RAIN IN JANUARY!!

Tuesday, January 6, we walked to LaGlah village. The next day we took a patient to Meta hospital that I found in LaGlah with a bad liver and terrible lungs.  She had edema everywhere - four plus pitting edema on the legs.  Her BP was sky high.  Because driving that way is so terribly long, we spent the night, and came back here the next day - Thursday.  We had promised DJ, our neighbor that we would take him to Omkoi for surgery on his arm Friday.  He has a fatty cyst that I refused to cut out, because it was too big and painful and needed surgery and tests for cancer etc. 

In the meantime, I was having a problem with my right eye.  At first I thought I was getting a sty on the upper lid, but by Thursday when we were getting ready to drive back to BYT I told BletJaw and Tucker that my eye hurt really badly and I felt I was getting a massive infection because my right ear and neck hurt along with a pain in the right side of my head! In fact the entire right side of my head hurt, but when I looked in the mirror, I looked normal.  So I thought it must not be too bad.  I have never, (that I can remember), had a headache!  Anyway, BletJaw looked at it and said:

"You have a tick in your eye!"

Tucker looked and saw it also.  Me, without glasses, looking in the mirror could never see such a thing with the naked eye.  We drove on into BYT and after many patients were seen, BletJaw finally had time to attack that tick with my suture forcepts and a flashlight.  Sure enough, just under my eyelashes on the very inner rim of the upper eyelid, smack up against my eyeball, he pulled a tick out!  That thing came out with a big hunk of my flesh!  Ouch!  We magnified the creature and took pictures of it.   I am pretty sure that I got this tick on our walk to LaGlah Tuesday. The weeds are tall and spread all over the trail.  I am short, so they were face level for me, therefore I concluded that I must have retained that tick for 3 days, which is the only reason we could visualize it now!

Thursday night it poured with rain all night long. This was a shock! I thought that somebody must have frozen me in time, and I had gone to sleep, and not woken up until 6 months later in June when the rainy season starts.  But now it is January and not supposed to rain at all, let alone pour out buckets! Friday morning we decided to still take DJ to the hospital because we had given him our word, but we knew it would be a challenge.  Only BletJaw and I went because there was DJ and his wife.  Nobody could ride in the back due to the pouring rain. We left at 6a.m.

The BYT road was in the process of being plowed, but now in the rain this meant disaster, as the soft freshly plowed dirt makes deep horrible mud.  Thirty minutes out, we could not make it up a red mud mountainside.  Our truck went sideways and every which way but up the steep part and then slid right off the road into a deep ditch.  We were high centered toward the front of the truck, even though our truck is raised.  There it sat at a crazy angle and the rain continued to pour down. 

The only difference between today’s rain and rainy season’s rain is that today it is cold along with the rain.  At least in the rainy season you can be wet but warm.  

Well, I headed out with the remote control in hand to crank out the winch!  When we purchased the front bumper with the winch in it, some people said they thought I did not need it because I hardly used the big winch on the Mitsubishi, but I thought that even if it pulls us or somebody else out of a bad place one time, it would be worth having it!!  Sure enough!  It got us out more than once today, and it was well worth it!  This time there were trees to tie off on in the right places.  We almost pulled the first tree down, however, because it was a very hard pull. We had to tie it to another tree as we got farther along, but praise the Lord He got us out.  BletJaw and I worked like team-work, barefoot out there in the oozing mud and fridged rain!

“How long Oh Lord?” I cried when we came across one miserable, mangled, mud-rutted hill after another.  “How long will we have to endure these terrible roads?” 

We had to use the winch again the second time, when the steepness of the grade and the depth of the mud, just overwhelmed the truck.  The entire time it is pouring with rain. BletJaw and I are working out there in the rain, and jumping in and out of the truck to steer us out with remote in hand.  It was very tricky, and took a long time.  We were freezing cold and shivering.  My lips were blue.  I reached back and squeezed my hair, which I wear tied back, and the water came out like a faucet!  

After another 45 minutes of intensely difficult driving we came across a fallen tree.  BletJaw had to get out and hack it up with the machete and move it off the road!  It is still raining. 

We shivered for 4 hours while driving all the way to Omkoi.  This area is at a higher altitude than BYT and it was very cold!   (There is no heat in any vehicle in Thailand).  I told BletJaw that he was going to drop me off at the small market type shops that sell clothes, as soon as we get to Omkoi.  I would buy us both something warm and dry no matter what it looked like!  He heartily agreed.  I bought a pair of pants, skirt, and hooded jacket for myself and pants, shirt and hooded jacket for BletJaw all for $42.  I was so cold that after the purchase I ran to the back of the shop where the trash and cardboard boxes are, and changed my clothes.  (No fitting rooms here for sure)! Oh how wonderful the dry clothes felt!  Of course they were to get wet again because it is still raining!!  All day long it rained.  I found out after 3 days of rain, that this is a storm that had come up from Cambodia.  

DJ got his cyst cut off successfully and we made our way back to MeDuGlow. 

We decide that we could not make it back to BYT that day.  The rain had not let up!  We stayed in MDG with some people that DJ and his wife knew.  They treated us very well.  The lady asked me to do worship that night.  It was Friday night.  She fed us rice and pumpkin, and gave me a lovely thick blanket to sleep under!!  I was finally warm!  Toasty warm!  Oh how delicious is that?!  I slept, even though my face was still hurting.  I will reassure you that it only hurts because of the location of the bite.  This tick does not hurt like the last one I got on my chest, that hurt for 4 weeks!  Thankfully!  Some of the ticks here can really really hurt. If this tick carries scrub typhus, I will know in 10-12 days. If I get a fever during that time, I know exactly what to take!  I will catch it right away!  Don't worry.  I think it is feeling a little bit better now, even though I have to blink my eyes very slowly and gently!

The kind lady in MeDuGlow gave me a beautiful knee, (Skirt) that she had made!  Plus she had me to worship again on Sabbath morning!  I did a shorter version of the sermon that I had planned to preach in BYT.  I am sure the people present have never heard of this Bible story and the love of Jesus.  I know God put us there for a reason.

By Sabbath afternoon it had stopped raining!  We decided to tackle the mud again!  BletJaw told me on the way back that he was thinking about our guardian angels.  He was so happy there were 4 of them with us - one for each of us.  He knew they were pushing us up the hills, and holding us back, going down.  He said that is all we need is for the angel to just blow a little and we will make it up!  He is right! I told him that I am sure they are blowing right now!!  He would not agree with me, but he has developed into an excellent driver.  He humbly prays and trusts God all the way! I am so thankful for him.

When we came to the first place where we had been stuck, there was a truck stuck in the same ditch!  He had been there since the night before. 

The bulldozer came to get him out while we waited.  We could not drive past him because we would have hit him.  The angle of the road was cambered towards him, and close on the other side was a steep ravine!

We discovered that the bulldozer was there because a group of student monks and their teachers had visited the BYT school and were trying to leave that day. Because they are such VIP's, the tractor was hired to accompany them out safely! It sure helped us get back in that day!   

Finally we got home, still cold, thirsty, hungry and tired.  

PS.   1.  We did not get a cold or pneumonia from our exposure to the cold!                           Praise the Lord.

         2.  My eye swelled up, got red and puss filled.  I used Terramycin ointment,                then 16 days later I had an opportunity to see an ophthalmologist in                        MaeSot.  She treated me with lots of drops and medicine for "dirty                          eyes" and an infection.  I'll be back to normal shortly.