Charlie Dittmeier's Home Page
This is the infamous Bangkok traffic at 4:30 PM on a workday afternoon. Things do move slowly but at least vehicles are in lanes. follow the rules, etc. I was walking from BNH Hospital across Thanon Sathorn to catch a pick-up truck with seats in the back.
“….other developed countries have racism, demagoguery, and the internet. The reason only the United States has so many mass shootings is its lax gun laws.”
Commonweal editorial
This morning I went back to BNH Hospital for follow up with the surgeon. He said the tumor on my kidney was cancer but because it was so new and so small, they got it all and that I don’t need to worry about it.. It’s always best not to have cancer at all, but this was good news after they did discover the renal carcinoma.
After I got home, I started noticing a scratchiness in my throat so I took a rapid test. I’m positive with Covid-19. Bummer. I will have to find out what I have to do according to Thailand rules but I am sure I cannot fly to Phnom Penh on 2 June! And probably I can’t fly to the US on 7 June.
I was discharged from BNH Hospital on Thursday and have been up and about since then. I have been surprisingly free of pain. Today I went to mass at the Bangkok cathedral with Fr. John Barth and then we had lunch with some Filipinas here working with Maryknoll.
Bangkok is quite a city. Situated along significant rivers and canals, I find it hard to visualize and to navigate. There are just a couple areas that I know well enough to walk through with a sense of where I am going.
Greetings… The surgeon said that I should be able to fly back to Phnom Penh on Friday or Saturday but that is because I am supposed to fly to the United States on Sunday! That is not a good arrangement but this unexpected surgery has complicated things. The photo is the incision on my side and the drain hole underneath it.
There wasn’t supposed to be a Hospital Day 9 on this trip, but on Day 2, during the routine physical examination, a tumor was discovered on my kidney and the doctors decided they needed to remove it. That final decision was on Thursday and they wanted to schedule the operation for Friday but the operating room was not available. It was then decided to operate on Saturday but then the Bangkok blood bank had no A-negative blood that I needed. It took them two days to find it and finally we were able to have surgery Saturday morning.
This picture is of me is in ICU after the operation. I really never felt terribly bad and mostly only had pain when I made large movements like sitting down or getting up. All in all it has gone very well.
