On April 11, I drove my family to Nha Trang Beach, where we plan to stay for 2 to 3 weeks at the Western Premier Havana Hotel. I was completely healthy up to this time, or at least no symptoms have occurred. Back in March in Hanoi, I even went to play golf with my friend Pham Duy Thanh (a retired diplomat). I usually enjoy swimming in the beautiful Nha Trang beach, but this time of the year there are many strong high waves, so I did not have a chance to swim much. I also enjoyed wet and dry sauna provided by Havana Hotel, and this time I almost doubled my visits to the sauna. I took dry sauna every day, somedays even twice.
On April 18, 2015, my wife told me, after I just came back from sauna, that my skin and eyes are very yellow, strangely yellow. At first I did not pay much attention, just looked over my body and joked to her, “that is because I spent too much time in sauna and over burned myself, like we put a bread in a oven”.
But we became more seriously concerned when I saw that my eyes are also very yellow, and later that day and during the following days I quickly lost appetite and felt a little tired. I searched Google for clues about what was going on, and quickly found the word “jaundice”. I never heard this word before, but after Googling for several hours I found that this has something to do with liver. The thoughts of cancer did not even cross my mind. I began to list what I have been eating and drinking over the last weeks, suspecting that I may have some infection due to viruses and contaminated food. I started changing diet, adding more juices and lest fat. But my conditions did not improve.
We decided to cut short our stay in Nha Trang and return to HCM City for medical check-up
Vũ Quốc Phóng's blog 