minimum - on average only one in every four salival deposits would go down the hatch. At 10am I walked to the docs, rang the buzzer and headed upstairs. On entry I asked her if she took credit and burst into tears when she said she didn’t. This was when depression set in. And don’t they have some code saying they have to help those in need? Or is that Amnesty International? In any case as I walked slowly back to the hotel, tears streaming down, and then freezing on my face I trudged to the reception and asked if the hotel could possibly pay for my doctors visit and just put it on my account to be paid by credit when I checked out. “No madam, sorry” was the reply and after a few hiccupped sobs I got in the lift to collapse into a tragic state on the bed. I thought of introducing a third painkiller contender in maybe three hour increments but thought this may be getting a little close to the killer part for me. So I went back to the pharmacy, pathetically asked for antibiotics again feeling like a heroin junkie whose already been given her methadone for the day and resignedly purchase a throat antiseptic spray and some different coloured lozenges.

Back in the room I spray, swallow and suck my medications but nothings helping. I haven’t eaten since arrival and am feeling as low as I can ever remember feeling. A quick check of the emails confirms Dad’s not going to make it and a burst of BBC concludes this outcome as I see Dad lying on a thin matt in the foetal position at Bangkok airport. Duly noting that he wasn’t spooning Colleen, rather they had their backs to each other - possibly for anal security reasons - I raised my eyes to the heavens thinking you couldn’t bloody script it and relapsed into my woe-is-me melodrama.

After two more hours of spitting, spitting, spitting, swallowing, violently shuddering and gasping for air as the pain verberated through me I realised I couldn’t possibly go through another 24 hours of this waiting for my pay to come through. I rang the concierge in tears and explained about my money situation asking again for them to call a doctor and I’d pay by credit. OK was the reply and after two minutes I answered the door to two large beefy looking men. I whimpered “are you the doctor” to the one on the left who looked least like Chopper and he replied that they were security and what was the issue? I blubbered out something about being very sick, dad being foetal in Bangkok and my lack of liquid funds and when asked which was making me cry I grabbed my throat and tried to make him see my pain. He said they’d get a doctor and left.

Not long after a lady called my room and said the doctor wouldn’t take credit. No Shit Sherlock I screamed silently down the phone! She couldn’t understand me so said she would come up to my room. Once again I was a blubbering mess and explained my situation, she said she’d see what she could do and came back 20 minutes later saying she would personally lend me the money. Awash with relief and gratitude I unleashed a new army of tears and headed downstairs for the concierge to call the doctor again. 1 hour till my appointment! Upping the anti I started spitting and swallowing at an eight to one ratio and eagerly awaited my appointment. Sickly skipping down the road I once again entered the doctors. She stated the obvious while trying to make conversation and said “oh you’re back” in a kindly voice ignoring the fact that she’d sent me away in tears last time for the sake of a few measly euros. I bluntly said “someone lent me the money thank god” and moved into her office. After a quick five minute investigation she declared what I already knew - tonsillitis - thanks Doc.

I ran to the pharmacy next door, proudly handed over my prescription and gulped down the pill before she’d even handed over my change. It was 2 hrs since my four-hourly panadol but had been 6 hours since my six-hourly so I eagerly gulped down one of those as well. A little disappointed that the pain didn’t vanish instantly I headed back to my BBC cocoon and was stopped by an Asian man on the way. “Ah..excuse me…do you know where the underground train is” “turn around, cross the road and see that big sign that says “Metropolitan”? That’s it.” He knew there was something odd about my accent but looked like he couldn’t quite put his finger on it and off he went.

The next 24 hours I continued on my journey to becoming an International expert on the terrorist happenings of Mumbai and sitting up with interest each time stories of Bangkok got a look in. Snippets of dad’s image kept making the news and I found this reassuring even though I was sure he wasn’t still sleeping in that exact same position…well I hoped he wasn’t otherwise he’d be in a REALLY bad mood when he woke up. I had been toying with the idea of hiring pay TV while I’d been here as it promised that you could watch four movies in 24 hours. Knowing I had just over 24 hours of quarantine time left I called the concierge, got the code followed by a snigger which made a lot more sense a few hours later, and typed it in.

Turns out Hotel Pay TV = Porn. Who knew? After calling to complain once I figured out that the only English movie channel just had one crap movie repeating itself for 24 hours, they took the cost off my bill and that was that.

On the Friday I was starting to feel better and was down to a two to one spit/swallow ratio. I headed out to buy my first meal of three days - I’d been looking at the crepes wishing I had an appetite for the whole time I’d been there so that was stop number 1. Next I bought flowers for my French guardian angel and took out enough money to pay her back. I packed my bags, thanked her profusely and headed back for the airport. I was lucky in that I was back home that day but I spared a thought or two for Dad who was stuck in Bangkok for the following 10 days!

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