It Ain't Easy Bein' Wheezy

I've always believed that some people are just born with immense natural talent. Usain Bolt has an innate aptitude for running, Stephen Fry's voice is inherently lovely, and Nigel Farage has an intrinsically smackable mug. 

As has been noted.

My own talent seems to be an uncanny propensity for falling mildly ill. It's something I do regularly and with an absolute minimum of effort. Sickness strikes so often that it's rather like a baseball bat affixed to a carousel; a swift, disorientating whack before the cycle is immediately started all over again.

This regular battering from coughs and colds wouldn't be so bad if I didn't also have asthma. An asthma attack is hard to describe if you've never experienced it, but I'd say it's roughly equivalent to having a large cat sitting on your chest whilst simultaneously trying to throttle you. It's a particularly dickish condition to have as there is no cure, and it's generally caused either through either genetic lottery (Congratulations, you're a wheezer!) or through environmental factors. Indeed, there's no real reason for it at all- it's almost as if the lungs decide to constrict themselves for no real reason, and the body is just like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. It's all the respiratory fun of smoking a pack a day, without so much as a sweet nicotine kick by way of compensation.

Gotta love some of that sweet terbutaline sulphate though

All of which isn't usually a problem, as one quick puff on an inhaler usually makes things almost instantly better. It's the respiratory equivalent of sending the riot squad down to your lungs to force them to stop being dicks. Alas, I'd run down my trusty stock of NHS inhalers and now had to try and replenish my supply at the local Thai hospital.

I'm actually rather fond of the place, in truth. It's clean, well-lit, and there's even a chap who occasionally comes and plays the grand piano in the waiting area. Having lived here a few years now, I have my routine well rehearsed: I stroll up to the registration desk with a fistful of insurance cards, force eye contact with the nearest staff member, and say "I would like asthma medicine, please" in the politest Thai I can muster through Google translate.

Piece of piss.

Once the staff have sorted through the half dozen ID and insurance cards for something they can actually use, you are ushered to a second area for weighing. I've never quite been able to discern what purpose this serves, but it seems to be absolutely crucial to the provision of healthcare in Thailand. I gamely kicked off my shoes and clambered on the scales. The numbers rolled upwards like a charity totaliser before settling at 120 kilos (a new personal best!).

I mean sure, it's not a record you want to break. But it's still a record.

"Oh dear," I said, more out of obligation than anything else. It's not as though I can feign ignorance and splutter out "What! How the blazes did that happen?!" Food continues to be delicious, beer still obfuscates most of life's major problems, and I enjoy a level of physical idleness that merely reflects the progress humans have made in the creation of labour-saving devices and entertainment devices.

[Speaking of which, it always gets on my wick when some old fart at the Daily Mail writes something like "Back in my day, kids would run and play outside until the cows came home, unlike today's slovenly youth", as though the people of yesteryear were somehow imbued with a superior moral character. I'm telling you right now: you go back in a time machine and give a kid from the 1960's a PlayStation 4 in full 1080p and combined it with the threat of paedophiles outside, I guarantee you he wouldn't leave his room until adulthood.]

Anyway, returning to the hospital. I was next required to insert my arm into a contraption designed to automatically take my blood pressure. After a brief pause came the inevitable follow-up.

"You have high blood pressure." said the nurse.

"Yup!" I replied, perhaps slightly too enthusiastically. Medical professionals usually tell you this information in a grave tone and expect you to be somewhat taken aback- "Who, me? Surely not!"- but given my aforementioned heft and the fact that I subsist mainly on a diet of coffee and anxiety, high blood pressure is pretty much part of the furniture at this point.

After a little more shuffling around and waiting, I was shown into a small room with a doctor. He wasted no time in setting about me with a stethoscope to confirm that yes; my lungs were indeed rather fucked. After a few minutes of gameful searching on the computer, he was unable to find my particular type of inhaler but rather charitably showed me the alternatives- and their prices- on his screen. They all sounded vaguely familiar, so after some careful deliberation I decided to plump for the one that was 3 times cheaper than the others.

Two words: FINANCIAL ACUMEN

Having made my decision, there was only one more hurdle to surmount: the payment. Thankfully, Thai health care prices are still reasonably affordable. When I lived briefly in the US, I would have had to pay $100 just to see a doctor- something I never did, of course, because I'm not splashing out $100 unless I'm literally having a heart attack right now.

"You know what, I'm actually fine. I'll just walk it off."

When I was finished, I was presented with a bill of 400 Baht (about $11 or £9). However, the lovely lady behind the counter had another look over at my insurance cards and decided that I actually needed to pay a grand total of...20 Baht. That's 56 cents/45 pence for medical care and medicine. I'll tell you this: I'm fundamentally opposed to privatised health care, *but* when it's this damn cheap I'm more than happy to put my ethical code to one side and hand over my cold hard cash.