3-10 Still in Thailand - but in Bangkok!

 While we were in Medan with Lisa and Tim, they told us about their experience doing medical tourism at the Bangkok.  Generally you can get multiple visits with multiple doctors as well as medical tests done all in one day.  It was important for Michael because he donated his kidney 18 years ago and so has only one, and has recently been diagnosed with gout.  The medications for gout seem to be hard on your kidney and on your liver.  

Lisa's assistant at the Consulate made the arrangements for us - all we had to do was get there.  We had a 7:15am flight to Bangkok - so we were up super early.  I also got a phone call from the U.S. at 4am which I tried not to answer - but he kept calling me.  It had to do with Rotary I have someone else working on it, but I am the Bank contact.  But back to medical stuff.  Michael has appointments for blood work, an ultra sound and two physician's consultations.  I have one physician consultation.  

Michael had arranged a shuttle to take us from our house to the Phuket airport and return and pick us up from the Bangkok airport and drive us to the Bumrungrad International Hospital.  The ride from the Bangkok airport to the hospital is supposed to be about one hour.  Our driver took almost two hours. We thought we were going to be late for the 11am check in.  It seems he was trying to avoid tolls and took us right through downtown Bangkok.  There was so much road and other construction that we would be stuck not being able to move at all for periods of time.  

We actually made it to the 10th floor reception sign in area just a few minutes before 11am.  My appointment wasn't until 2:30pm so I pretty much followed Michael from appointment to appointment all on separate floors until then.  I won't go into detail about his schedule and results as you can see them here: http://de-intimidator.blogspot.com/2026/03/asia-mega-tour-2026-day-thirteen.html  - if you are interested.  We had lunch around 1pm at the hospital "Go Fresh" restaurant on the 10th floor.  We each got a sandwich and a drink - it was easily the most expensive meal we have had here so far.  

Michael and I got to my appointment on time  and the doctor asked what he could do for me.  So I explained the surgery on my right hand about 3 months ago and the problems I was still having with it.  A few days into our trip from the U.S. to Medan, I noticed a bump in the middle of my right hand.  My regular doctor had mentioned to me a while back that I had the start of Dupuytrens contracture in both of my hands.  She assured me that it would most likely never be a problem as it developed much later in life.  I explained why I had the surgery on my right hand and showed him the written report from my New Mexico surgeon, Dr. Lujan.  I was thinking that the nodule on my right had was caused by the surgery.  I also have some pain in my fingers of both hands, but mostly the right.

This doctor said that all of my issues were separate issues.  None of the other issues were caused by the surgery.  He seemed to think that the numbness at the wrist/thumb joint would go away eventually.  He said that the Dupuytrens contracture was a genetic problem and did I have any relatives that had it.  I don't know of anyone who had it in my family.  He also suggested I get a nerve study done to see if I have nerve compression in my right hand.

He said I had three choices for what to do about the nodule in my right hand.  Nothing - which he strongly recommended.  He said it would not bother me and unless it got really painful I should do nothing.  the second choice was doing some small cut to let my hand open up more naturally and the last option was to remove the nodule.  I got the impression that he thought it would most likely come back.  

So my take-away was that what I have wrong with my hand is mostly genetic and that really nothing can be done.  If my hand gets really disfigured to the point I can't use it - then maybe I should do something.  But meanwhile just relax and have patience and some things might get better and other things will get worse.

So on that note we left the hospital to wait for our Grab ride to the airport.  We were back at the airport within 20 minutes!  This driver paid the tolls (well actually we paid them) and the trip was super fast.  We were so early that we opted to pay a little more and take a flight 2 hours earlier!

We still got home fairly late - too late to order food.  So we ate the left over chicken stew and went to bed.

Note:  I noticed later that I have a second nodule in my right hand.  The first one is on the tendon that leads to be middle finger.  The second one is on the tendon that leads to my ring finger.