My First Ever Trip to the Hospital: Part 1

I wanted to name this entry, “Five days in a Hospital, hooked up to stuff with all kinds of tests, and I still don’t have a diagnosis…what’s up with that?” But that seemed a tad long.

One of my friends got into a rather serious motorcycle accident. So serious that she had to cancel her trip abroad. I was feeling on the mend, only six more days of antibiotics! so I decided to go visit her. She wasn’t really conscious so I didn’t stay long, just enough to talk to her relatives and find out the extent of her condition. The next day, I woke up with the measles.

At least I think it was the measles. Or more accurately, I think it was Rubella, the German Measles. I mean, what happened is that I had a cough that day, then I spent all night in a fever, and when I woke up there were all these little red bumps on my face. I was like “Man, God, why are you sending me a rain of pimples? What did I do to deserve that?” But Ibu Laksmi insisted I go straight to a lab to get my blood tested for one of the various mosquito diseases people seem to get here. It came back negative. I spent the rest of the day in bed, waiting for the fever to go away. Sometime after lunch, I decided to change my clothes in the hopes that I would feel better. I looked in the mirror, and was instantly horrified. My face was absolutely covered in red bumps. It was ghastly. I lifted my shirt, exposing my belly…and immediately dropped the cloth again…more bumps! After a frantic examination, I discovered there wasn’t an inch of my body, (oh, well, except for my feet,) that wasn’t infected.

Ibu Laksmi came home from work when I whimpered to her that there was something wrong. Much to my surprise, she assured me that I was fine and this was absolutely normal. All the red bumps were just a special Indonesian sign that my fever was going away and I would feel better soon. As soon as she left again, I took matters into my own hands. Somehow, her explanation had not eased my panic. Via text message, Ethan from Solo told me that I should find myself a good doctor in Jakarta and get the heck out of Bandung before I caught any other weird diseases.

Jakarta was a good idea, but not practical. I could barely stand, let alone get on a train by myself. As soon as I got the ok from Nelly, the Fulbright coordinator in Jakarta, I checked into the local hospital. Now, this particular hospital was run by seventh-day-Adventists, and that is a whole story in itself. Do you know that they keep the Sabbath? This prevents anyone from checking out on a Saturday. Sucks to be you if you want to go home on that day. They also keep kosher foods, and all the old Jewish laws. Now, I do realize that Jesus did say in one of the good gospels that he wasn’t coming to destroy the law, but to uphold it, but he also said way more frequently, and so did Paul repeatedly in his letters, that its not the signs of the faith that are important, but the faith itself. And it’s directly stated that as such, there is no need for fasting, circumcision, avoidance of certain foods, etc. So, if a learned Christian that has studied in some kind of accredited Seminary feels so inclined, feel free to comment on this, and clarify to all us non-learned peoples. Otherwise I’m tempted to believe that those good Gentiles are misguided into upholding the law for the sake of show, and setting themselves apart from the greater community of Christian believers. I also apologize in advance if this is coming across as very cynical, but in my defense, they never did give me a diagnosis. On the other hand, I did very much enjoy the pastor coming to pray with me every day, and all the musicians who came to sing me hymns while I was confined to my bed. I also got to read the Bible a lot. And the pastor told me not to convert to Islam, so there you have it.