The Recovery

My last post ends on a cliff hanger, will I make it back to Manila without any misfortune?

We pull out of the gates of the estate and make our way to the Manila turn off however Jun drives past it because we need petrol.  We head in the opposite direction which adds about 10-15 minutes to our journey and this makes me really worried.  Every minute is precious and each minute I am away from the bathroom, the likelihood of a mishap increases! I try to keep relaxed, close my eyes, rest my head and hope for the best. I’m reasonably comfortable during the journey until the smog hits my nostrils. I start to feel queasy which stresses me out, am I going to make it?! Jun puts the vents on to inside air and I can start to relax as the smell dissipates.

We’re nearing BF Homes, we’re nearly there!  I can see Jun’s street, I cannot tell you how relieved I am feeling, only 1 more minute and I will be inside the house, safe and close to the loo…. I made it. No adult nappy necessary.  Thank you God for watching over me, sparing me from what could have been a humiliating experience. 

Jun is so exhausted from 3 days of lack of sleep, having to clean up by himself and drive me back home. We decide I can wait til morning to have tests done. One reason that I am telling this story is because of the next part, this would never happen in Australia.

Jun’s friend works in a hospital as a nurse. She trained as a doctor but never registered as one can earn more money overseas as a nurse than a doctor. She gives Jun two sample bottles for me so I don’t have to leave the house to have tests done. Jun takes the samples to her and she takes it to the lab for testing. Once the results are in, she consults with a doctor as to what medication I need and texts Jun the names of the medications so he can buy them straight away and I can start to get better.

No doctor’s appointment, no prescription. Here in the Philippines you just need the name of the medicine and then you go to the pharmacy to buy it. I am starting my 2 different antibiotics and I didn’t even have to leave the house to be diagnosed or obtain a prescription! Later that night, Jun’s friend drops off the medical results in the letter box with a more detailed description of when to take medicines etc.  The diagnosis… Amebiasis.  I had never heard of it but it is a bacterial infection which I most likely caught by swimming in the pool. I did accidentally swallow some of the water…. 

 Jun is so organised, he has the medicines lines up with a post it note above each one with instructions on when and how many to be taken and the times they have been taken. I am lucky that I have someone who takes good care of me.

Within a few days I start to feel better yet I am still so fatigued, a side effect of one of the antibiotics. I just can’t wait to feel normal again.  Three weeks in the Philippines and quite ill for 2.5 weeks of that. I am convinced that I am allergic to the Philippines. It’s either that or the country is rejecting me. I start to eat “normal” foods but my stomach can’t handle it and I am forced back to a diet of apples, bananas and crackers. I dread eating. I’ve never dreaded eating. Food is usually my friend but now I just don’t want to face it. There is one thing that I could eat, one thing I would always have when I was sick back home… Vegemite on toast. Why didn’t I bring Vegemite with me?! Because REX airline (Mount Gambier to Adelaide) has such a low baggage limit that I couldn’t possibly fit it in! Damn!

And so begins The Great Vegemite Hunt….

Day 5 and beyond

Today is the beginning of our healthy lifestyle and Jun fixes up the bike for me so that I can ride while he jogs along. We set out on our jaunt and we head to the clubhouse directly across from the holiday home as we had noticed earlier that there was a pool and we wanted to check it out.  It looks clean, its only $1.20 each to swim there and no one is using the pool.  We decide that after we finish on the bike and jog that we will complete our triathlon by jumping in the pool afterwards. Unfortunately my ride was cut short.  As I was riding up a hill I hear a loud crack and realise that I have snapped the pedals! Whoops! In my defence they were plastic and quite brittle so it wasn’t just my brute strength that broke them. So after a long 5 minutes of exercise we walk back, change in to our bathers and head to the pool.

I’m excited to get back in to swimming.  I’ve got my goggles and my flippers and I am set to swim some laps! Jun gets in to the water first and proclaims that it is freezing however I doubt that it’s that cold. I tell him to stop being weak and then I promptly eat my words as I stick in my toe.  I’m thinking maybe I give swimming a miss today……  Jun encourages me to get in, good for rehab….. blah blah blah. He is of course right so I get in the water in what can be described as a painfully slow rate. Each inch of me that enters the water feels physical pain, I kid you not.  Since we are in such a hot country, the outdoor pool is not heated. Now, I’m sure in Manila it would be ok but we are in Tagaytay in the mountains, it’s not exactly a heatwave up here! I suck it up, get in, do my exercises and swim my laps.  Impressively (or stupidly) we stay in the water for about an hour. Success! The healthy lifestyle has begun!

For lunch Jun cooks up chicken soup (Tinola) with fresh lemon grass and malunggay leaves from the garden. My contribution is a salad which goes nicely with the soup and rice on the side.  We take the food up on to the back terrace to enjoy the nice view and the breeze. Feels like Mediterranean living and I love it. I could definitely get used to this lifestyle.

Up at the clubhouse we had noticed they had Wi Fi for only 50c an hour.  All that hunting for Wi Fi in the last few days and we had it just a stone’s throw away from our doorstep! Now we don’t even have to leave the estate, we have everything we need right here. After the Wi Fi fix and getting to skype with my brother Anthony and his children, we head home so I can start writing my first blog post. Life is good, I want to share my experiences with everyone.

(I had doubts of writing about what happened next but I have put it in as I want this blog to be a true representation of my experiences here in the Philippines.)

Life was good, until I finished my blog post.  I start to shiver, why am I so cold? I think it’s time to lay down. I progressively get worse and start to heat up. I do however find the strength to go back down stairs to eat Bistek Tagalog (refer to day 1!). My lack of appetite means I can only eat a really small amount. Disappointing.

It seems that I have a fever.  Not just a mild fever, but a full blown I want to die I am so miserable fever.  Jun is so wonderful through the night and does his best to cool me down. I swing between shivering under the sheets whilst feeling like I am on fire to lying under the fan on full blast.  It’s such a miserable night but I am so confident that it will pass in the next 24 hours with the help of paracetamol.  How I couldn’t be more wrong.

The next morning it begins….. diarrhoea. Without getting too graphic, I will just say I have never had it this bad in all my life. We last in Tagaytay for 3 more days with Jun being the best carer anyone could hope for, feeding me apples, bananas, crackers and hydrite (gastrolite). I was pumping in the fluids the best I could but it just wasn’t easing off. The time has come to head back to Manila so I can get to a doctor. There is just one problem, the longest time I have been away from the toilet in 3 days is 1 hour.  It takes at least an hour to get back to Manila.  I am really not confident that I can make it back so Jun makes a suggestion that might help… an adult diaper.  It’s a logical suggestion but oh how humiliating! Which is worse?  Wearing a diaper or not being able to make the distance? I opt for no diaper, I think I would rather risk it than put on a nappy…..

Do I survive the journey back to Manila without misfortune or do I not? You’ll just have to read the next post to find out….

Busting out some laps at the Clubhouse

Tinola! So delicious.

Healthy salad! Dressed well with vinegar, kalamansi and oil.

Day 4 - Chilling in Tagaytay

Today starts off in the laziest possible way.  A luxurious sleep in followed by another delicious Longanisa breakfast accompanied with tasty orange juice made from imported oranges… Australian oranges!  We don’t really have much planned for today, so we laze around until we have enough energy to undertake the great Wi Fi hunt. To increase our energy levels we may just need a little help.  What better way than the great South Australian FruChoc! I’m excited to share with Jun one of my great loves.  As it says on the packet, “If you don’t love a FruChoc you’re not really South Australian!” and I stand by their motto. They are so loved by South Australians worldwide. For example, the requirement of visiting my brother and sister in England is to bare gifts of Fruchocs….. (Even my half English 2 year old nephew has discovered them and won’t let the bag be passed around without having his share! Not to forget his English Dad, not a big lover of sweets but can’t pass on the peachy, apricoty, chocolately goodness.) My cousin Rach generously spent a large postage fee to send me a 900g bag of FruChocs whilst laid up in Boston.  I hope you are getting the picture of how amazing they are.  For those who have never heard of a FruChoc, it is dried peach and apricot mixed together in a small ball and covered in chocolate.  To my delight (or dismay since I am now going to have to share…) Jun absolutely loves them. 

With our bellies satisfied with a South Australian icon it is time to head out the gates of the estate and into the hustle and bustle of Tagaytay. To hunt for Wi Fi I use the method of taking out my iPod and turning on the Wi Fi to see if we can find an unsecured connection, or at least a restaurant that has good signal. I’d noticed the day before that a pizza place next to the very disappointing Starbucks had Wi Fi.  This time we decide to check the Wi Fi to decide if we want to stay and order.  Good thing we did because once connected I couldn’t get anything to load.  Looks like pizza is out and the American diner next door, Mile Hi Diner, is in.

We of course check that the Wi Fi has a good speed, even Skype has connected!  We find a booth and order Nachos, Chicken Tenders, a frozen Baileys cocktail (for me) and a Pina Colada (for Jun).  (Both delicious drinks, couldn’t decide which to go for, luckily Jun is happy to share…)  Unlike a typical American Diner, the portions are rather small and for Philippine standard not that cheap either. (The whole meal with drinks was $18, still not expensive by my standard but I’m becoming accustomed to things being much cheaper here!) The food was ok but not great and we were kind of disappointed as we left hungry.  The upside though was that I got to speak to my sister George, my nephew Henry and my Mum!  Yay for Wi Fi that works! So despite the average meal for an above average price, we had achieved what we had set out to do.

We head to the supermarket to buy some groceries with the full intention of eating healthy. (Apart from the pancakes planned for the next day…..) We casually stroll around the fruit and veg section, I’m trying to learn about local vegetables that I have never heard of and am constantly trying to figure out the exchange rate so I can determine if what we are buying is expensive or not. I want to learn to cook with local vegetables but the problem is I don’t know what most of them are or how to cook them so I am naturally drawn to what I know. Luckily most of what I use at home they also have here, so I can find what I want to make a salad. We already have our fruit which we bought at a stall on the side of the road, Mangos: $1.70 per kilo, Pineapples: 80 cents per piece…. (Fruit salad, Yummy Yummy!)

As we make our way out of the fruit and veg section half of the lights go out in the store and an announcement made in Tagalog.  They are about to close the store and we are only at the beginning of our shopping list!  Our shop suddenly turns in to the show, “Supermarket Sweep”.  We start zooming up and down the aisles looking for the most essential items on our list…. Pancake mix! Where is the pancake mix?! Thank God the maple syrup is included in the pack, 2 birds… 1 stone….

We head to the cash register in a very rushed 5 minutes and with cut throat eliminations from the list (we don’t need cereal, we have pancakes!).  We look around as our products are scanned and we are literally the last customers in the store. I don’t think I’ve ever closed a supermarket before but there is a first time for everything.   

Back home we decide to cook a late dinner since our American diner experience was unfulfilling and Jun says he will cook BBQ.  I’m confused, where is the BBQ?  I haven’t seen one anywhere.  It turns out BBQ is a style of meat; kebabs. In this case we are having marinated pork kebabs and Jun cooks them on something that I have never seen before. It’s called an Oventop Griller but it looks like a cross between and a one tray oven a see through steamer.  We eat them with rice and they are delicious.  It is late so there is not a vegetable to be seen on the plate but we have full intentions of starting our healthy eating tomorrow!

Jun in the throes of becoming an honorary South Australian!

Drinking my cockatail and sharing Jun's....

Nachos. As you can see, quite average. Why are there olives?!

Chicken tenders and fries. Meh.

Successful Wi Fi!

Day 3 - The Buffet

This morning Jun suggests eggs on toast. Yum! After only one day of a traditional Filipino breakfast I am excited to go back to something more normal for me. (I am not big on change).  Jun serves up my egg on toast…. Fruit toast…. Hmmm… Interesting.  Well, I guess I need to be open minded and give this a try.  Surprisingly egg on fruit toast is quite nice, not something I’d prefer over egg on regular toast but still enjoyable to eat. If you’re feeling a little adventurous, give it a try sometime! 

We only have one piece of toast as Jun’s parents are coming up to Tagaytay and taking us out for lunch.  What I didn’t realise was that we were going out at 11.30am and to a buffet…. Now I understand Jun’s emphasis on not eating too much at breakfast, which we ate at about 10am. The buffet was at the Country/Golf Club that Jun’s Dad is a part of and is exclusive to members and their family and friends.  Jun’s Mum was insistent that I try everything, and normally this wouldn’t be a problem (except for seafood…) however there is a strong emphasis on no waste in the Philippines, so you must finish everything on your plate.  With this in mind I am too nervous to try everything in case I don’t like and have to leave it, which makes eating at a buffet a little stressful!

The food in all was quite lovely.  I was really enjoying the “gravy” on the roast pork complete with crackling which I expected it to be savoury but it was sweet.  Jun informed me that it was in fact liver sauce…. I really wish he hadn’t told me that but since it was so tasty, I kept eating it anyway. The highlight was the mango ice cream to which I added a brownie and cooked banana on the side.  A perfect way to end the meal. There wasn’t a lot of space left in my stomach but since it was so delicious I managed to cram it in. After all, there is to be no food left on the plate…..

After all that delicious food it was definitely time for a nap and Jun’s parents headed back to Paranaque (Manila). After our lazy afternoon I had one thing on my agenda… Wi Fi. Where better to get Wi Fi than Starbucks? Wrong. Starbucks sucks. Every time I go there, I think, why do people drink this crap? Granted I only drink Hot Chocolate but I have it on good authority that the coffee is also terrible. We couldn’t get the Wi Fi to work which we had paid extra for so we asked for our money back (too bad we couldn’t get a refund on the awful drinks) and left. We vow never to go back there, and call it quits on looking for Wi Fi and head home to make dinner.

For tonight’s dinner: Longanesa sausage, egg, tomatoes and rice.  Traditional breakfast.  For Jun it feels like he’s eating breakfast but since it contains rice, for me this is definitely dinner. The delicious food melts away the frustration of the unsuccessful Wi Fi hunt and we relax in front of the TV watching shows mostly in Tagalog with a few English phrases thrown in just to tease me.

Delicious Ice cream, brownie and cooked banana

Soup. Jun put this together and the chef cooked it. He proudly informed me that it contained no seafood so that he could share it with me.  Apparently crab is not seafood......

From Left: Siomai, Tang (thats right, Tang lives on!), noodles and beef and mushroom, Roast Pork with LIVER SAUCE. Up the back is a mix of soy sauce, vinegar and calamansi (like lime) and in front is obviously..... fried rice.