19. Money vs. Life

Money vs. Life

Khamkeuth didn’t know how long he has been sitting in the dark in the kitchen patio, with his hands under his cheeks. It was then close to mid-night. He was waiting for the sun to rise because he had to make a decision affecting the fate of his five years old daughter.

Everything was awfully quiet. You didn’t hear anything except for the uninterruptible shrill sound made by the cicadas. From time to time, Khamkeuth heard the noise of dew moisture drops falling on his head and the moaning of his young daughter who was then sleeping in her mother’s arms.

"Khamkeuth, you should take your daughter to the hospital! If we keep on treating her with herbal medicine, who knows when she might recover", Uncle Som suggested.

"Uncle, I do want to take her to the hospital, but I have no money."

"Anything you can sell, do it now.  As long as you are alive, you will still be able to earn some money later. From what I can tell, she had been sick for almost six days now.  We cannot sit on it for ever, believe me. Use whatever money you have available. If you are a little bit short, you should ask for help from the doctor,” explained Uncle Som.

Khamkeuth didn’t react in any ways, except thinking at his rice field that was then filled with large and small spots of dead rice plants.  He used to walk up and down that field under the hot sun, with a basket in hand to move water from the ponds to the dry areas.  Once in a while, he raised his arms up and used his sleeves to wipe the sweat that flooded his face. Eventually, all the ponds went dry.  Oh, my God! You do have a strange way to punish the working people.

Super dry rice plants felt to the ground by the thousands. He shook his head like a hopeless person and looked at the horizon with sadness. Khamkeut had to find job with other villagers to bring some food for his family every day. The same situation prevailed during this year and last year’s rice growing season. May and June came without a single drop of rain for the seeds to soak in and sprout.

"Uncle Som, I don’t know what to do. Anything that is worth selling has already been sold to buy food for the family,” Khamkeuth said to Uncle Som.

“How about your big buffalo? You know, a daughter is more important than anything else."

“If I sold the buffalo, where would I find another one for farming? I will have to rent both the buffalo and the rice field. That would be tough to do.”

Khamkeuth took a long breath. He could hear louder and louder moaning from his sick daughter Phonkam, along with his wife’s voice trying to comfort her. He got up and rushed inside to grab a pajama, soaked it with water from a jar in the kitchen and used it to wash Phonkam’s face. 

“Our daughter is having a seizure. We have to do like this to reduce the shock,” he said to his wife. He brought a paracytamol pill and a bowl of water for his daughter to reduce her fever. He then sat down beside his wife, watched his daughter and added,

“Tomorrow, somebody will bring us some money. We should have enough to take our daughter to the hospital."

"Who is going to give you money that easily?" his wife asked with inquisitive eyes.

“I sold them our big buffalo."

“How are we going to grow rice next year? We are renting both the rice field and the buffalo. Aren’t we going to be out of business?”

“Honey, I didn’t know what else to do. This is our daughter’s life we are talking about. If we don’t have any buffalo or any growing field, we can still rent them."

After the second or third round of roosters’ crowing, Khamkeuth went to his bedroom, pulled out an antique silk-like cloth and put it in an old bag with a lot of grey spots on it. He put Phonkam on his back and wrapped her with a white pajama. People from remote areas did this when they carried their children on the highway, for a trip that could take two to three hours.

The following morning, Khamkeuth got out of the bus rather tired, with his daughter Phonkam on his back, asleep and moaning. He waved at a tricycle driver and asked him to take them to the hospital.

“Where do you want to go?"

“To the hospital!"

“Which hospital?"

“Anyone.  Do it fast; my daughter is very sick."

The tricycle driver made many road turns before reaching and stopping at a big building. This was very exciting to Khamkeuth, because he had never seen a building this big in his life. He was not interested in anything but rushing his daughter into the emergency room, screaming,

"Help, Doctor! My daughter is about to die."

Two or three nurses immediately took Phonkam into the emergency room. About five minutes later, the door of the emergency room opened. As soon as he saw the doctor, Khamkeuth ran toward him, deeply concerned about his child’s condition. The doctor stared at him and asked,

“You are the child’s father, right?"

“Yes, Doctor."

“Please wait here because the doctor has not seen her yet. After he did, we should know if your daughter has to be hospitalized or not. But right now, go and pay 15,000 kips for the shot she just had.”

Khamkeuth felt ashamed he thought the man dressed in white was a doctor and addressed him as if he was one.  He also thought about the 15,000 kips he had to pay. My! This costs as much as a whole month home treatment using traditional medicine. He said to himself, “Be as it may, now that we are in the hospital; I should let the doctor treat my daughter first.”

“Honey, we have to wait for the doctor to make his diagnosis before we can tell what caused your illness”, Khamkeuth told her daughter, caressing her head with love.

Time passed. As a dad, he waited with great worries as if a fire was burning inside his heart. He looked at every door to find out who is the real doctor who would come out and treat Phonkam, and became increasingly concerned. Phonkam was shaking of fever as if she had malaria. He kept patting her head back and forth, while watching at every door that opened up.

Somebody suddenly opened the door and walked in. Words instinctively came out of Khamkeuth’s mouth, without knowing who that person was,

"Doctor, please help my daughter!"

“I am not a doctor, just the tricycle driver that brought you to the hospital a while ago.  I need 15,000 kips from you for the ride.”

"15,000 kips? Why that much?"

"It’s not that expensive. These days, gasoline costs a lot, you know.”

Khamkeuth looked outside through the windows. The sun was already over the trees but still no doctor in sight. He looked at Phonkam who continued to shake constantly, with her face becoming darker and darker.  He ran outside to see if he could find a doctor. He did it again and again without much success. When he could not bear to see his daughter in deep pain, he decided to walk farther toward the end of the big building.

When he was there, he heard several people talking. He stepped inside and saw a patient lying on a bed, probably somebody in the same situation as his daughter. The person who sat beside the patient’s bed was speaking with a slightly fat doctor wearing a necklace as big as a small finger and a bracelet the size of two fingers. He could not bear to wait any longer and decided to go in.

“Doctor, please go and check my daughter. Her seizure is getting worse.”

“Go back there first! I will be there later," said the doctor, looking at him from top to bottom.

Khamkeut backed out and hurried back to the room where his beloved daughter was crying in pain. He ran in and out of the room, waiting for the doctor to arrive and acting very nervously. He perspired heavily and his sweat started dropping to the floor. His face became pale when he saw his daughter shaking more and more heavily. He couldn’t control himself and screamed loudly,

“Doctor! Please help my daughter. She is about to die."

This time, Khamkeuth’s call for help frightened the hospital’s patients and doctors who then came out in mass. What most the folks saw was Khamkeuth holding his daughter against his chest and sobbing. A doctor and some nurses took Phonkam in the medical examination room for about thirty minutes, leaving her dad waiting outside.

Those thirty minutes were like an eternity to Khamkeuth and created enough worries to stop his heart from beating. He waited, cried, and prayed the divinities to save his daughter’s life. As soon as the doctor emerged from the room, Khamkeuth rushed to ask him,

“How did it go, doctor? How is my daughter doing?”

“Don’t ask me those questions yet. Go in and see your daughter first, then come back and see me in this room.”

Khamkeuth opened the door in a hurry and saw his beloved daughter asleep. He used both of his hands to pat her hair back and forth with love. He then came out of the room to meet with the doctor again.

The minute he stepped in the room, the doctor looked at him from top to bottom and then turned his head to a filing cabinet on his right. The doctor pulled out a small piece of paper from the cabinet.  Khamkeuth tried to see what was on that paper, which looked like the paper used to wrap a cigarette. The doctor then slowly said,

“Now, can you tell me how much money do you have to pay for your daughter’s treatment?"

Khamkeuth said, “Doctor, I really don't have much. This is all we have in our family. We sold the only buffalo we had to get some money to pay for our daughter’s treatment.”

“That part, I don’t need to know. I only want to know how much money do you have in hand?"

“Just one million and five hundred thousand kips."

The doctor glanced at Khamkeuth once more, took a deep breath and said,

“In that case, you better take your daughter home and treat her with traditional medicine!"

“Excuse me, Doctor! We have already treated her without success with traditional medicine before we brought her to the hospital.”

"But if that’s all the money you have, that’s not enough to treat your daughter. At least, you should have two to three million kips!"

“Doctor, could I get some benevolent assistance for the needy from the hospital?”

The doctor paused for some thought and said,

“I understand your situation. In that case, the only way is to bring a letter from your village headman, and I will recommend that the hospital management help you with the payment.”

“Thank you very much for your kindness.  I will keep your good deed in my heart forever."