Love and Loss in Cambodia — Surviving War, Surviving Myself

1997 was the worst year, with war, bombs, and a personal tragedy of my own

When I was an eight-year-old girl, I read everything in my family home, including encyclopedias. The family medical cabinet held a thermometer with silver mercury, a hot water bottle, and a leather bound medical book.

In the medical book, I stared at the sketch of a tiny embryo lodged in a fallopian tube, growing outside of the uterus. It could not last, and often resulted in death. I looked at the page so many times that the book would fall open to it.

It bothered me and fascinated me at the same time. This is how I learned about ectopic pregnancy. It is painful for me to write about this. Even now, I stop and wonder why things went so wrong for me, for us. My late ex-husband and I.

On the morning of June 25th, 1997, I felt ill. My lower abdomen was achy, and I couldn’t stand up quite straight. It did not feel like pain. I looked in the bathroom mirror and I appeared chalky, almost opaque.

I called in sick the previous week with stomach pain, so I couldn’t take another day off, especially as I was a manager on salary. It crossed my mind that it was the anniversary of my brother’s last full day alive.

I got into business attire to teach hospitality English at Hotel InterContinental, a five-star hotel. I walked outside and got into a cyclo — a bicycle cart — and arrived at the hotel around 9 a.m.

I began teaching the class when I could no longer ignore the dull sensation of pain that washed over me. I could neither stand nor sit, and pain radiated throughout my trunk.

“Stop every single thing. Pay attention,” I thought.

I excused myself and went to the ladies room. There was bright blood, not the normal rust. I was in trouble. A wave of vertigo hit me, and I breathed slowly, washing my face with trembling hands.

I returned to the classroom, bent oddly at the waist, and apologized to all, mentioning that I was ill. They could tell. Their brown eyes filled with concern; the Cambodian people understand suffering well, and they could see I was in pain, not sabay. Not happy.

I was pretty sure I was dying, in a country with no ambulance nor emergency services phone number. Hospitals I had seen in Cambodia were abysmal places of suffering and filth.

I knew too much about Cambodia to be sabay. Way too much.

It was the year 1997. This year makes me shudder even now. It was a year of violence, with sugarcane sellers bombed and killed. 1997 was the year of a shootout in the streets of Phnom Penh, with me riding through the streets, arms around my friend who sped through on her motorcycle, right through the gunfire.

1997 was the year of the July coup d’etat in the street. Tanks rolled through the streets next to our apartment in Phnom Penh. Machine guns shot, bombs exploded. At night, we watched red tracers in the sky and listened to battle.

Princess Di was in a fatal car wreck that year, and Mother Teresa preceded her in death. 1997 was horrible, not just for me.

1997 was the year of the plane crash. A Vietnam Airlines flight to Pochentang Airport in Phnom Penh came down low in a driving rain, its desperate passengers standing at the back of the plane as its wings clipped off, striking palm trees. It exploded into a ball of flame and smoke when it hit the ground, killing everyone but a tiny baby.

Nearby residents and military police looted the broken bodies, stealing gold, jewels, money, the suitcases, and even the recorder boxes. Dying men in a rice paddy were ignored as the MP’s and villagers stripped corpses of gold and watches, and rifled through luggage.

It was mentioned in the press. The two men lying in a rice paddy were still alive, but they died as the other Cambodians looted. This was 1997.

1997 was one of those years we make it through, but just barely. I think most people have a year like that, one that makes their heart beat a bit faster.

1997 was one of those completely fucked years with no redeeming qualities except I survived it. It left scars on my soul and on my body.

A few times, I’ve met people who have only lost distant relatives they never really knew. People who haven’t personally encountered grief do exist, and it always surprises me.

So, I collapsed at Hotel InterContinental.

I asked one student to stay with me. She took care of everything, and I was home within about ten minutes. I crawled up the metal spiral staircase, and got on my living room floor, the cool tile on my back.

I pulled a large cushion to the floor, and elevated my legs, and called my British doctor, using my cell phone. Without it, I would have taken a few aspirin, which would have thinned my blood, and probably died within four hours. Thank you, MobiTel Cambodia.

Doctor Scott arrived quickly and asked me a few questions. Next, he did a rebound test, pressing deeply into my lower abdomen and quickly releasing. I gasped with pain. It was sharp, like a knife cutting into me.

Dr. Scott had surprisingly blue eyes, and a direct bedside manner.

“Ah,” he said. “You’re bleeding internally. I think appendicitis, or, wait, is there any chance you could be pregnant?”

Yes. There was.

Ken had finally agreed to having a baby with me in late 1996. I had wanted a baby since I was 31, and Ken had refused.

This baby was a bargaining chip to keep me in Cambodia. I had no time for sadness. I was in trouble. I might die now.

Doctor Scott told me to get to the Aurora Clinic fast. He would answer my next phone call, he said, and dashed off to help another sick person.

Clinique Aurore was right down the street from the Hun Sen Compound, where our apartment was.

Polly, in the kitchen puttering around, came to the living room when Doctor Scott arrived. She and her daughter lived with us, and she was a general housekeeper for us and did all our shopping at the Asian markets. She was also my friend.

She insisted on going with me. I slowly walked down the spiral staircase and got on a motorcycle taxi.

In hindsight, this was dangerous, but in those days, it took some time to get a car taxi. Time I didn’t have.

When we pulled up at Clinique Aurore the doors were locked, and about five Cambodians sat under an awning eating rice and fish. The pain getting off the motorcycle was horrible. I walked slowly, begging them for help. Polly backed me up,

“Please, she is bleeding. She could die. It’s a bad problem, a big problem. Please help us!” Polly told them a Western doctor would be there soon, and that I needed surgery.

Her musical voice always expressed volumes.

The staff jumped up, running to the door. Polly helped me walk, telling me not to worry, not to worry, not to worry. They unlocked the front door. The clinic was large, and we turned right after entering.

They ushered me into a tiny room. The room was dusty, and just big enough for me, the ultrasound technician, and Polly. I sat on a gurney-type bed, and Polly helped me lie down.

“Oh, Debra. You are white. No color in your face.”

The ultrasound technician put gel on my abdomen and on the scanning device, and began moving the wand around my abdomen and higher. I saw her frown, and then she spoke.

“Pregnancy ectopique. You have about a liter of blood lost, and it’s as high as your liver. We must cut. No time to waste. If no surgery, you will die.” This was a lot to take in, but I was now becoming coldly logical.

I could not die and leave my parents behind. They had suffered enough.

Ken? Perhaps my death might not be a tremendous problem for him. We had been overseas for three years. I’d had Dengue Fever, and food poisoning so severe I nearly died.

Ken never considered leaving, even when I was so ill.

Quiet, quiet, quiet — I told myself. No time to worry now.

My Khmer language skills served me well. The ultrasound technician spoke Khmer to Polly, and medical personnel spoke French. Polly echoed words to me in a more serious and emotional tone.

“Thank you. I need my husband now. No blood. I wait.”

Off Polly went to fetch Ken back. We told each other to be careful, and she rushed out after squeezing my hand hard, and saying, “Oh, Debra,” her musical voice low and worried. Ken didn’t know anything about my situation, nor was he even awake yet.

He had been up until probably 3 or 4 a.m. the night before, as we were working on the first Sihanoukville Visitors Guide to Cambodia. I had badgered him for weeks to finish it, and he couldn’t move beyond the editing process and put it to bed. Clients I’d sold ads to were calling me every day.

Ken never woke up well. When we were first together in 1989, I had slipped under the sheets with him one night and he woke up yelling, furious I had disturbed his sleep.

He slept for long stretches, and arose to drink Mountain Dew or Coke before I even bothered to talk with him. It’s who he was, and I loved him despite his morning grouchiness.

I should have woken him immediately when Dr. Scott told me I was hemorrhaging. I was in that zone-like state of knowing I was in trouble. My lower abdomen was so taut and seized up that I couldn’t stand straight. I just wasn’t thinking well.

At that point, I lost about twenty percent of my body’s blood. Perhaps I was beginning to go into shock. My hands felt cold. I quieted myself and focused on slow, deep breaths. I wanted to survive this, and wasn’t sure I would.

The last several months had been so politically stressful. Just in the last few months, bombs killed people in a park nearby, political tension rose between the two prime ministers, and my friend Malgosia and I got caught in a gun battle in Phnom Penh, machine gunfire surrounding us.

Unable to gauge its location, I had wrapped my arms around her tightly, and with Military Police screaming, “go go GO!” at us, they paused their shooting to let us fly past on Malgosia’s motorcycle.

Malgosia shouted to hold on, and she gunned it, jetting us across Norodom Boulevard. She slowed down after getting us past the gunfight, and pointed out an elderly Khmer gentleman wearing his red and white checked krama around his waist, standing outside and smiling a toothless grin, waving at us and gripping an AK-47.

We continued east to the FCC where journalists stood in the street with cell phones held to their ears. They were oblivious to us, the two women who had just ridden through the fight. They were turning to men arriving, asking them questions. They ignored us. Phnom Penh was man’s land, and many of us women were invisible.

Ken was frantic, answering his phone with “Where are you right now?” and could hardly believe it when I told him we’d ridden through the battle.

Now, when Ken appeared with Polly, he looked at me with full concern and attention, “What’s happening?”

“Ken, I need a surgery. I have an ectopic pregnancy.” I swallowed and looked him in the eyes. He was wide awake and attentive.

“What’s that? Stay calm. Just explain.”

“Baby’s in the tube, tube ruptured. I’m bleeding out. Get Doctor Scott back fast. Put it together for me. I can’t get a transfusion. They’re not monitoring blood for HIV or Hep C, and I don’t want to risk it.

This kind of miscarriage is the main cause for first-trimester deaths for women. I’m in trouble.” I licked my lips. I felt so dry, almost as though someone had put a tap in my foot and opened it up.

I was losing body fluids internally. My hands were cold, so cold. I wiggled my toes, also icy, but otherwise was as still as a rabbit.

Ken had always been good with emergency situations. He studied medicine out of a Merck Manual, although here in Cambodia we used Where There is No Doctor. Ken wasn’t a natural at care providing, but in an emergency, no one did better.

He stayed by my side day and night, and I was glad for it. The Khmer staff insisted I have a blood transfusion and immediately go into surgery, swarming around me and muttering about my imminent death. I was dizzy and weak but lay as still as a stone, waiting.

I accepted some saline solution, and it dripped into me. I now turned on my side in fetal position, protecting my abdomen. I was safe now, and had passed the baton. I relaxed and breathed. In slowly. Out slowly. I stopped talking. I slowed myself down.

Ken spoke with Dr. Scott, who assembled a surgical team, including the doctor of the prime minister of Cambodia, a well-trained and educated surgeon. Within twenty minutes, the team arrived at the clinic, including Dr. Scott, the surgeon who would operate on me, an anesthesiologist, and a nurse.

They introduced themselves to me, and the diminutive surgeon assured me he had studied in France and would take excellent care of me. Then, they put me on a stretcher. At this point, my heart raced. The surgeon said to Ken, “We must go to surgery now. She has big problems, and we can not wait. We must now proceed.”

Ken looked at me, and said, “We will get you through this. I love you.” Then I lost focus, and saw very little except for the sides of walls. They carried me. People stepped aside. I breathed.

Would I live? Would I die?

Thank you for reading.

The above excerpt is from my book Love and Loss in Cambodia: a memoir.

I was inspired to publish it because of Delilah Rose. Her essay is attached.

Earlier today, I was shocked to discover that we had two things in common: miscarriages and Cambodia. I was extremely moved by her essay.

As she says, when we share our stories, we learn we are not alone. Thank you, Delilah Rose.