When Pizza Sends Out For You

One thing you can count on in Thailand is that few things go exactly to plan. Sometimes it's because something that should be open isn't. Or someone showed up whenever they showed up. Or didn't show up at all – because they forgot, or there was traffic, or they had to go home to their town, or they didn't mention they're closed on Wednesdays.

Almost always things take longer than you'd expect and for no real reason. The lady making the som tam has a long line and turns out to be a slow worker. The taxi driver made a wrong turn, had to pass through a high-traffic area – and just then there was an accident in the middle of the high-traffic zone (this actually happened to us). The night market wasn't where it should have been. The ATM is only stocked with small notes and you need larger ones. It's like the Thai version of an Alanis Morissette song.

We had scheduled a boat day for today – as we so like to do on island trips. We booked a five hour excursion to take us around to local small islands, snorkel, jump off the boat (our favorite part) and swim. Only at 2:30 am Sennen came upstairs to report that he had been pooping for an hour and he just threw up massively in his bed and then near the kitchen as he tried to make his way to the bathroom. Emily and I went downstairs and it was clear before even laying eyes on the scene that his pizza from the night before had made a reappearance in our cond-alow. 

We gathered towels, bags, paper towels, sanitizing wipes – whatever we had to throw at the situation. Emily took on the worst part of the job and mopped up the mess with a bath towel. Sennen handled himself calmly and seemed even pleased that he had thrown up and parted with the worst of whatever was ailing him, although he kept expressing how badly he felt about waking us, causing us to reschedule the boat day and was worried that Ailyn would be scared when she woke up without him in the room.

One of the odd features of our cond-alow is that it has an extra twin bed in the master bedroom. Because we lack a dresser, closet or wardrobe (yet Bailey's room does not), Emily and I were using the third bed to store our clothing. That bed was the obvious solution to where Sennen could finish out the night. 

Only just as Sennen's situation began to wrap up, Bailey came out of her room saying she also felt stomach-sick and a little dizzy. She was drinking a little water, but it didn't feel good going into her stomach. She didn't want to stay in bed and moved to the sofa that Sennen was leaving – metal bucket that we gave him in hand. We got her a blanket and a large metal bowl "in case" and she stayed there – apparently not sleeping for hours as we found out in the morning. I'm not quite sure why she preferred the less comfortable sofa in the living room to her large bed 20 feet away in her bedroom – but she was sick and, wanted it, and so it was.

At roughly 6am, Sennen woke up, threw up in his metal pail, then had to urgently go to the toilet and afterwards came out and announced that he felt much better. He went back to sleep for another 4.5 hours. Emily went downstairs to check on Bailey, who was still awake on the sofa with her blanket and metal bowl – exactly as we had left her. She was still feeling nauseous. She crawled back into bed and finally fell asleep.

Emily contacted the agent for the boat tour and changed was able to move our plans back a day. And then we all went back to sleep until about 10:30.

Amazingly, Ailyn not only remained oblivious to all of this, but slept in until about 10:00 herself. Once awake, she was a little worried about not finding Sennen in the lower bunk, but then came upstairs to us and was fine. She felt badly for Sennen but prioritized her care taking around her Bailey. She knew everything about how Bailey was feeling and how Bailey's night had gone. Then Ailyn spent time in our room hypothesized as to what may have caused Bailey and Sennen's ailments – and there were a WIDE array of theories, some of which were plausible.

The puzzling part is that while we clearly have two cases of food poisoning, there wasn't much that Bailey and Sennen both ate except for some pizza last night – of which all five of us had at least some amount. So why just two of five? It could have made some sense if Ailyn had also been sick. Emily had I have harder stomachs than they kids from years from travel and international living. But Ailyn doesn't have a tough stomach. all I can think of is that there were multiple pizzas (some had a pizza for dinner – and a few of us split one as an appetizer). Either different people with different states of hand sanitation handled different pizzas or the issue could have been with some utensils, dishes or glasses not being cleaned properly.

Whatever the cause, Sennen's body seemed more efficient at ejecting whatever was bad. Bailey's waiting for her turn. At one point, she looked a little yellow – but she has since cleared up and is taking intermittent naps.

What to do with the day became tricky. Emily ran out to get some light breakfast items for me – and for anyone who started to feel well enough (yogurt, bread, rice, bananas, eggs, etc). After a short period Sennen felt well enough to eat a yogurt and some pandan bread. Emily and Ailyn headed to the beach for lunch, sand castle making and swimming in which Ailyn made her first full-scale return to the water since the sharp rocks incident of Thursday afternoon. Now she loves the water again.

I stayed with Bailey and Sennen. While Bailey has spent the day sipping gatorade. napping and feeling badly with some slow progress, Sennen rebounded and has done school work, watched TV on his iPad, asked a million questions and basically returned to being Sennen.

At around 4pm, the cleaning lady came to de-stenchify our unit and we needed to get our of her way. Bailey felt well enough to go over to the beach and join Emily and Ailyn where we found them at the tail end of their neck and shoulder massages –  Ailyn passed out asleep from hers. Although Bailey mostly languished in her beanbag lounge chair, she managed to join in conversation and drink some water and soda water. We all heard about Ailyn and Emily's amazing mother-daughter day together than included massages, waffles with ice cream, swimming, sand castle building and more. Somehow in the twists of conversation, Sennen got a long lesson from Emily on what a Social Scientist does and while we both said he would be good at it due to his curiosity, he made it clear that he intends to become a fire twirler in Thailand. At one point, Emily was discussing the concept of social sanctions – enforcement of norms that aren't legal, but social such as angry stares, asking people not to cut in line, gossiping, etc. Ailyn chimed in with her own example – having people say "nana nana boo boo" to you – a serious social sanction in first grade. "No one wants to be on the receiving end of 'nana nana boo boo'," Emily said with laughter.

We all hung out on the beach until after sunset and then walked up to the next and largest beach on Ko Samet, Hat Saikaew, to position ourselves at a restaurant within sight of Ploy Talay which has the best fire twirling show, but the worst music and service. We decided to have a better dinner nearby and just walk over when the show began at 8:30. Neither Sennen nor Bailey were in the mood for anything resembling a normal dinner. Both had some water and white rice. Bailey managed to eat a few fried cashews. Sennen moved on to vegetable broth from a Thai rice soup. Nothing too ambitious for either. When 8:30. hit and the fire twirling show down the beach started, both Sennen and Bailey were more interested to go home. So Ailyn, with an ice cream in hand, went with Emily over to the fire twirling show while I took our injured crew home.

Sennen felt the broth, water and rice from dinner was helpful to him. Bailey, on the other hand continues to feel yucky and drained. We're all hoping she'll feel better after a good night's sleep – but tomorrow may well be another day of adjusting to the unexpected.

In better news at noon today, the population of Ko Samet began to thin out. The roads and beaches were practically deserted compared to yesterday. At night, some of the restaurants were still doing a good business, but many were practically empty – especially those without fire twirling or that were not fire twirling adjacent. The sangthaews were lined up, empty – their fare to take us home half of what it was the past few days. If Bailey's bloating has not gone down, Ko Samet's has. Suddenly, Samet is far more the island I have always known and loved.