Cheet Yaa - "if there were no cuts, it wouldn't be Sylvie" (Patreon article) (Patreon)

I get out of the car and follow my trainer, Kru Nu, to the front  steps of a small clinic on the side of a small road in Pattaya. To the  left of the clinic is a tiny massage shop, the prices and names of the  different massage options painted on the glass front windows. Kru Nu is  kicking off his shoes and stepping into the clinic in his white socks.  His 17-year-old son Bank is already inside and I'm following behind and  looking down this kind of long corridor to the back, which just leads  straight out to a small backyard that is choked with green vines.  There's an older woman in white gloves back there, tending the garden  more or less. Kru Nu doesn't wai to her but nods his head  before moving off to the right, which must be the proper front area of  the clinic. An attractive woman in her 50's greets us there, in that  other room, wearing a snappy skirt and dress shirt that's been untucked  on the sides, indicating an informality. Kru Nu wais to her, so  I do too. She peers at me over her glasses, which are perched on the  end of her nose. Her hair is wild and waving in all directions around  her face; it's not messy, but it's the same informal look that her  untucked shirt provides. "I didn't know you had female fighters at your  gym," she says to Kru Nu, still looking me up and down over the rims of  her glasses. "Just one," he says, and smiles at me.

The conversation carries on as the woman sits down at a desk and starts  writing in a big book, which just appears to be a list of patients and  whatever services were provided to them. One of our older trainers, Kru  Den, came in the other day (apparently) and I hear his real name for the  first time. I take note of it, then kind of let the talk drift into the  background again. Bank is sitting down next to the desk, waiting for  the conversation between Kru Nu and the doctor to land somewhere. Bank  was smaller than me when I first arrived at the gym almost 4 years ago,  just a 13-year-old squirt. He's enormous now, nearly 20 kg heavier than I  am and taller, bigger, broader shoulders. But sitting in this chair  next to me he looks small again - like, shrunken in the dryer or  something. He doesn't feel well and he's tired. He's had diarrhea for a  few days and is just completely drained of energy. He gets really quiet  when he's exhausted, which I've only really seen when he's cutting  weight for fights at Lumpinee. It's so exact between his fatigue there  and his fatigue now that the doctor asks if he's cutting weight now. Kru  Nu explains that Bank is sick, not cutting weight, but they want  essentially the same treatment he'd be getting if he were dehydrated  from the weight cut. Glucose and Vitamin C in an IV. The doctor nods and  gestures for Bank to lie on the table behind her while she prepares the  syringes. Bank climbs up on the table and lies there with his phone  clutched in his hand. His eyes are closed; he might as well just fall  asleep right there. I take his spot in the chair next to the desk as the  doctor continues preparing the IV.

From this seat my feet almost  touch Kru Nu's outstretched legs; he's sitting to my left but facing me,  chatting with the doctor. I'm looking past him, between the bed Bank is  lying on and the opaque, fiberglass wall that's behind Pi Nu, to that  garden out in the back. There's a breeze that's blowing the impossibly  green leaves of these vines, and the sunlight is so intense it seems  like the sun must be just inches above the door frame. Closer to me,  inside the examination room, there's a purple curtain at the edge of the  bed where Bank is lying. It can be drawn closed to give privacy to that  little bed but right now it's blowing in a soft wind created by a fan  hanging high up on the wall above the bed. The lines from Edgar Allan  Poe's "The Raven" come to mind:

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain...

But,  instead of filling me with terror, watching this curtain is incredible  calming for me. There's a radio playing old music, the kind that I  absolutely love but has a slightly creepy quality to it. It's wailing  violins and crooning singers, the kind of music that you'd expect to  play on an old phonograph and accompany a scene of a haunted house in a  movie. It's oddly fitting for this scene, for the blowing of this  curtain. There's a lull in the conversation between Kru Nu and the  doctor while she concentrates to push the needle into Bank's arm,  propping a folded operating cloth under his elbow to straighten his arm.  In the silence, Kru Nu sings a few lines of the song that's playing. He  knows every song. In the mornings at the gym I put my iPod on the  stereo speakers and play old Thai music, just so he'll have something to  sing along to. It's one of my favorite things about him.

The IV  takes about 10 minutes to finish going in Bank's veins, and then it's my  turn. Bank rolls off the table and takes my spot in the chair while I  climb up onto the table. The mattress, or whatever you call it, is very  firm and the pillow for my head is just as hard. It's like lying on a  vinyl bench. There's nothing on the ceiling to fix my eyes on, so I just  close them and listen to Kru Nu and the doctor talk about me while she  prepares the solution for my veins. Kru Nu is explaining to her that I  just had Dengue Fever, so I'm getting the same solution to help bring my  power back after the virus basically knocked me out for 4 days  straight. "She fainted in the hospital, hit the counter and got 5  stitches," Kru Nu says, and then I feel his fingers on my face, pushing  my chin up so the doctor can see the stitches. He stays standing there  next to the bed for a moment and I feel his fingers on my forehead as he  points out to the doctor my innumerate scars. He's telling her about  how many times I've been stitched from fights. I don't know how to  respond to this, so I keep my eyes closed and just smile. It comes out a  little crooked and strained, something that Kru Nu might have noticed  as he sat back down in the chair at the end of the bed. I don't know  this doctor, she didn't even know he had a female fighter at his gym,  and the first thing he's showing her is all the scars on my face. Now I  just hear his voice from behind me as he adds, with a little bit of  pride in his voice, "taa mai daek, mai bpen Sylvie," (if there  were no cuts, it wouldn't be Sylvie). It was a sweet addition,  indicating that he sees this as being a quality of who I am and not just a party trick of pointing out my scars as a conversation piece; he almost sang it, like a line in the music.

The  doctor came over and tapped her index finger around the inside of my  elbow, looking for a vein she liked. She asked me if I spoke Thai and I  answered, nit noi ("little bit"), to which I heard Kru Nu kind  of grunt in protest. I always answer that I speak a little bit of Thai,  as it gives me permission to not understand someone and usually they  speak more slowly than if I simply say, "yes." But Kru Nu thought I was  being modest or avoiding or something.  The doctor tied a rubber tube  around my arm, just above the elbow, and pushed the needle into my arm.  The vein ached a bit at the reception of the needle, but any pinch of  pain was immediately overridden by my surprise at being able to taste  the IV in the back of my throat. It wasn't quite a metallic flavor,  like the taste of pennies you get when you're knocked out, but it's  close to that. Kind of acidic on the exhale. I rolled my head so my face  was turned away from the doctor. She stood there and slowly pushed the  syringe plunger, my veins aching in pulses every time she gave the  liquid a little push. It wasn't unpleasant, honestly, but my association  with this kind of procedure is of being sick and somehow absent from  that is an association with getting better. So, I didn't feel like I was  being pumped full of improvement. When I was at the hospital for my  Dengue Fever, after I'd feinted and cut my chin open, they put me on a  slow-drip IV for a couple hours. After the first hour a nurse, the guy  who had stitched my chin, had added something to the saline drip by  injecting it into a side valve in the IV that was hooked up to my hand. I  had been able to feel whatever that solution was as it entered into my  bloodstream. It felt like a shot of adrenaline, kind of hot as it rushed  through my circulation system, and then after it made it to my heart I  began to feel incredibly nauseated for about 10 minutes after. That was  unpleasant. This didn't feel much like anything but the taste was  remarkable.

The doctor pulled the needle out of my arm and taped a  cotton ball to the inside of my elbow. Then she poked at my chin  stitches and told me she thought they were infected and wanted to clean  them. I told her it was okay, I'd clean them myself and thanked her as I  sat up. "You speak Thai," she said to me, matter of factly, as I hopped  off the table. I looked at Kru Nu and he was smiling at me, like he was  already smiling at me before I looked at him and maybe had been for  some time. Any time I've ever been sick or unusually tired in training  he's always asked me whether or not I went to get an injection, "cheet yaa,"  they call it. I never had. It's not something westerners do. But the  frequency with which Thais ask me whether or not I've already been to  get cheet yaa anytime I'm tired, it seems like this is pretty  standard practice. Like if someone has a cold and you ask if they've  taken medicine. I'm not sure if Kru Nu's smile now is because he knows  I've gotten my medicine, so he feels confident I'll be feeling better  shortly, or if he's just proud to be taking care of his fighters like  this, Bank and me in this clinic. The doctor picked up her pen again and  asked me my name to put in the book. I tell her and Pi Nu spells it for  her in Thai. She writes it down and then asks what my fight name is, so  she can look for it on posters and things, "just Sylvie," Kru Nu says,  "Sylvie Petchrungruang," and then he put his hand on my shoulder in this  really fatherly, reassuring way. I think that was better medicine than  the IV, honestly. I felt it hit my heart.

If you enjoyed this post you might like my other recent Patreon Only articles:

• Patron Only Articles - These articles are written specially for my patrons and are my attempts to expand as a writer. They are full of richer descriptions, and take on themes not always talked about in the experience of being a fighter. At least one is published a month, if not two.

The Perfection of Festival Fights in Thailand | A trip to the clinic to receive a boosting IV leaves me drifting through thoughts of belonging, as I listen to my kru talk about me to the nurse. read it here 

Cheet Yaa - "if there were no cuts it wouldn't be Sylvie" | A trip to the clinic to receive a boosting IV leaves me drifting through thoughts of belonging, as I listen to my kru talk about me to the nurse. read it here 

The Hurting Game - The Psychology of Hurt | Even though I've fought over 200 times being the one who hurts others, that the game is hurting, is still a psychology I need to embrace. read it here 

A Girl and Her Bag - the Intimacy of Work | Every fighter who has spent a long amount of time in the gym has to fall in love with their bag - how bagwork contains its own beauty. read it here 

Jai Rohn - My Story of Blood, My Pride and Stitches | My heart was racing, I was upset at my performance, and then there was the pain of stitches, more painful than any stitches I've had before. read it here 

Read the table of contents of all the Patreon Only content here.