Calm it down, kids.

Alright, for those of you who’d like a less cryptic update as to why I’m currently hanging out in Thailand, here’s the entry for you. No one needs to be freaking out about this, I’ll be fine (Mom, Dad, this means you!). I'm not having my hand chopped off nor am I undergoing some radical lobotomy.

I’m here because I have a ganglion cyst on the inside of my right wrist. I’m pretty sure it was caused due to me lugging my giant-ass suitcases worth of goodies (thank you again, Mom) back to my village through Kazakhstan. Lots of lifting and dragging a giant 50+ lb bag with one hand. Obviously, my wrist did NOT like that. So now I have this little bubble of whatever stuck on one of my tendons on my wrist. At first it was causing me loads of pain when I used and flexed it. Because of that I went to Bishkek to have it checked out. They wanted to try compression bandages and just force/squeeze the thing away. Needless to say, ‘cause of my lifestyle back in Talas (thank you, little host siblings!), immobility and something like that just wasn’t going to fly. Continuing on on the goose chase, we tried the med unit at the US Embassy to see if they could just drain the damn thing and be done with it. Because of the location of the cyst, she couldn’t. She said that she could attempt to drain it, but because it is so close to arteries, tendons, veins, etc., she didn’t want to inject the steroids to keep it from getting infected and returning. Fast forward a few hours and here I am, in Bangkok, having shenanigans dealt with. The doc says that the pain is most likely from tendonitis from the heavy lifting and not from the cyst itself, therefore trying to prolong the need for surgery (to Mom’s very large relief). Have an appointment on Saturday to see if the anti-inflammatory drugs are doing their job (as of right now, it still hurts), and then another a week later to see if it’s operation time or just go home with a giant lump on my wrist until the end of service where I’ll more than likely want it cut off anyway. Haha.

Will continue to keep everyone updated on how life goes. As for right now, Thailand is hot, humid, delicious, noisy, sunny, fantastic. Now, if only I had my fucking camera…
<3