#165 - Update Philippines / Thailand / Argentina
STOP PRESS RE LATEST WAVE OF UKRAINE ATTACKS
FUCK PUTIN FOR THE RABID DOG THAT HE IS … AND THAT IS AN INSULT TO DOGS
Again. A very long time since my last post. Six weeks, I guess.
Part of that is due to travel. I tried to take the long slow route back to the Philippines. Medellin to Madrid, overnight, Madrid to Varna, three days, Varna to Sophia, overnight, Sophia to Doha to the Philippines. I think, next time, I will go for the straight direct route even if it does take between 40 and 50 hours. It is more tiring and I’m not sure it helped with the jet lag.
After just a few days of settling in, I then travelled to Thailand so I could see a couple of old friends that I had not seen since before the pandemic. I really enjoyed that. It was very nice to get back to Thailand and visit if only for a few days. I took advantage of being back at my normal medical center, Bumrungrad, in order to be able to see my old doctors. That went well. Nothing obviously wrong, although I am due for another colonoscopy (oh what fun!), And I did an updated audiology test and discovered that in the last 14 years since I did my first one with them, I have essentially lost all of my high-frequency hearing. No wonder I am having trouble with learning languages.
That kind of says it all … but I can’t hear it :-)
That led to a bit of a runaround. It seems to be impossible to get a hearing aid unless you are physically present. And the prices for these devices varies wildly country to country. In Bumrungrad, the brand that I wanted, a Danish brand by the name of Oticon, was essentially US$10,000. I can find that same hearing aid online in Europe for about $3500 for the pair. I am beyond frustrated with having tried to call hearing aid places in both the United States and Europe. They all have this requirement that you be physically present to be able to buy them. And that is not really going to be very easy for me. What I want to do is simply buy a pair and then take them, with my audiology test results of course, to an audiologist in some country or other where I end up and have them personally fit them and get them adjusted. But, it seems to be impossible to work around the incredible clusterf*ck of regulations they have regarding the sale of these devices.
I did in fact try the brand that I wanted in the hospital and I have to admit, they were incredibly lightweight and they seem to make a real difference to my ability to hear without straining. Please, it should be noted that when you ‘strain’ to hear, by leaning forward or cupping your ear, you’re really not actually hearing things better than you were before 😊. I am going to try to get this done not later than by January or February of next year if I can. I think these might make a huge difference to my life. I am given to understand that these devices can even do tendinitis masking. I believe that works somewhat along the lines of analyzing out what frequencies the ringing in your ears is, and automatically generating white noise to help cancel it out. I cannot imagine what it would like to be to go through the day without hearing ringing constantly.
In an update - My good friend Jakob found me a source in Denmark where I may be able to obtain what I need, at a reasonable price, and with someone who can help me configure online. :-)
In other news, as the country song (and I’m sure there is one I just can’t remember the title or the artist), I’ve been looking for love in all the wrong places. That is not entirely fair to me. It’s not all the wrong places but, I have been actively searching for a partner, I guess. And it has not been very easy. I won’t say that I’ve given up. But it is close. I have to say, even for being as open as I am, I hesitate to lay out the details of my search in an open forum, but I have in fact met one or two potential candidates. But, their lives and my life and trying to get it all together from opposite sides of the globe is a nontrivial problem. In addition, the simple fact of traveling and trying to maintain communications across a 13 hour time difference (and in Spanish) has been challenging to say the least. However, I, contrary to what I have said just above, am not giving up yet. Who knows? When I return to Argentina some things may resolve themselves. I will say no more for the nonce.
During the short time I was in the Philippines (as I am actually back now after my visit to Thailand) super typhoon Karding came right through where we live. In truth, it was a very mild, almost a nonevent for us, but although it did affect some parts of the Philippines greatly. But the effect on me was I slept very little out of stress, and immediately following that with the trip to Thailand and back I really haven’t been sleeping very well for almost 10 days. I can see the result this has had on things like my blood pressure. So, I am working to try to get that back under control.
Currently I am at home, resting, organizing, and packing for my trip back to Argentina. You do not want to know how much a round-trip business class ticket from the Philippines Argentina is. Suffice that it is almost double what it was prior to the pandemic. Ouch! ☹
In any case, I have to say, after thinking that I am under stress (and I am for a number of reasons) I still really have little to complain about. I have no stress that is not self-induced and if anything, I’m fortunate to be able to have the problems that I do. I have definitely learned that I need to focus myself again. It is very easy for me to get spread too thin. As my favorite hobbit is to say, it is like too little butter spread over too much bread.
I will update you probably after I get Argentina in a few weeks. One of my big plans there is I am going to take a side trip to Brazil for a week and I will try to do two things; learn some rudimentary Portuguese, and add another country to my list. Although I have stopped in Brazil many times I have never actually been there.