A LOT OF GOOD INFO. ON THIS FORUM  

Thank you for the compliment! I hope it helps if your planning on relocating to hear, and it's wonderful, i love it, and wouldn't hesitate to do it all again. There are things I miss, but here their are nothing but new adventures and sights taht I feel lucky enough to have been able to see and do, and with only 5 -6 months under my belt, plenty more to see and do! What a wonderful Kingdom Thailand is! I love it! To view pictures please visit my face book page, type in jami badala, and you should be able to find me, from the USA, and now living in Thailand full time!  

Tavit, remember talking about hitting the 6000 mark as per readership? You just brought it to my attention that we hit 19,000 + readers!( The forum on "Moving from the USA to Thailand any Info, by liljammii) Somehow I lost the log in info and had to start this forum on " need advice on move from the USA." ( for you readers, i had another forum going till I lost my password and could not find my way back to the original one.) I guess you can say we have a lot of followers, and need to pick up where we left off! I have been to Thailand, and it was one of the greatest adventures of my life. I will need to back track, look at my picture's and start from there. We have almost 2 years gone by since I set foot in Thailand, and have a lot of info for expats wanting to know how myself and Frankie made out. I guess that would be the easiest way to describe our travels, experience's, meeting you, Affinity1( Tavit) your lovely wife and son. I was hoping to meet your daughter, but she was away at school in Brazil.
Anyway, I'm going to leave off here for now, look at my picture's and start the tale on my setting foot in Thailand. I'm not much of a writer or storyteller, but I will try my best to give every detail that I can think of for the people who are thinking about doing the move. Till Than, sa wat de ka, Jami  

I just saw that this is the original thread that I started, after going back to the beginning, so for all you who are reading this, I was thinking this was the 2nd thread I started in my husbands name, as at he time, I somehow lost my log in information, and couldn't find my way back to it. We have 19,000+ readers, where the one I posted under my husbands name frankiebad, I think, it's been a while, but there aren't as many readers on that site, as it started where I left off. I hope I'm not confusing anyone, I know I'm confusing me, lol, but I'll get on with the rest of the story as soon as I look at my picture's, as they are my journal of life in Thailand!  

I don't know where to start about my move to Thailand. As I write this I'm back in the United States, not by wanting to move back or bad experiences, as all was great in the Land Of Smiles. My husband and I moved back due to my health, I ended up in the hospital December 30th of 2010, and was operated on New Years Eve,2010. I was in for 7 days before being discharged, I had appendicitis, a bad attack, and they removed it. Talk about service, I was in " Mission International Hospital, Phuket ", and I was treated very well. I may as well finish this episode before telling about our life in Thailand. As I was experiencing a lot of pain, I went to the Doctor first, can't remember the name as The clinics there are walk in, and he treated me for different things he thought was wrong, nothing which helped, so a friend of mine suggested we go to the hospital. I went to Bangkok Hospital, in Phuket, another international hospital. There, I was put through some test, x-rays, I think I had an MRI also, not to sure anymore about that, but I do remember the colostomy, where they view your insides from the "bottom" and go up inside, also, they did a scope down my throat to view the inside of me. I was hooked to an IV, so as they wheeled me in for these test, I was thinking that they were going to put me to sleep, as they do here in the States. Was I wrong !! First, the scope down my throat, which they did spray something to numb me, but no going to sleep medicine. I was still thinking after that test, that they were going to knock me out, when I was told to roll onto my side, waiting to "go to sleep" when they started to put the scope up my butt, I was mortified, and scared to death, as I had this done before and I was asleep, but not here!!! As they started the journey up my butt, I started to scream, literately, and they kept telling me to lay still, this wasn't happening, laying still, I started to kick, and one of the orderly's grab a hold of my legs and held me still, or tried to, all the while the scope is in me, and starting to probe my insides, I already had plenty of pain, but this was the worse pain I have ever in my life felt. I think it took about 4 minutes to finish the test, all the while I was yelling and crying out with pain, and screaming for them to stop. Finally it was over, and I was mad, but even though I was in an international hospital, and was expressing my anger, some of my words weren't understood, or if they were, I was ignored. I was put in recovery, where my husband was waiting, and when I finally settled down and explained what had transpired, he asked me why I didn't make them put me to sleep before all the test. First of all, I expected to be put to sleep, but that's not how they do it in Asia!! And by the time I knew what was happening it was to late, and they wouldn't listen to me when I screamed to stop!! Anyway, I was admitted, and came to find out from the x-rays and the pictures they had from the scope, that i was inflamed and needed surgery right away, as I would burst if I didn't. We discussed price with the hospital, payable up front, and it was around 38000 bht ( $12,000 USD) to be paid directly on my admittance. We discussed flying me home, so our insurance would cover the surgery, but I was told I couldn't fly, due to the nature of the problem. So we than discussed payments, no payments allowed, and surgery wasn't an option at this time, it was a "have to have it". Than 1 of the doctors said there was another international hospital, that could be cheaper, the calls were made, and I was loaded into an ambulance, and taken to Mission. My total bill for the 7 days, including the surgery, doctors, everything that here in the States would have been your first born, cost us a total of 25000bht ( $8,000) I was very grateful and Thankful, that they did put me to sleep for the surgery!!!! I made sure of it, as never again was I going to take for granted something that we do here for the convenience and comfort of the patient. And the pain meds are cut off after the second or third day, another thing I was discouraged about because I was in pain. They did give me morphine the first 2 or 3 days, but after that it was a non opioid drug, which did little or nothing. here again something we take for granted in the States. I can say they were very attentive to my needs, and did everything to make me fell comfortable. I had a TV in my room with cable, but all they had on for an english speaking person was old programing from back in the day, wild kingdom, I can't remember all that was on, but they did have wifi, so my lap top came in handy. The other thing that was an eye opener, the woman aids would come in and hand wash me, and I mean everywhere,, not just my upper body, the first day I refused with some excuse when I saw what they were getting ready to do, but than I told myself that it was the custom, and to go with it, so I held my breath while they washed my private places, that normally only I washed, ( or my hubby). I had a bag on for my fluids( forget what it's called)and had to keep it on till I could move my bowels, which was hard to do, because of the pain of squeezing and my stomach muscles tightening up. here again, a hard thing to do when your over a bed pan with an aid holding you and the pan in place. The only other thing I should mention. is the mattress of the hospital bed. Very Hard!!!! 1 thing about Asian culture is I think they believe a hard bed is good for your posture, I don't know, but I do know I had a hard time getting comfortable, what with the pain, the tubes running around my legs, the monitors hooked up to me and the hard pillow and mattress. I couldn't wait to get out and return to my condo.

So.... When in Thailand, If you have a medical emergency, make sure you have enough cash to cover the expense should you not be able to get back home( I wonder what happens if you can't pay) always ask what there procedures are before allowing them to treat you, and make sure it's something you approve of! Expect to be treated great, but know the customs are different than you'd expect in your home country, the beds are hard and the food, I forgot to mention, you don't get a choice, and I was OK with the evening meal, but the breakfast left little to be desired, as sometimes I didn't know what it was, always rice with some kind of meat, juice, lunch was a little better, fruits, some kind of vegetables, and rice, dinner was more like a meal you'd buy or make for yourself when in another country. My husband brought me a lot of Mc Donalds while I was recuperating. Oh, and I did have my own room that was like a little hotel room, and a bed for those staying with you overnight. I didn't have to request it. The best part, was we turned our bills into our insurance company, we have United Health Care/Blue Cross Blue Shield, and they sent it to World Blue Cross Blue Shield, and they reimbursed us most of what we paid, and it took only about a month to receive their check!

After my release from the hospital, all was well for about a week. Recovering at home was a blessing after being cooped up in the hospital. But now there were other hardships! I was housebound. We lived in a beautiful 2nd floor condo, overlooking the pool. BUT.... this was all built on a small mountain that ran down to the sea. So everything was either coming up a hill, or going down a hill. There wasn't an elevator to get you up and down, just your steps, and get to our condo, there were 2 flights, underground parking was the first floor, so we had steps to get up but when your stitched up, stairs can be very painful going up and down. Also the pool was situated on the long hill coming down the center of the complex, there were 4 levels to the pool, with a waterfall or wall separating the levels of one pool flowing into the next level. To get to the pool, it was down 2 flights of steps, than a stone path down a hill, than stepping stones down the next hill, that went to the first level of the pool. A very hard task to do, when just walking hurts. Going anywhere in town was out of question, as we had motorbikes as transportation. So... I became very bored and became very depressed. There is only so much TV you can watch, computer stuff to do, so I think I was down and out of commission for about 2 months, And I'm sure your wondering why! We lived on a side of a mountain, and when I say it was all hills, up and down, you have to have some leg power to get you up and down and good balance. Surgery makes you weak, and I was afraid of falling, as I did once when I wasn't paying attention to where I was stepping, and that was pre surgery. LOL ( coming up the stepping stones from the pool, I tripped and boom, down I went) During my recovery period I couldn't even eat what I wanted as My husband would go to the market where we'd get our evening meal, and bring me something he thought I'd like, sometimes yes and sometimes no, but I just couldn't verbally tell him what I wanted because we were still learning what we liked or didn't like. I ate a lot of $9.00 Kraft macaroni and cheese during that time," imported food " and lots of sprite, the only soda they had other than coke! I was very dependent on my husband which isn't me. I think the first I started getting out was April, 3 months to be fully recovered, to ride the motorbike with out being in pain. As I said earlier in this post, no medicines for pain other than OTC's. So life comes to a standstill.

If I had to do this all over again, I would, it wasn't bad at all, just a little different than what I'm use to, but it was a learning experience, and if you plan on going to Thailand, make sure you have your plan ready should this happen to you.

That was the worse of living in Thailand, and part of why were back in the USA, I never did fully recover, but was able to enjoy living in Phuket, Kamala,Thailand . I'll talk more about how we ended up back here, but the fun things we did, the things we saw, we learned about are next. This is about what Thailand is all about, and my next entry will be the start of the amazing things we did and know about and many looking to travel or move there may want to know from my personal experience.

Stay tuned... I'm not regular when writing here, but I'll try to be more consistent! Thanks for reading!!!!

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