Don’t Drink the Turpentine!
And this, my friends, is photographic proof of my first ever foreign hospital visit.
Short story – there I was minding my own business when I took a drink of what I thought was water to quench my sunny-Italian-spring induced thirst. Turns out the bottle did not contain water so much as it contained turpentine. Somehow I managed a pretty good swallow of the caustic stuff and after a series of conflicting advice from random folks (drink some milk … no, drink some water … no, drink some soda … no, eat some yogurt … no, eat some bread … no, don’t drink or eat anything at all … just vomit … whatever you do, don’t vomit … get to the doctor right now you fool! …. oh you’ll be fine, just have some wine …) I ended up in the hospital via train and my very first ambulance ride, foreign or otherwise.
After downing a delicious gourmet glass of charcoal and having copious amounts of blood drawn from my wrists over the course of a few nauseous hours, I was declared fit to be discharged. However, the official hospital discharge wasn’t so much where my adventure ended as where it took a seriously ill (but assuredly normal) turn that left me spewing an atrocious medley of turpentine and charcoal all over the streets and cafe bathrooms between the hospital and the train station.
Instead of continuing on with an increasingly graphic description of what happened next, let me just leave you with this piece of wisdom – boys and girls, whatever you do, don’t drink the turpentine.
April 30th, 2010 at 3:27 pm
That’s a pretty smile considering the predicament you’re in there! I dunno, first travel day from hell, first foreign hospital visit complete with ambulance ride … hmmmm. Definitely a trip full of adventures, and not of the nice kinds! VERY glad you’re ok and have friends around to help you when needed! And very glad we got to talk to you before reading/seeing this adventure.
April 30th, 2010 at 9:41 pm
holy adventure indeed!
May 1st, 2010 at 12:04 am
ahh Jodie Mae…there’s nothing like a good shot of charcoal to cure all evils! I bet you’ll be smelling those water bottles before guzzling from now on!
May 3rd, 2010 at 1:49 am
you can drag a dead pony to water but you can’t make him drink
May 3rd, 2010 at 12:44 pm
That sounds absolutely horrible! I once was served a nice cold glass of vinegar complete with ice cubes right here in Fort St. John! I can only imagine that perhaps the restaurant was purging their lines with the stuff and hadn’t completed the process before pouring my water…you know I didn’t even get a free meal out of it!
May 3rd, 2010 at 3:11 pm
Holy cow – i’m glad ur not a smoker; KaBoom… Sorry, hope ur allright – sounds kinda awful. Whats the taste, btw?
May 3rd, 2011 at 7:50 pm
haha, awesome