Next day in the jungle

19:30, 30.6°C in the jungle

I was not sure if it was too late for my dinner, when I woke up from my nap not long ago, I just put the door open out to the "garden", lots of flowers outside the two low houses, with a mud road in the middle mostly for the motor bikes of the guests, but sure - the little cute "blonde" with the slanted eyes, came and wondered if I wanted dinner from the restaurant around the corner. Meanwhile she took the chance to put two liter bottles of water here - they apparently feel a little bit guilty that they have not found a working pump for the 20-liter water bottle yet. And she picked up the empty beer bottles. Got another box of 12 yesterday. 12 beer in a week, hm, not too much. Her mother (I think) said she'd take the motorbike to the big supermarket tomorrow to find a working water pump for me. So I am rather sure I will get one the coming week.

Ah, another restaurant girl came with the food and got the tip. Crispy fried pork with vegetables and rice, extra pork, 50B. 10 extra as tip.

Yesterday raining and I did not even go out. Weather changes very quickly here, so there was also sun a few times. Today I walked up to 7/11 for some necessities as toilet paper and sweetener for the coffee. Like two years ago I decided it was more healthy to take brown sugar, than artificial sweetener of unknown quality - not very much used outside the tourist holes.

Hm, slightly more than medium spicy....... Fine! Cough cough.

Maybe you forgot why I go to Thailand in winter as much as I can. Well - I cannot go out in Sweden if there are risk for slippery roads or stormy!

Like many diabetics my balance deteriorated because the nerves in my feet did not give the brain much information. Less and less. Then one evening I got very sick, could barely get out of my bed for several days, the doctors had no idea what it was. When I started to be able to stand up, by balance was real real bad. My diabetes doc was not available, do not remember why, so to Emergency, but they had not a clue. Still I had the idea I had eaten something strange and got food poisoning, and they also wondered if it was something else with my diabetes. It took my next visit to my diabetes doc weeks later, then he said it was to 95% an infarct in the balance center, so he sent me to the magnetic camera to verify that.

He said that it was quite enough to get a disability pension for me, so it was up to me when I was too tired to work. I still wanted to work...., halftime at least.

Then all hell broke lose. He gave me sick leave for winter to be in a warm climate with no risk to slip and fall, and he had also seen that my health improved after a winter holiday in Thailand. Försäkringskassan, the Governmental Insurance Bureau, laughed like hyenas - they use their own doctors who are not at all specialists utan those who have not succeeded in anything else than harassing ill people.

In the middle of that, my doc could not remain my doc - in the big hospital where he was chef of the diabetes clinic, but not a top chef - well, he is a bit like me, he says what he thinks instead of using the full game of diplomacy, and well - I had to use a real lousy doc for two years. During the time I forced a 100% sick leave from that doc, as it was a necessary way to get a disability pension from the Försäkringskassan. I had to fight for a whole year and at time had no money to live on, lost lots of money on that too. But I found of course it was absolutely impossible for an intelligent reasoning with the insurance people, and it was absolutely impossible to convince the high-ups at my job that much of what I was doing, I could perfectly well do with a laptop sitting in Thailand over winter.

Maybe I had to a certain degree believed in Swedish authorities until that happened, but seeing the total incompetence - the insurance doc refused to talk to my doc - made me stop believing in the competency of most other authorities.

Uh, a sidetrack.... Actually I am not retired, they are supposed to reevaluate me after 3 years - and then starting to clean the streets? After 50 years of diabetes and 25 with steadily deteriorating kidneys and they think I will become healthier....... They probably believe in Santa Claus too.

In the middle of the mess I found my wife in Bangkok......