A Nasty Stomach Bug in Koh Tao

After four solid days diving, we were shattered. We spent what we thought was our final evening in Koh Tao relaxing in a café. We relaxed, enjoying the soothing waves on the beach and watching the talented performers swirl chains of fire around their bodies.

Now, I can’t remember the exact timing, possibly somewhere between the fire ball being swung above the performer’s head and being caught between his legs, but suddenly I felt the urge to vomit. I ran through the café to the toilet and realised that I had wasted about one hundred Baht on my dinner. Shortly after this I decided it was best to return to our beach hut as there was a high chance I could have put a lot of people off their dinner.

That night was a one hell of a slog. Every half hour I raced to the toilet hurling up anything in my stomach. I woke the next day with a start and the oh so familiar urge to run to the toilet. What felt like a split second later, I found myself naked by the opened front door with the panicked voice of my boyfriend shouting for help. How did I end up here?

“Jesus, shut the door!” was my next reaction. My boytfriend then explained to me that I’d passed out by the bathroom and had dragged me to the front door so he could keep an eye on me whilst shouting for help. Unluckily, no one was about and he left me for what felt like a lifetime (about four minutes) on my own in my dizziness, to run for help. I grabbed the nearest clothes so I could gain some modesty for when help arrived in the form of a receptionist at the dive centre.

A taxi was called and off we dashed to the local hospital where I was given my own room with an ensuite. “Luxury”, I hear you say. No, far from. There was a variety of small and large roommates, ranging from ants to lizards and the odd cat now and again. None of these creatures offered their share of the room which happened to be five times the price of any guesthouse in Thailand.

Shortly after arriving at the hospital I was given the option of tablets (likely to repeat on me) or a drip of antibiotics and fluids which would be pumped through a vein in my hand. Neither sounded pleasant but if it stopped me vomiting I was willing to give it a go. So in went the needle through the vein and up went the bag of fluid above my head. I wobbled back to my room where I stayed overnight and woke up again with a start, this time to hear my boyfriend being sick in the ‘luxury’ ensuite. And so the day repeated itself, except I was no longer the patient.