Mark called this morning at 5:30 am. I was already up and eating breakfast as I am working today at 7 am to make some money to help Mark out with his expenses. He had a cat scan yesterday and is awaiting the results. He had some kind of contrast dye put into a vein in his hand and the vein was blown, infiltrated, and he has been uncomfortable with it and it wakes him sometimes from sleep.
Mark was in a mood to talk business today and we went over his finances on the phone. He wants to stay in Bangkok as long as he can as he has great confidence in his doctors, nurses, and the hospital. He will come back to the USA when he runs out of money and his fear is that he will not be able to access care as easily as he can in Bangkok.
We were discussing his hospital bills. I noted that there was an early x-ray that cost 230 baht which is under 6 dollars. The radiologist fee for reading this x-ray was 115 baht or just over $2.50. The radiation was about 300 dollars a treatment which he had daily for awhile. The neuclear medicine radiologists fee was just under 50 dollars a visit. The chemo doctor's fee is about 25 dollars a visit. Ultra sound was about 125 dollars. An overnight stay was $275 for the room. Three days of chemotherapy seem to cost about a thousand dollars because everything is billed and that includes bills for nursing service, doctor's fees, the room, IV's, chemo drugs, antinausea drugs, various pills and lab work. Drinking a pepsi out of the stocked refrigerator in the patient room costs less than 50 cents. While many things are cheaper than the USA, some things like pain medication are extremely expensive compared to the USA. The nurses and doctors are extremely respectful to and kind to the patients. Every staff member is professionally dressed. The nurses wear caps and answer the client's light within seconds. One of Mark's bills was for about 400 dollars for the radiation doc. Mark explained this was for several visits and it was worth it in his mind as the radiation doc knew her business and early on shrank his tumor and made it possible for him to eat solid food after being on liquids due to the size of the tumor compressing his esophagus. Mark also said: "And after all Mom you can't even hardly buy a set of tires for $400. "