Singapore
Saturday, July 26, 2014 - Raffles Marina, Singapore
As I mentioned before, Jackie and I had planned to come back to Singapore to relax for two weeks before we started our push south and out into the Indian Ocean. We knew we still had a few boat projects to do, but wefigured that we would be able to work on them at a more relaxed pace and still be able to enjoy being in Singapore. Our plan once we left Singapore was to sail south, back through part of Indonesia and head out into the Indian Ocean via the Sunda Strait, which is a relatively narrow channel between the islands of Java and Sumatera. From there we head southwest to the island of Cocos Keeling and then on to Rodriquez, Mauritius, Reunion and ultimately South Africa. There are a lot of miles in front of us but we are fortunate in that we have a small group of boats to travel with consisting of Solstice, Kite and Shango.
We were making good progress on the boat projects and then on our 3rd night in Singapore, Jackie wakes up in the middle of the night screaming "Oh my God the boat is rolling over! The boat is rolling over! Why is the boat rolling over?" I thought at first that she was having a bad dream, but then figured out she was having a really, really, bad attack of vertigo. We were both scared, had no idea what to do, and no clue how to call an ambulance in Singapore at 2 o'clock in the morning. The initial wave passed, but repeated itself several times before we could get her to a doctor later that morning. The first doctor we went to see checked to make sure that she had not had a stroke and then diagnosed her as having "giddiness". Yes there was a slight language barrier, but seriously? giddiness? He gave her a Vitamin B supplement, some motion sickness pills, and said to "go home, take a nap and you will be better". So she did but the boat just started rolling over again.
After another long night, we went to a different doctor the next day who after several tests diagnosed her with Benign Paroxismal Positional Vertigo or BPPV. BPPV is apparently caused by loose calcium particles in the inner ear that hit nerve endings in one of the three inner ear canals that control a person's balance and thus causes severe vertigo. He said that it's usually brought on by some type of head trauma, but that in some people it just happens naturally and after the first occurrence it is likely to happen again. Great… just what an already seasick prone person needs as she is preparing to cross the Indian Ocean. The doctor went on to describe the various treatment options, but before attempting any of them he wanted her to sleep upright for a week and then come back to see him. Sleeping upright would help accelerate the movement of the calcium particles out of her inner ear. We really liked this doctor and we found out later that he is one of the top ENT doctors in Singapore I guess there is a reason that it cost us nearly $400 for the visit as compared to first doctor where we paid $35 to find out that Jackie was just giddy.
At this point we were supposed to leave Singapore in a week, so we checked with the marina to see if we could stay another week and they said that they were pretty booked and would have to get back to us. Meanwhile, Bill was staying onboard Hokule'a with us for a few days so that he could obtain his Indonesian visa from the consulate in Singapore and run a few last minute errands to get Solstice ready to go. So Jackie and I took a day off from boat work and went to the incredibly beautiful Singapore Botanical Gardens and National Orchid Gallery.
After a few days, we still hadn't heard from the marina so we decided to go back to the doctor just in case we needed to leave Singapore. Jackie was really struggling with trying to sleep upright and she had decided that she wanted the doctor to go ahead and do a procedure (called Epley's) where he performs a series of maneuvers on her head to move the calcium particles out of her inner ear. When we showed up at the doctor's office, Jackie proudly told him that she had been sleeping upright for 3 days and was feeling a little better. He slowly peered at her over the top of his glasses and said "only 3 days"? Clearly he was not as impressed as Jackie was with her feat. We explained our situation with the marina and she went on to tell him that she wanted him to perform the Epley's procedure. After asking her a number of questions, he told her that he didn't think that the procedure was the right thing to do at this point because she had made such great progress and that there was a risk that the procedure could make the vertigo worse. He went on to say that considering our situation (ie: crossing the Indian Ocean in a few weeks) that the best thing was to let it run its course and continue to sleep upright for as long as she could. While it wasn't the result that we had hoped for when we went in for the second visit, in the end we decided to put our trust in him and his recommendation.
When we got back to the marina, we found out that we could stay another week but no longer because the owner of the slip was returning on June 28th. That worked great for us as it would give Jackie another week to recover and give us a little time to do some of the fun things that we had originally wanted to do in Singapore. Jackie got to go shopping, I got to see Changi Airport, we got to eat all of the really great street food, and we treated ourselves to drinks at the top of the Marina Bay Sands for sunset overlooking downtown Singapore.
So today was decision day, do we go back to Puteri to give Jackie more time to recuperate or was she feeling good enough to start heading south. Ultimately she decided that we should "get out there" and see if the vertigo is going to be an issue. So tomorrow we will start day hopping through Indonesia. Our friends on Shango have already left, Bill needs a few more days on Solstice, and Kite may be leaving tomorrow also depending on how their day went. Regardless, we are all planning on meeting up somewhere in Indonesia before we make the jump to Cocos Keeling. Hopefully we are leaving the vertigo behind in Singapore.