I am inserting a slideshow because I've included some gory pictures of my face that some people might not want to encounter while they are reading. There is a warning slide before the gory part starts in case anyone wants to see the pictures up to that point.
The accident happened about 10 days into our trip. We got up early that morning so we could be at Ankor Wat, the largest tourist destination in Cambodia, at sunrise. Our driver Sophorn, whom we had hired the night before to take us around that day, picked us up at our hotel in his tuk tuk. Going to see the sun rise at Ankor Wat is the thing to do. There were tons of tourists, most of them Asian. We were amused because three Cambodian men who were sitting near us waiting for the sunrise were bundled in their jackets, discussing the cold weather. It was probably in the low 70s, but Matt said that was as cold as it gets in Cambodia. In the days following our accident, Cambodians would see me all bandaged up and hobbling around and would ask what happened. Matt would tell them and they would give their sympathies and add "and in the cold season too!" as though that added insult to injury. We thought that was pretty funny.
We spent a couple of hours at Ankor Wat that morning while Sophorn had fun playing hacky-sack and hanging out with other drivers while he waited for us.
After the main temple complex, Sophorn drove us to a couple other little temples for a brief visit. Then we set off for a mountain named Kabal Spean that had some ancient river bed carvings Matt had been wanting to see for a long time. We planned to return to Ankor Wat that evening for my benefit (Matt has seen it multiple times). We expected it to take about an hour driving through the country side to reach the mountain. I was really enjoying the ride in the open-air. The country side was so pretty and so interesting with lots of huts lining the road and beautiful rice fields.
It was not a good driving day for Sophorn. It wasn't long before he was pulled over by the traffic police. A station was set up near a tiny section of road that was designated as a one-way street. Sophorn went the wrong way down it and got a ticket. Matt was worried the police were going to try to extort a payment from us, but they didn't. Sophorn borrowed $2 from us to pay the ticket. A little later he borrowed a bit from us for some gas from the side of the road. This was all to be paid back once we paid him for his day of service. Sophorn had nothing but that tuk tuk and motorcycle. He was just living day to day.
Multiple times I saw little tiny kids pedaling these big grown up bikes. Most of the time we were speeding by too past for me to get a good picture, but finally I was able to get one.
We reached the turn of to Kabal Spean. I took a picture of the sign indicating the turn off, just seconds before the accident. It is an eerie picture to look back on now. As Sophorn pulled into the middle of the road to make the left turn, I heard Matt say "We are going to get hit. It's coming. It's coming." His voice was very calm.
A pick-up truck was trying to pass us on the left at full speed when Sophorn pulled into the middle of the road. Sophorn didn't look behind us to make sure no one was coming, and he didn't have a signal on his tuk tuk. The truck hit the breaks but could not stop in time. We were hit on the back left corner of the tuk tuk, the part I was sitting in. The tuk tuk was pushed forward through the air and then tipped on its left side, dumping us on the ground. The truck was rendered undriveable. Matt and I never got a look at the tuk tuk after that to see how it fared.
The impact was very loud, though I didn't remember at first. It took an incident where I teared up after a loud crashing noise a few weeks later to remember the sound. I vaguely remember the feeling of being propelled forward after we were hit, but I don't remember going from the upright position to ending up on the ground. It happened so quickly, it felt like I was suddenly transported to the asphalt.
I had landed face-down on the road. I lifted my head up and I was dripping blood. Matt later saw a large pool of blood at the spot where my face had been. I checked my teeth with my tongue and was relieved to find them all there. I knew I was hurt, but I didn't really know what my injuries were. My body was pinned to the ground by the tuk tuk. I tried to struggle for just a moment, but it there was no way I was getting myself out. I couldn't budge it at all. I wasn't in pain, but I knew I wanted that thing off of me as quickly as possible. I have a permanent dent in one of my legs where it pinned me.
We still aren't sure the mechanics of the whole accident, but Matt was able to stand up off the ground immediately afterward. We think he probably fell on top of me, and that may account for his lack of injury. I like to say that I saved his life. :) He stood up he looked down at himself and found that he had a little bit of road rash. He wasn't alarmed until he looked over and saw that I was laying face down on the ground. I heard Matt's voice say "Sweetie, are you okay?" He told me he leaned down over me and put his hand on my back. My impulse was to say "NO" because I was upset about being pinned down, but I knew I was alive and okay and I didn't want to upset Matt so I said, "Yeah, I think so, but I need this tuk tuk off me now." Matt was relieved when I answered him because he hadn't seen me move. When he heard my voice, he knew everything was going to be okay.
I noticed that I couldn't see at all out of my left eye--it was completely dark. I wondered if it was because my eye was covered in blood. I wiped at my eye to make sure it was clear, and I still couldn't see. Several minutes later I noticed the vision had returned. The initial shock of the head trauma must have caused it.
It seemed like I was trapped under the tuk tuk for a long time, but Matt says it was probably less than 30 seconds before a man came and lifted it off me. We later found out that it was the driver of the truck that had hit us who lifted it off.
There were people along the road side that came to our aid. After the tuk tuk was moved off of me, people helped me to sit up. I couldn't understand what they were saying of course but I heard Matt say "they want you to lie back, they want you to lie back--lie back, they are trying to help you" I resisted because a lot of blood was running down the back of my throat and I knew that lying back could increase the flow. I said "I can't, I'm gonna choke" Matt asked them if they would move me from the middle of the road. They helped me up, and moved me to the edge of the road where I sat back down. Again, they tried to get me to lay down, and I had no idea why at the time. The best they could get me to do was to lean back. Matt told me later that they wanted me to lie back so they could pour medicine over my wounds. Cambodians keep an oil mixture around that has menthol and cinnamon and other things. They use this oil mixture to treat just about everything. When I leaned back, they poured the oil over my injury. I couldn't feel it at all and had no idea that was what they were doing. Then someone handed me a t-shirt. Matt told me they wanted me to hold the t-shirt on my face and not take it off, and so I did. I thought that was better advice. I found out later it was a sweaty t-shirt that Sophorn had in his backpack, but it did the job.
While people were looking after me, there was also a man looking after Matt. He had Matt bend down so he could pour some oil on a head gash that Matt had which was bleeding badly.
It was while we were both being tended to that Matt saw my facial injuries. Someone said "look at her eye" and he looked over at my face and saw a deep gash that went through my eyebrow and one that went down through my forehead. He didn't get a good look at it because my face was soon covered with the t-shirt.
As soon as possible, Matt gave me a priesthood blessing. I was so grateful that he thought of doing that for me. The blessing was short, and he blessed me that I would have minimal scarring and that I would be able to feel patient until we could get to the hospital. It was comforting then and during my recovery. I definitely think it was fulfilled.
After the blessing, I realized that I probably had significant facial trauma. Matt had such a calming demeanor though. He smiled and said in an upbeat way "Sweetie, we are going to need to take you to the hospital, you are going to need a few stitches on your eyebrow and your nose." He was careful not to cause me anxiety or stress.
I asked Matt if he would find my camera. It had been in my hands at the time of impact. He found it on the road without problem and retrieved it for me. I would have been heartbroken if I had lost our pictures. It wasn't damaged or even dinged up very badly, though the case now has blood spots on it. Sadly, I lost the little book that I had been using to keep track of my Cambodian vocabulary and the Cambodian lessons that Matt taught me. It must have flown out of my pocket.
Matt was able to find a bystander who owned a car and he agreed to take us to the hospital. People helped me walk over to the car. I felt lightheaded and weak and I'm not sure if I would have been able to walk on my own. Matt and I got in the backseat of the car, with me in the center. The driver's wife then got in the back seat, and not very delicately. She rammed herself in next to me, bumping me and jostling me, which I didn't appreciate, but she was a total character and kept things interesting, so I forgave her.
I wasn't in a lot of physical pain as long as I didn't try to move around, but I was physically uncomfortable and also very mentally uncomfortable. It was hard to feel patient knowing that we had an uncertain journey ahead of us to get to the hospital with my face in the condition it was, and then knowing that there would be painful poking and prodding once we got there before I would be able to really rest. Matt was good about about describing the conversations that were going on in the car to keep me distracted.
We were worried about Sophorn though. Until we got in the car, we hadn't had any contact with him. He kept his eyes closed and was moaning quietly. One of his legs was in pain and a bystander had declared it broken.
While in the car I also had some time to think about suffering. I had been reading a book about life under the Khmer Rouge and had just seen in person the gruesome high school prison and a famous killing field outside of Phnom Penh. The sufferings of the Cambodians were fresh on my mind. It really blew me away that any Cambodian I saw that was my age or older had suffered so greatly. I thought about how if I had been under the Khmer Rouge regime and had an accident like this I would probably be forced to go straight back to hard labor in the fields or be killed. I thought about how minor my little bit of suffering was with this accident, particularly in comparison with what happened to the Cambodians. Then I thought about how the Cambodians suffering, as great as it was, was not as great as what Christ suffered for us during the atonement.
Matt was concerned about the possibility of us getting in another accident on the way to the hospital because the driver was going so fast. Something else happened instead. Several minutes into our travel the car began to make strange noises and Matt said "oh no, the car has broken down." And Matt was right. It soon lost power and slowed to a stop. The driver asked Matt if he had any money so he could get his car towed. Matt gave him some money, probably $20. It was a bad time for a breakdown, to say the least.
Matt left the car so he could find some help. When he returned, he said there was an ambulance on the way. He found someone with a cell phone who called for one.
The ambulance arrived and I got to have another behind-the-scenes tourist experience. I'm not sure how Sophorn got in the ambulance, but I had to climb in. There were two stretchers that Sophorn and I laid on. The ambulance worker took the t-shirt off of my head and wrapped me in some gauze. It was a bumpy ride on a bumpy road. The worker held Sophorn securely. I was able to hold myself on the stretcher without trouble, and Matt was also there if I needed him. An unconscious or severely injured person could have been bounced right off onto the floor if someone wasn't there to hold them on. The stretchers had no belts to secure patients on with. I asked for a blanket because I was cold, but they didn't have one. I don't think they really had much of anything. But we weren't worried about those things. I was more comfortable laying down in the ambulance than sitting up in the car and it was good to know that the ambulance would be able to turn its lights on and travel faster through traffic than a car could once we reached town.
I told Matt that under no circumstances should anybody be allowed to give me an injection in the Cambodian ambulance, and he completely agreed. The most common method for hepatitis C to be spread in many third world countries is through medical injections with unsanitary needles. This fact was burned into my mind because I had recently done a couple of big projects at work involving hepatitis C. Matt had told me that Cambodians love injections. If they have a cold, they'll go to their doctor and get some IV fluids. I could picture them wanting to give me something intravenously. I'm not sure what the other infectious possibilities could have been, but I didn't want to take any chances. Sophorn kept his eyes closed and continued to moan occasionally. They eventually gave Sophorn a big shot of something in the arm.
The ambulance took us to the hospital it was associated with. The ambulance personnel tried to convince Matt that we should be treated there. It was a Cambodian hospital, and there is no telling what it would have been like. There are some really scary Cambodian hospitals. It was a blessing that Matt brought a tourist guide of Siem Reap with us on our excursion because it noted that there was a hospital with international standards, an extension of a Thai hospital, in Siem Reap. Not surprising since Ankor Wat is the biggest tourist destination in Cambodia. Matt had be very stern to convince the ambulance driver to take us to the Thai hospital. They insisted that we pay them before they would take us. Matt was very frustrated because this was an emergency and Matt wanted to get me help as soon as possible.
After Matt paid and filled out some paper work, we were taken to the Thai hospital. In the end, It took about an hour to get there. Not bad considering how far out in the countryside we had been and also the car break down that had occurred. That hospital was an amazing blessing. If the accident had happened on some legs of the trip, we would have been forced to take our chances at whatever facility was available, quite possibly with substandard sanitation and poorly trained staff.
I wasn't given any general anesthetic or pain medication during the surgery. I am guessing that if I had been in the United States I would have been given IV sedation and wouldn't have been conscious for the surgery.
The doctor wasn't kidding when he said he was going to have someone come in and take pictures. A man with a very nice looking camera showed up right before the surgery started and took pictures the whole time. In the end, I was given a CD with about 70 pictures for my souvenir in fulfillment of our request. I remember him taking several pictures at moments when my face was all contorted with pain and thinking what a doozy of a picture that was going to be. The photographer clearly edited out all of the pictures where I looked like I was in distress before making the photo CD for me, however. On the CD, I look serene and content in all 70 pictures. But that wasn't the case. At any rate, I'm glad the picture guy took his assignment seriously because I would never have known what my injuries were like.
The accident happened about 10 days into our trip. We got up early that morning so we could be at Ankor Wat, the largest tourist destination in Cambodia, at sunrise. Our driver Sophorn, whom we had hired the night before to take us around that day, picked us up at our hotel in his tuk tuk. Going to see the sun rise at Ankor Wat is the thing to do. There were tons of tourists, most of them Asian. We were amused because three Cambodian men who were sitting near us waiting for the sunrise were bundled in their jackets, discussing the cold weather. It was probably in the low 70s, but Matt said that was as cold as it gets in Cambodia. In the days following our accident, Cambodians would see me all bandaged up and hobbling around and would ask what happened. Matt would tell them and they would give their sympathies and add "and in the cold season too!" as though that added insult to injury. We thought that was pretty funny.
We spent a couple of hours at Ankor Wat that morning while Sophorn had fun playing hacky-sack and hanging out with other drivers while he waited for us.
After the main temple complex, Sophorn drove us to a couple other little temples for a brief visit. Then we set off for a mountain named Kabal Spean that had some ancient river bed carvings Matt had been wanting to see for a long time. We planned to return to Ankor Wat that evening for my benefit (Matt has seen it multiple times). We expected it to take about an hour driving through the country side to reach the mountain. I was really enjoying the ride in the open-air. The country side was so pretty and so interesting with lots of huts lining the road and beautiful rice fields.
It was not a good driving day for Sophorn. It wasn't long before he was pulled over by the traffic police. A station was set up near a tiny section of road that was designated as a one-way street. Sophorn went the wrong way down it and got a ticket. Matt was worried the police were going to try to extort a payment from us, but they didn't. Sophorn borrowed $2 from us to pay the ticket. A little later he borrowed a bit from us for some gas from the side of the road. This was all to be paid back once we paid him for his day of service. Sophorn had nothing but that tuk tuk and motorcycle. He was just living day to day.
Multiple times I saw little tiny kids pedaling these big grown up bikes. Most of the time we were speeding by too past for me to get a good picture, but finally I was able to get one.
We reached the turn of to Kabal Spean. I took a picture of the sign indicating the turn off, just seconds before the accident. It is an eerie picture to look back on now. As Sophorn pulled into the middle of the road to make the left turn, I heard Matt say "We are going to get hit. It's coming. It's coming." His voice was very calm.
A pick-up truck was trying to pass us on the left at full speed when Sophorn pulled into the middle of the road. Sophorn didn't look behind us to make sure no one was coming, and he didn't have a signal on his tuk tuk. The truck hit the breaks but could not stop in time. We were hit on the back left corner of the tuk tuk, the part I was sitting in. The tuk tuk was pushed forward through the air and then tipped on its left side, dumping us on the ground. The truck was rendered undriveable. Matt and I never got a look at the tuk tuk after that to see how it fared.
The impact was very loud, though I didn't remember at first. It took an incident where I teared up after a loud crashing noise a few weeks later to remember the sound. I vaguely remember the feeling of being propelled forward after we were hit, but I don't remember going from the upright position to ending up on the ground. It happened so quickly, it felt like I was suddenly transported to the asphalt.
I had landed face-down on the road. I lifted my head up and I was dripping blood. Matt later saw a large pool of blood at the spot where my face had been. I checked my teeth with my tongue and was relieved to find them all there. I knew I was hurt, but I didn't really know what my injuries were. My body was pinned to the ground by the tuk tuk. I tried to struggle for just a moment, but it there was no way I was getting myself out. I couldn't budge it at all. I wasn't in pain, but I knew I wanted that thing off of me as quickly as possible. I have a permanent dent in one of my legs where it pinned me.
We still aren't sure the mechanics of the whole accident, but Matt was able to stand up off the ground immediately afterward. We think he probably fell on top of me, and that may account for his lack of injury. I like to say that I saved his life. :) He stood up he looked down at himself and found that he had a little bit of road rash. He wasn't alarmed until he looked over and saw that I was laying face down on the ground. I heard Matt's voice say "Sweetie, are you okay?" He told me he leaned down over me and put his hand on my back. My impulse was to say "NO" because I was upset about being pinned down, but I knew I was alive and okay and I didn't want to upset Matt so I said, "Yeah, I think so, but I need this tuk tuk off me now." Matt was relieved when I answered him because he hadn't seen me move. When he heard my voice, he knew everything was going to be okay.
I noticed that I couldn't see at all out of my left eye--it was completely dark. I wondered if it was because my eye was covered in blood. I wiped at my eye to make sure it was clear, and I still couldn't see. Several minutes later I noticed the vision had returned. The initial shock of the head trauma must have caused it.
It seemed like I was trapped under the tuk tuk for a long time, but Matt says it was probably less than 30 seconds before a man came and lifted it off me. We later found out that it was the driver of the truck that had hit us who lifted it off.
There were people along the road side that came to our aid. After the tuk tuk was moved off of me, people helped me to sit up. I couldn't understand what they were saying of course but I heard Matt say "they want you to lie back, they want you to lie back--lie back, they are trying to help you" I resisted because a lot of blood was running down the back of my throat and I knew that lying back could increase the flow. I said "I can't, I'm gonna choke" Matt asked them if they would move me from the middle of the road. They helped me up, and moved me to the edge of the road where I sat back down. Again, they tried to get me to lay down, and I had no idea why at the time. The best they could get me to do was to lean back. Matt told me later that they wanted me to lie back so they could pour medicine over my wounds. Cambodians keep an oil mixture around that has menthol and cinnamon and other things. They use this oil mixture to treat just about everything. When I leaned back, they poured the oil over my injury. I couldn't feel it at all and had no idea that was what they were doing. Then someone handed me a t-shirt. Matt told me they wanted me to hold the t-shirt on my face and not take it off, and so I did. I thought that was better advice. I found out later it was a sweaty t-shirt that Sophorn had in his backpack, but it did the job.
While people were looking after me, there was also a man looking after Matt. He had Matt bend down so he could pour some oil on a head gash that Matt had which was bleeding badly.
It was while we were both being tended to that Matt saw my facial injuries. Someone said "look at her eye" and he looked over at my face and saw a deep gash that went through my eyebrow and one that went down through my forehead. He didn't get a good look at it because my face was soon covered with the t-shirt.
As soon as possible, Matt gave me a priesthood blessing. I was so grateful that he thought of doing that for me. The blessing was short, and he blessed me that I would have minimal scarring and that I would be able to feel patient until we could get to the hospital. It was comforting then and during my recovery. I definitely think it was fulfilled.
After the blessing, I realized that I probably had significant facial trauma. Matt had such a calming demeanor though. He smiled and said in an upbeat way "Sweetie, we are going to need to take you to the hospital, you are going to need a few stitches on your eyebrow and your nose." He was careful not to cause me anxiety or stress.
I asked Matt if he would find my camera. It had been in my hands at the time of impact. He found it on the road without problem and retrieved it for me. I would have been heartbroken if I had lost our pictures. It wasn't damaged or even dinged up very badly, though the case now has blood spots on it. Sadly, I lost the little book that I had been using to keep track of my Cambodian vocabulary and the Cambodian lessons that Matt taught me. It must have flown out of my pocket.
Matt was able to find a bystander who owned a car and he agreed to take us to the hospital. People helped me walk over to the car. I felt lightheaded and weak and I'm not sure if I would have been able to walk on my own. Matt and I got in the backseat of the car, with me in the center. The driver's wife then got in the back seat, and not very delicately. She rammed herself in next to me, bumping me and jostling me, which I didn't appreciate, but she was a total character and kept things interesting, so I forgave her.
I wasn't in a lot of physical pain as long as I didn't try to move around, but I was physically uncomfortable and also very mentally uncomfortable. It was hard to feel patient knowing that we had an uncertain journey ahead of us to get to the hospital with my face in the condition it was, and then knowing that there would be painful poking and prodding once we got there before I would be able to really rest. Matt was good about about describing the conversations that were going on in the car to keep me distracted.
The driver's wife had been trying to get Sophorn to drink urine since before we got in the car. After the crash, Matt saw Sophorn laying sprawled on the road. He was laying so still that Matt was worried he was dead. There were no visible external injuries on Sophorn, but he was moaning a lot and definitely acting the most injured of anybody, so I think this is why the driver's wife was so concerned about him.
She claimed he would stop breathing if he didn't drink some urine and she was on quest to get him some. Matt declined her request to provide some pee for her bottle. Then she asked Sophorn himself to provide some pee. Sophorn also declined, saying that he couldn't pee. The fact he was so injured he couldn't even pee further proved to her the seriousness of Sophorn's condition, and increased her determination to find him some pee to drink. Her pee-drinking campaign continued in the car, and with Matt interpreting for me, it provided some distraction and entertainment.
We were worried about Sophorn though. Until we got in the car, we hadn't had any contact with him. He kept his eyes closed and was moaning quietly. One of his legs was in pain and a bystander had declared it broken.
While in the car I also had some time to think about suffering. I had been reading a book about life under the Khmer Rouge and had just seen in person the gruesome high school prison and a famous killing field outside of Phnom Penh. The sufferings of the Cambodians were fresh on my mind. It really blew me away that any Cambodian I saw that was my age or older had suffered so greatly. I thought about how if I had been under the Khmer Rouge regime and had an accident like this I would probably be forced to go straight back to hard labor in the fields or be killed. I thought about how minor my little bit of suffering was with this accident, particularly in comparison with what happened to the Cambodians. Then I thought about how the Cambodians suffering, as great as it was, was not as great as what Christ suffered for us during the atonement.
Matt was concerned about the possibility of us getting in another accident on the way to the hospital because the driver was going so fast. Something else happened instead. Several minutes into our travel the car began to make strange noises and Matt said "oh no, the car has broken down." And Matt was right. It soon lost power and slowed to a stop. The driver asked Matt if he had any money so he could get his car towed. Matt gave him some money, probably $20. It was a bad time for a breakdown, to say the least.
Matt left the car so he could find some help. When he returned, he said there was an ambulance on the way. He found someone with a cell phone who called for one.
The ambulance arrived and I got to have another behind-the-scenes tourist experience. I'm not sure how Sophorn got in the ambulance, but I had to climb in. There were two stretchers that Sophorn and I laid on. The ambulance worker took the t-shirt off of my head and wrapped me in some gauze. It was a bumpy ride on a bumpy road. The worker held Sophorn securely. I was able to hold myself on the stretcher without trouble, and Matt was also there if I needed him. An unconscious or severely injured person could have been bounced right off onto the floor if someone wasn't there to hold them on. The stretchers had no belts to secure patients on with. I asked for a blanket because I was cold, but they didn't have one. I don't think they really had much of anything. But we weren't worried about those things. I was more comfortable laying down in the ambulance than sitting up in the car and it was good to know that the ambulance would be able to turn its lights on and travel faster through traffic than a car could once we reached town.
I told Matt that under no circumstances should anybody be allowed to give me an injection in the Cambodian ambulance, and he completely agreed. The most common method for hepatitis C to be spread in many third world countries is through medical injections with unsanitary needles. This fact was burned into my mind because I had recently done a couple of big projects at work involving hepatitis C. Matt had told me that Cambodians love injections. If they have a cold, they'll go to their doctor and get some IV fluids. I could picture them wanting to give me something intravenously. I'm not sure what the other infectious possibilities could have been, but I didn't want to take any chances. Sophorn kept his eyes closed and continued to moan occasionally. They eventually gave Sophorn a big shot of something in the arm.
While in the ambulance, it really hit me that our lives had been spared, and I started to cry for the first time. Things could have been so much worse. We had said many prayers for protection before we left on our trip. I realized that we hadn't been forgotten--those prayers had been answered after all.
The ambulance took us to the hospital it was associated with. The ambulance personnel tried to convince Matt that we should be treated there. It was a Cambodian hospital, and there is no telling what it would have been like. There are some really scary Cambodian hospitals. It was a blessing that Matt brought a tourist guide of Siem Reap with us on our excursion because it noted that there was a hospital with international standards, an extension of a Thai hospital, in Siem Reap. Not surprising since Ankor Wat is the biggest tourist destination in Cambodia. Matt had be very stern to convince the ambulance driver to take us to the Thai hospital. They insisted that we pay them before they would take us. Matt was very frustrated because this was an emergency and Matt wanted to get me help as soon as possible.
This hospital was beautiful and sanitary, and not Cambodian. Thailand generally has a much higher standard of medical care. Another blessing was the doctor at the hospital who treated me. At that hospital, there was only one surgeon and he was only there part of the time. Some days, he was in Thailand. Thankfully, he was there that day. On top of that, his training was in microvascular surgery, so though he wasn't a plastic surgeon, we were grateful to have someone who was trained to do very delicate work operating on my face. I don't really know what would have happened to me if he hadn't been there.
He and the rest of the staff only spoke Thai, so neither Matt nor I could communicate with them freely. We talked with them in very basic, broken English.
I had blunt trauma injuries on my head/face, including a broken nose. I also had large areas of bruising and contusions on my body, banged up knees, and road rash on my legs and feet. Matt and some road rash and a gash on his head that bled a lot but he did not require any stitches. His most significant injury was whiplash.
Matt and I were separated and I was cared for by a rather strict Thai nurse. She cleaned up the road rash on my legs and feet where I had some deep wounds. That was painful. I can still remember which wound hurt the most! The doctor was wonderful though. A very kind-hearted and warm man. When he took the bandages off my head to see my facial trauma for the first time he made a sort of wincing face and shook his head. I took that as a bad sign, coming from a surgeon who is used to blood and guts.
Over the next couple of hours I was transferred to different rooms and onto different beds (the transfers were somewhat painful) to have various x-rays and CT scans done to check for broken bones and internal injuries.
I spent a lot of time just waiting, laying on hospital beds. During that time, I felt so much gratitude that I was alive and I kept getting teary eyed. I felt like I had come close to being separated from my husband and family, and I was so happy that I was still going to be with them.
I tried to communicate with my strict nurse about my husband. When I found out he was done being examined and was laying in a hospital bed in another room, I asked if he could be brought into the room with me. She told me "no" with a decisive head shake a couple of different times. Eventually, I was brought into a room and was told that my husband was in the next room. Again, the nurse denied my request to bring him in the room with me, but she relented when Matt and I began shouting to each other through the walls, probably disturbing the whole hospital. I was so happy to see Matt when he was wheeled in.
Even though Sophorn was physically fine, he also suffered from the accident. His tuk tuk was confiscated by the police as "evidence". Eventually, Sophorn was sued by the driver of the truck. The police ruled against Sophorn, and the tuk tuk either stayed in the hands of the police or was handed over to the driver of the truck as partial compensation. In reality, I think both parties were probably at fault in the accident, but the police generally rule in favor of whoever has the most money to pay them. The truck driver was relatively wealthy. Sophorn lost his entirely livelihood. I wonder how he is doing. We couldn't keep in contact with him because if the police and the driver of the truck had any reason to think we were in communication with Sophorn and that he had access to our money, they could very well have tried to use our relationship to extort money from him and make his life even more difficult.
I tried to communicate with my strict nurse about my husband. When I found out he was done being examined and was laying in a hospital bed in another room, I asked if he could be brought into the room with me. She told me "no" with a decisive head shake a couple of different times. Eventually, I was brought into a room and was told that my husband was in the next room. Again, the nurse denied my request to bring him in the room with me, but she relented when Matt and I began shouting to each other through the walls, probably disturbing the whole hospital. I was so happy to see Matt when he was wheeled in.
We were told that Sophorn was going to be just fine. I was the only one that needed medical intervention. The ambulance planned to take him to a Cambodian hospital, but we offered to pay his medical bills so he could come to the better hospital with us. Before Matt was brought into the room with me, Sophorn's mother, who had arrived at the hospital, came in the room to see me. She was so tender and sweet. She held my hand and was so nice to have her there for a few minutes, though we couldn't communicate.
About 5 or 6 hours after the accident I was taken into surgery. Matt and I asked the surgeon if he would take my camera into the operating room and take some pictures of my facial injuries before he fixed me up so I would have a chance to see what they had been like. The surgeon said he didn't need to take our camera and he would have someone come take pictures.
The operating room was nice. Along with the surgeon, there were two adorable Thai nurses, one with braces. None of the three spoke English very clearly, but we could do some very basic communicating and they were very friendly.
The operating room was nice. Along with the surgeon, there were two adorable Thai nurses, one with braces. None of the three spoke English very clearly, but we could do some very basic communicating and they were very friendly.
I wasn't given any general anesthetic or pain medication during the surgery. I am guessing that if I had been in the United States I would have been given IV sedation and wouldn't have been conscious for the surgery.
The doctor wasn't kidding when he said he was going to have someone come in and take pictures. A man with a very nice looking camera showed up right before the surgery started and took pictures the whole time. In the end, I was given a CD with about 70 pictures for my souvenir in fulfillment of our request. I remember him taking several pictures at moments when my face was all contorted with pain and thinking what a doozy of a picture that was going to be. The photographer clearly edited out all of the pictures where I looked like I was in distress before making the photo CD for me, however. On the CD, I look serene and content in all 70 pictures. But that wasn't the case. At any rate, I'm glad the picture guy took his assignment seriously because I would never have known what my injuries were like.
The first thing the surgeon did was to press down on my skin to line up the edges of all of my wounds and to press the slack out of my torn up skin so I could be stitched together properly. It was very painful having him press down so hard on my face and forehead where I had been injured.
Then he began giving me shots all over the margins of my wounds to numb the areas before he began stitching me up. This portion of the surgery probably qualifies as the most painful experience I've ever had. I was given dozens of injections of local anesthetic before he began sewing me up. It doesn't seem like this memory could possibly be accurate looking back now, but it felt like a solid hour of continuously receiving injections. It wasn't like other times I've gotten local anesthesia. Usually, the first injection to numb an area hurts a lot, and then any additional shots are much less painful because I am starting to become numb. All of these shots were very painful though. More so than I expected.
The injections were so painful that I desperately wanted a distraction. In between injections, I began begging the surgeon and two nurses to sing to me. I think they were surprised with my request and they all started giggling. At first one would shyly sing a few words from a song they knew in English (Happy Birthday, Jingle Bells, ABCs, Que Sera Sera) and maybe the others would join in for a few seconds, but then they would all start giggling and stop singing. I would be giggling too because it was so funny to see them all shy about singing and to hear their cute English songs. Then they would think they were off the hook. Something really painful would start happening again, and I'd demand "Keep singing! Keep singing! Sing! That was good what you sang before! Keep going!" and they would start up again, and I would be laughing and wincing and gasping all at the same time, but then to my disappointment they would peter out again after a couple of lines. Finally, after they realized I wasn't going to stop pleading, all three of them got going and belted out a whole verse of "Que Sera Sera" in English. I was surprised that all three of them knew this song, especially considering the generation gap between the surgeon and the nurses. It must be an English classic. Having three asians singing "que sela sela" with their accent was extremely endearing, and it did really help me endure the pain. I'll never forget it. The words of the song were especially poignant under the circumstances: "...Will I be pretty, will I be rich, here's what she said to me. Que sera, sera! Whatever will be will be, the future's not ours to see..." I also asked one of the nurses if I could hold her hand and I probably squeezed it too hard. I really loved the surgeon and his nurses.
After the initial round of injections wrapped up, the stitches began. That part was painful too at times, as the injections didn't completely numb some areas. But it was much less painful than it would have been to have more injections to numb the area, so I didn't worry too much about it. Then I faced another round of injections before he started sewing each remaining section of me up.
At one point, probably an hour and a half or two hours into the surgery, I felt like I was going into the really early stages of shock from the pain. My extremities felt cold, tingly, and were beginning to go numb. I decided that if this was going to go on for much longer, I really wanted some sedation. With the language barrier, I had a hard time communicating about this with the surgeon and nurses and wasn't sure how far into the surgery I was. I told them I thought I was experiencing the early stages of shock and asked if they had Valium. I think Valium probably came to mind because I was given that as part of my sedation when I had my wisdom teeth out as a teenager. It is very quick-acting, inexpensive, and wouldn't require an IV, and perhaps I also thought they might recognize the English word for such a common drug. I felt like it would help calm my system down and decrease my body's fight-or-flight response to the pain as well as make me more comfortable. In the end they were able to communicate to me that they knew what drug I was asking for, that they had it, but that I was almost finished so it would be better not to give it to me at this point. One of the nurses said "you scare of needles?" with a big smile on her face, likely thinking I wanted Valium purely for anxiety. I said "not scared, hurt very much!" I don't think they realized how painful the injections were for me.
When the surgery was over and they told me I was all done, it was a relief. One of the nurses kept asking me if I wanted to see a mirror. She kept insisting that I looked good. I firmly turned her town every time she offered. It is totally uncharacteristic of me not to want to see something like that. When I'm getting a cavity filled, sometimes I ask the dentist if I can hold a mirror and watch. I've had the chance to witness open-heart surgery in person, and I thought it was amazing. I'm not squeamish at all with blood, and I am very interested in medical things, especially my own. And it wasn't that I was too afraid of what I was going to look like to see a mirror, though I was concerned about my appearance. What deterred me from looking in a mirror was just that I felt so extremely fragile, so breakable, so mortal, so prone to be tossed around like a ragdoll by the forces of nature at any moment. I didn't want to reinforce that feeling by facing in the mirror what had happened to me. I didn't want to be reminded of landing face down on the road. The first time I looked at my stitched up face was right before the stitches came out, about a week later. I thought it would be quite a while before I wanted to look at the pictures that were taken of my injuries. But, by two weeks or so after the accident I was becoming my old self again and I realized that I really wanted to see the pictures of my facial injuries. The initial traumatized feelings were gone and I was able to look at the pictures without being upset and just appreciate what a gnarly souvenir I got to bring home with me from Cambodia. Actually thinking about the mechanics of the accident and picturing it in my mind did remain emotional for me for several months to come. I was prone to start crying if I let myself start thinking about it.
With the surgery wrapped up, one of the nurses asked me if I wanted to walk downstairs or if I wanted to go in a wheelchair. I was surprised. That was definitely different than in the US. I wasn't in any condition to be walking around the hospital, so I asked for the wheelchair. Also, I noted that they didn't monitor my blood pressure or temperature, something they would have done routinely in the United States.
Despite the painful surgery and some other differences in the standard of care, I truly am thankful for the great medical care I got at the Thai hospital in Siem Reap, and especially for the surgeon who took care of me. He did a great job. Things couldn't have turned out better. When I returned to the United States, my face was in great condition for the upcoming plastic surgeries. The doctors I saw here said I had been sewn up well.
Despite the painful surgery and some other differences in the standard of care, I truly am thankful for the great medical care I got at the Thai hospital in Siem Reap, and especially for the surgeon who took care of me. He did a great job. Things couldn't have turned out better. When I returned to the United States, my face was in great condition for the upcoming plastic surgeries. The doctors I saw here said I had been sewn up well.
When I was rolled out of surgery in the wheel chair, I looked like a caricature of someone you'd expect to see in the emergency room with Mr. Bean. I was exhausted. I hadn't cried during the surgery, but as soon as I saw Matt I burst in to tears and told him that the surgery had been really painful. The surgeon gave Matt instructions on bringing me back to the hospital to have my wounds cleaned. Matt also asked the surgeon if he thought my scarring would be bad (Matt was much better at communicating with the staff than I was). The surgeon said no because I hadn't lost very much skin and because I had Caucasian skin. He explained that I had a big flap of skin which he had reattached to the surrounding skin. I was rolled out to the car and the surgeon came outside to see us off, which I thought was really nice. The driver of the truck who hit us took us to the hotel in another vehicle he owned.
Matt and I went back to the hotel. The hotel staff was kind enough to move us to a room on the main level so we wouldn't have to attempt the stairs. It was difficult to hobble to the bathroom and get off and on the toilet, but I was glad to find that I could do that. I wasn't sure if I would make it at first. My knees were banged up and painful to bend, and that is what made getting around the most difficult. I even managed to try to wash some of the blood from our clothes in the bathroom sink while Matt was gone getting some food and other supplies for us at the gas station. Poor Matt, even though he had significant pain from whiplash, he had to run around and do errands for the remainder of the trip and take care of me. It was dinner time and I hadn't had food or water since 6 or so in the morning, but I couldn't eat very much of the food he brought back. I had no appetite for a couple of days.
That sums up the day of the accident. A year later we are both fine and totally back to normal. I had my last plastic surgery in August. My face doesn't look exactly the way it used to, but most people wouldn't have a clue that I was ever injured. We both feel very blessed.
That sums up the day of the accident. A year later we are both fine and totally back to normal. I had my last plastic surgery in August. My face doesn't look exactly the way it used to, but most people wouldn't have a clue that I was ever injured. We both feel very blessed.
