Christmas, December 2009

There are still such things as Christmas miracles.



After only thirty-days up in rehab, my wife, Kanittha, returns home to join us for Christmas. She's gained some weight back and her eyes have regained some clarity and a little more focus, but she's still very frail and her skin is still in poor condition. She's better, but not well at all.

She says that being there in Khon Kaen, separated far away from us was a terrible eye-opening experience. One that she would never want to repeat, and an experience that has taught her an important lesson about drugs. She said that the feeling of loss will be enough to keep her away from drugs.

Starting our Christmas day properly, we all went to hear mass at the Church of the Holy Redeemer. Having my wife back with us has been the most amazing Christmas gift ever. We give thanks and celebrate the miracle of the child, Jesus, our Savior.



Here we are right after the mass paying homage to the Christ child, the little bambino lying in the manger. Little Nio is a bit confused about the baby lying there and attempts to take the statuette home with us.



Little Nio giving his Mommy a big Christmas kiss.



Little Nio posing in front of the big Christmas tree at one of the malls.



After the mass we joined the office Christmas party, which we all celebrated together at the Tetto Lounge on the 12th floor of the new Anantara Baan Rajprasong, located very near to our office. Little Nio seems to like the vibrant red carpet and marches around the private room.



Little Nio enjoying some cake after a scrumptious buffet lunch.



Here he is making sure that my colleague, Khun Jiew, who is our Business Development Manager, is getting enough to eat. All the staff at the office know Little Nio quite well and most of the ladies have a soft spot for him. Little Nio knows this, so he really turns on the charm when he knows he can get away with it.



Making friends with the son of another office mate.



Not quite a children's party, but the two little boys seemed to get along quite well. They even share an interest in die cast toy cars.

Safari World, December 2009

Little Nio loves animals. As a treat, I decided to take him out to see some real live animals, rather than just the ones he can see on the Animal Planet channel. We drove out to visit the animals at "Safari World". Living life vicariously via the television isn't the same thing at all as actually living it.



Don't ask me for directions, I'm one of those poor folks who is "navigationally impaired". All I know is that it's about an hour away to the north of Bangkok in the province of Minburi. I took care of the driving, but the route was all plotted out by GPS. Above is a satellite image of the park (courtesy of GoogleEarth), but the cloud cover isn't showing very much.



Here's Little Nio wearing his "tiger" t-shirt all strapped in and ready to enter the park. Admission into the park (without any of the shows) for children is free, and adults only pay something like a hundred baht, or less. We didn't do any shows, which could last the entire day, so we managed to drive the course of the park in a little less than two hours. Tickets for the various shows are more expensive and they go up to 450 THB for children and 875 THB for adults.





First looks at zebras for Little Nio.



He looks a little bit upset that there's a cement mixer in the park with the zebras, but apparently that truck is mixing feed for the animals.



Some really ugly looking ostriches. Some of them had large patches of exposed skin missing their feathers. They're not exactly attractive birds to begin with, so without the feathers they are even less so. Let's not even talk about the smell.



Little Nio points to a camel. The camel just stares back at us. I'm not sure if camels can point back with their toes.





There is a large water reservoir in the middle of the first part of the park and in it there are several "islands" that the birds use for nesting. You can see a couple of giraffes in the background.



Safari World boasts having one of the largest giraffe herds outside of Africa.



They also have an impressive number of rhinos mixing in with the zebras.



Little Nio pointing to one of the deer.



Here he is pointing to a whole bunch of them. I think these are actually a kind of antelope, the Oryx.



Impressive horned beasties of some sort. I forget what they are called, but as soon as I figure that out I'll jump back in and edit this post. These beastie beauties were near the end of the park section where you are allowed to roll your windows down. Every where else after that section needed to have the windows rolled up all the way and the doors locked securely.



Driving through a series of gates arranged as a sluice passage, we enter into the more dangerous part of the park. We pass a pride of lions lounging in the shade.



Not much further along we pass a whole group of tigers underneath a makeshift shelter out of the sun.



Here's a more active group of tigers. I started to wonder how the park staff managed to separate the lions from the tigers, when clearly one could easily drive from one part where we saw the lions to the next one where most of the tigers were sitting around.



It appears that the park doesn't bother to separate the lions from the tigers. Here they are all sitting around together. There are a few birds hopping around between the big cats just to make the menagerie even more interesting.



Towards the end of the park, Little Nio starts pointing to one of his most favorite animals - the bears.



We had a really good time together that morning. After Safari World we drove back to the nice air conditioned comfort of a modern mall where we had lunch before going home.

Christmas Party, December 2009

Little Nio joined the Christmas Party at his daycare center. Unfortunately, because it was held in the middle of the day, I wasn't able to attend so I lent one of our digital cameras to the staff at the center so that they could take some photos for us.



Here's Little Nio posing in front of the pin-up Christmas Tree. I suppose having an actual tree would be too much of a hassle, specially with a few dozen little children running around. A real tree would take up too much room, be a real obstruction and who knows what kinds of allergic the kids might have to it. And that's one of the things I appreciate most about Fullakids, there's a lot of foresight given to decisions made for the children. Always very safe and sensible.







Looks like storytelling or singing time, with Little Nio sitting right beside his teacher, Miss Radeane, who owns and runs Fullakids. She has three of her own children, but she enjoys taking care and teaching the kids.



Here's Little Nio posing with his little hat that has his name "Antonio" written on the hem in nice big silver letters.



Looks like they're ready to have some activities here.





Dancing time! Little Nio has picked out a friend to be his partner. The daycare has about thirty to forty children from ages 2 to 5 years old, but the average age seems to be 3. The children are from all over the world, with about half of the kids Asian and only a handful of kids from Thailand. This is excellent exposure for Little Nio at a really early age. Reminds me of that song from "South Pacific"... "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught".



A very thoughtful little Christmas gift from Fullakids!

Fifteen Days, December 2009

It has been fifteen days since my wife, Kanittha, has been in the rehab center up in Khon Kaen.

Little Nio and I are doing well. We manage, but I would be lying if I said things have been easy. Things have been very difficult for us both, but we manage. I'm not sure that Little Nio knows what is going on, or if he misses his mother, but I know that I miss my wife.

Our regular daily schedule has us waking up at six in the morning. I run a bath for him and double check to make sure that his day bag, prepared the night before, is squared away properly — four bottles of milk, two bottles of sterilized water, a full pack of wet wipes, four diapers, plastic bags, a spare set of clothes and some cloth diapers for wiping his nose. This should be enough to last the day. It takes a bit of effort to get him out of bed and into the bath, but if he wakes up nicely he can be very cooperative. If he's not really awake or grumpy, it's like moving a heavy bag of potatoes.



Once in the bath things go fairly quickly. There's the expected resistance to getting wet initially. Then, once thoroughly soaked in the tub and enjoying himself, there is the resistance to get him out of the water. Drying him up and getting him dressed is a challenge since Little Nio does tend to run around quite a bit. Get the cream to prevent diaper rash on him, followed by a layer of powder to prevent chaffing and help keep him cool. Followed closely by putting on the disposable diaper are his shirt and trousers. Dressing him up is actually very easy, he only needs a bit of guidance to get all the limbs placed into the right holes of the clothing. By next year, he should be dressing himself up, I think.

I give him a chance to run around and play with a few things while I clean up the bathroom, make the bed and tidy up the bedroom. Once everything is put in to some semblance of order we go down to the second floor. I switch on the television for a wee bit of cartoons while I go downstairs to get him his breakfast. I make sure to bring down the empty bottles from the night before so that our household help can wash and sterilize these used bottles. Once Little Nio is settled down to breakfast, I rush to get showered and changed myself. That doesn't take too long as I usually prepare things the night before and it's almost an automated process.

At every stage of getting ready, I sneak out to see what Little Nio is doing. Get out of the shower - check on him. Finish brushing teeth - check on him. Get dressed - check on him. Stuff pockets with all sorts of stuff (wallet, handkerchief, keys, etcetera) - check on him. Samuel also comes to keep him company.



By the time I'm done, Little Nio is just about done with breakfast and I have a moment or two to make sure that he's eaten enough. I clean him up, put the family room in order and take down the breakfast dishes and our bags. He usually follows down by himself, but I make sure he's holding on to me or the handrail properly.

Little Nio gets his own shoes off the shoe rack and puts them on by himself. By this time the front door is open and I'm loading our bags into the car. My gear in the rear, all his stuff in front with him in the front passenger seat securely strapped in to his car seat.



Huge debate about that being the best place for a child, but when it's just the two of us in the car it's really difficult to tend to him when he's sitting in the back while I'm driving. This way he can see where we are going, what's going on and we can even have little conversations about all the lousy drivers in Bangkok.

On the elevated toll way there are a lot of motorcycle traffic police stationed at every on/off ramp and when Little Nio spots them he yells out "POO-LEE-KAH!!!" repeatedly, which translates as "police car". Even though there isn't a car in sight, or even if it is a lone policeman standing at an intersection, they are all collectively lumped under the term "poo-lee-kah". He will continue yelling this out at the top of his lungs until I acknowledge that he's spotted them. He'll be quiet until the next junction where there are more policemen stationed.

By the time we get to the last traffic light before his stop, I have time to make a quick call to the day care center, Fullakids, so that they can send someone down to fetch Little Nio from the car.

Once he's at the Day Care, I can then start my regular work day. Some days I manage to have lunch with him. I walk over from the office, pick him up, then we walk together to find some place to eat. Sometimes it will be simple like a bowl of noodles from the sidewalk vendors, other times we will sit down at a nice restaurant across the street from my office building. On a few occasions we even walk all the way to a big department store, Central Chidlom, spend time in the toy section and then grab something simple to eat. After lunch I walk him back to the day care center and continue my day.

At the end of the work day, I will come by to pick him up then we walk back together to the office where the car is parked. Walking back with Little Nio is an adventure in itself. He is a master of "lollygagging", the aimless meander with only a vague intention to get led back to the parked car. He will stop to inspect everything. He will wave to all the familiar faces along the way and he will try to make friends whenever he meets a friendly smile. He will check uneven paving blocks, stomp at fallen leaves and point animatedly at any vehicle that catches his imagination. It takes me two minutes to get to his day care from the office, but it sometimes takes fifteen minutes to get back.

Once we finally reach the building we get invariably dragged into the grocery at the ground level, Villa Market, where we usually grab a snack for Little Nio and do some last minute shopping. He is very popular with all the ladies who are at the cash registers, not only because he is cute but because he is such a character. By the time we get into the car and start our drive home it is almost six in the evening. Some days even later than that.

If we are hungry and I know that there is nothing to eat at home, or I am out of energy to prepare anything myself, then we will make a stop for dinner along the way home. One favorite place is the Suan Lum Night Bazaar, where they always have lots of good things to eat and a lot of things to see.

With traffic and dinner behind us we get home at about eight in the evening. This give us just enough time to put our things away and prepare his bag for the next day — four bottles of milk, two of water, four disposable diapers, two cloth diapers for wiping, plastic bags for soiled clothing, and a spare change of clothes. Then it's time for the evening bath. We try to do this as quickly as possible, but that doesn't always work. He enjoys himself in the bath and also enjoys getting chased out of the bath dripping wet, but once he's in his night clothes he slowly starts to change into low gear. He'll do a bit of playing and watch some television while I take care of my own thing, and he does pretty well on his own but I do keep an eye and an ear open just in case.



By ten at night we are usually in bed. Some days I get lucky and we are under the sheets by nine in the evening. Other days are not so good, and even though we are in bed Little Nio is still wide awake at midnight. The only thing that seems to work for him is switching the channels over to "Chic Channel" which has a show called "Midnight Fashion" that features scantily clad women modeling lingerie and swimwear. Little Nio calms down, takes his bottle of milk and settles in to watch the bikini beauties prancing around and he eventually drifts off to sleep.

And then we start the day all over again.

Donations, November 2009

Let's see if this works.

We're short on cash from time to time, as we all are, so don't feel obligated to click on the button above. Things might be tough, but we haven't hit desperation and rock bottom. This is more of an exercise in getting familiar with HTML code and integrating various tools available within Blogger and with my PayPal account.

That being said, if you feel like you'd like to make a small donation to our family, we definitely won't refuse, and will be most grateful for your generosity.

Tragedy & Recovery, November 2009

This is a difficult post to write, but as this is supposed to be an online journal for our family, sanitizing it isn't really going to help anyone.

"The truth shall set you free."

Speaking of things sanitary, before all the drama unfolds, we would like to report some success on the potty training front. Here's Little Nio trying the big chair on for size. We're still trying to find one of those combination toilet seats that has two sizes in one.



My wife's medical condition took a terrible turn for the worse. Over the span of a month, we saw her lose weight from 42 kilograms (92.4 lbs) down to about 34 kilograms (74.8 lbs). Her skin condition deteriorated dramatically in the course of less than a week. And to top it all off, her mind and spirit were also affected.

She was given to fits of erratic behavior that turned from argumentative to violent. She was seeing things, claiming to have acquired a second sight, and she was also hearing voices that were supposed to be spirits protecting her. She would stay awake all night for several nights in a row, and then sleep during the day when I would be at the office.

Some time in late-August, my wife claimed that a hex or black magic spell had been placed on her by an acquaintance of hers, a friend who would come to the house to visit. My wife doesn't enjoy going out so she prefers to entertain friends at home. Several of her girl friends would come over to spend the day and sometimes it would become a sleep over. They'd be gossiping, joking around, laughing, listening to music, playing cards, cooking, drinking and eating. All very normal and innocent.

A week or so after all this weirdness started, my wife already suspected this person. Apparently the other girls in her group felt "funny" about her, knowing that she has a streak of this sort of strangeness about her. I found Kanittha in the bathroom at the lavatory with tweezers pulling what looked like thin spidery threads from the index fingers of both hands. She was shaking and bleeding where the tweezers had broken the skin on her finger joints. She asked me to help her look for anything strange in our bathrooms. Rather than question it all, I agreed to search. We found a wad of white gauze stuffed inside the shower drain tied up with dark thread (or hair) and inside were some small black cobbler nails (about 8mm long, square pointed wedges with a wide flat head). It looked like there were bloodstains on the gauze, but it may just as well have been rust. I'm not going to let my imagination get the better of me. Having worked on countless construction sites, I have found all sorts of junk stuffed into drains and bits wedged unceremoniously into P-traps. But this was just a shade more than I was used to, given everything else going on.

Almost a month into all this I find my wife speaking in a dialect in not-quite-her-own-voice again in the bathroom. This time she's got rouge on an old sock over her hands and she's rubbing it all over the toilet seat cover, turning the white molded plastic a shade of red. And it subsequently exposed some very strange scratches and what might be construed as symbols. In the construction industry, when materials are packed and stacked, then delivered to site and not properly protected prior to handover... stuff gets scratched all the time. So what I saw could be one thing and with a bit of imagination could be something else entirely.

So it turns out that this woman who is "attacking" my wife has allegedly got the "hots" for me and is trying to break up our marriage. For a moment there I stop worrying about the weirdness and start laughing at the stupidity of it all.

A few days after that, my wife terminates the services of our household helper. To make a long story less boring... apparently there is a connection with this helper of ours and the woman "attacker". And then there's this female taxi driver who apparently is also in cahoots with them... her car was the one spotted in the security videos while we were at the hospital. My wife knows this female driver from a few years back and frequently uses her cab to run errands when I'm at work and can't drive for her. She uses her because she feels safe traveling with another woman, the taxi is clean and well maintained and the driver is a very cautious one. But I doubt we'll be calling on her again.

All in all there were about a half-dozen people who are implicated in all this... and I honestly think that they are clueless to all these goings-on. I think in her weakened state, my wife's fragile grip on reality has created this really convoluted conspiracy.



We have had some high ranking monks come to the house for a blessing ceremony. A four-hour chanting session, clouded in incense, followed by a light drizzle of holy water (the Buddhist variety, not the Christian flavored version). We've also had some doctor/professor/shaman woman come to the house to perform another sort of cleansing ritual.



On the other side of this, we had also gone to a hospital for blood tests and had seen a skin specialist. The tests came back normal and clear, and the dermatologist was pretty much stumped.





We had some pretty fancy banner type things with impressive symbols and diagrams on them plastered in different parts of the house. One is blocking the passage of the dead on a south facing wall, another black one with gold writing is at the front of the house supported by a red one with black writing. Then there was a yellow one with red symbols facing to the east to invoke peace. And they all got moved around as needed, like troops on the frontlines. I wouldn't have been surprised if I woke up one morning with something plastered on to my forehead.

About three weeks ago, the story took another interesting turn. Her eldest brother, Khun Rin, shows up one morning unannounced, which I do not think is extraordinary as family is family and they are welcome to come and go as they please. That morning, Little Nio went off to his daycare center and I go off to work.

When we returned home that evening, my wife was again in the bathroom seated on the toilet seat. At first I thought she was on the phone, but then I realized that she was talking to "people" over the "ether". She was animated and in a very engaged conversation with multiple persons, as if she was on conference call. She was very annoyed with me when I interrupted to ask who she was speaking with and said that one of my friends was part of the group currently in communication with her. As if on queue she takes on a concentrated look and speaks into thin air, then turns and says that my friend will call me from his house in about five minutes.

Ten minutes later I decide to call my friend, he doesn't answer his phone. Almost an hour later he calls back and apologizes for not taking my call because he was driving out of town, and confirms that he has not spoken with my wife for the longest time.

It was right after this episode that I was confronted with the grim evidence that my beloved wife was a drug addict. Her brother had found the drug paraphernalia she was hiding. Everyone who knows me, knows that I don't go through the stages of anger-denial-acceptance. I tend to deal with the situation at hand first and then worry about those inevitable stages later on. Apparently she has been on "ice" (methamphetamine) for a couple of years and that the recent effects on her health was the drug abuse becoming more intense. One could say that "love is blind", but the truth of the matter is that I was trusting and very stupid to not have seen any of this.

I've asked myself "how could this have happened?" and "why did she do this to herself?" — it doesn't matter. One could spend countless hours mulling over the variables struggling to rationalize things, but for whatever reason this has happened to us... it is no longer important in the context of what needs to be done.



Reading through the effects of this particular drug, a lot of things fell into place and all the weird mystery began to make logical sense. If you ever have the chance to see this documentary on National Geographic Channel, "World's Most Dangerous Drug", I highly recommend it. The documentary, not the drug. Very informative and powerful stuff that will bring the horrific effects of this drug into startling focus.

To make our situation even more of a challenge, her addiction has almost wiped out our nest-egg savings. Over the years, I have been giving my wife gifts of gold — bracelets and necklaces. This is very standard for Thai culture, where they place a very high value on gold (±96.5% pure gold) measuring it in baht weights, where one baht is equal to 15.16 grams. I would give her one baht gold for Christmas, for New Year, for our two wedding anniversaries, Thai New Year, Buddhist Lent, her birthday, for Mother's Day, for Valentines Day... and sometimes for no special reason other than I had some savings I wanted to stash away for her future. This was supposed to be her gold reserve in the event that something should happen to me and she needed some cash quickly. To simply get to the point — no more gold.

We even had a separate bank account for her where I divert some of my salary to defray household expenses. I wanted her to learn how to run her own home and pay all the many monthly utility bills and assorted day-to-day payments. By the time I realized what was going on, we were behind on almost all the payments, some were in arrears for over two months. It doesn't take much of an imagination to figure out where that money had gone to.

Right now, after paying for all the bills and attending to most of our outstanding debts, I can almost make ends meet. Almost, but not quite. There's still an unknown factor of a week left over in this month that I have no idea how we will manage. I'm not worried though, just curious and slightly anxious. By stretching the imagination I pretend that I can scent a faint whiff of financial liquidity at the end of the month.

Here are a couple of photographs showing the dramatic changes to my wife's condition.



This first photograph was taken about two years ago.



This second photograph was taken a little over two weeks ago. There is a website that holds a collection of photographs similar to these — Faces of Meth.

The next day they brought my wife to a specialist government hospital in Bangkok, where she was given a sedative to quickly counter the effects of the methamphetamine induced high and help ease her through withdrawals. I could not go with them as I had to stay with Little Nio, and bringing him to a place like that was not something I wanted him to experience. She was in a lethargic and near catatonic state coming down from the effects. After two days of trying to convince her to take clean up, I had to bathe her in bed because I couldn't take the stench of the toxins sweating out of her pores.

On the third day after she successfully fought off the worst effects, she started eating again and could now go to the bathroom by herself. We then decided that it was time to get some specialist help.



There is a substance abuse recovery center up in the northeast of Thailand, in the province of Khon Khaen. You can find an online location for this place on Wikimapia and also here on Google Maps. It is a six hour drive up from where we live. Deciding to go there and seek help was not an issue, getting my wife to agree to go there was an effort. Taking the advice of experienced persons in Bangkok whom I knew, it was the general consensus that my wife could not be helped unless she agreed to be helped. It had to be entirely her own decision.



Leaving the house at 2:30 AM and driving on open empty roads we arrive at the center at half past seven. It is still closed and we have to wait another hour for it to open and another hour passes till we get to sit down and speak with one of the resident counselors at the center. It is a heartbreaking experience, but also very cathartic at the same time.



After nearly four hours of discussion and consultation, my wife decides that she is not ready to stay at the center. I am both relieved and disappointed at the same time. The counselor agrees to support the decision on the provision that we return in two weeks time with conditions that need to be met. My wife has to show an increase in her weight, her skin needs to clear up, she needs to be completely off the methamphetamines, she needs to be reading the informational books and pamphlets, she has to be attending support group meetings, and she must show an improved family life. All of these will be discussed when we return to Khon Kaen on Monday morning.



Since that last visit two weeks ago, things have been improving. Having his grandmother around has been great for Little Nio. An extra set of loving eyes and ears around the house has been a blessing. Here's Little Nio have breakfast with his grandmother.



Little Nio strikes a tough gangsta pose on the concourse level of the BTS Skytrain. We had to leave his Mom at home to rest while we went out to get the car serviced (30,000 km maintenance check-up). We need to have everything in top condition in preparation for our trip up to Khon Kaen.



While waiting for the Nissan Service Center to finish up with the checking and maintenance of our car, Little Nio heads off to feed the birds at Chatuchak Park.



Very hot and tiring work, so he decides to take a quick bottle break on a park bench.



On our way back to get our car, we stop in front of the new museum to check things out. Here's Little Nio posing in front of this large sculpture that looks strangely familiar to his own potty pose.



At the end of the day, Little Nio spends time with his Mommy, who is well on the way to a full recovery. It might be several more months before she can recover physically, but it will take years to really work on the addiction. The sad reality is that drug addiction is an incurable disease, and that we will always only be able to deal with the symptoms but never be able to cure. It is the only disease where the afflicted person actually resists treatment. We live with this sickness one day at a time.