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Commemorating today’s “Fall of Da Nang” in Quarantine as an Ophthalmic Contrarian

Number 83

Number 84

Number 85

Number 86

Number 87

Number 88

Number 89

Number 90

Number 91

Number 92 

Number 93

Commemorating today’s “Fall of Da Nang” in Quarantine as an Ophthalmic Contrarian
Matt is Patient #84 as far as hospital beds go. Also known as Patient #68 in Vietnam with coronavirus, Matt’s other alias is American Coronavirus Patient #2. 

I’m Patient Number 84, according to the numbers over the entire room’s beds. The thing is, there are no patients 83-93. I’m in isolation. 

I know that a lot of people are isolated these days. Many are in home quarantine. Many are practicing social distancing. 

My situation is unique, I gather, because of a few key ingredients:

I have coronavirus (COVID- 19).

I am, I believe, the second American “casualty” of coronavirus in Vietnam. Technically I’m Vietnam’s overall coronavirus Patient #68, not to be confused with my #84 hospital headboard. 

Having been in isolation — technically at times under military watch —  in Vietnam, my situation may sound familiar to Americans who grew up watching documentaries about captivity during the Vietnam War (or American War, depending on whose side you were on). The differences would be enormous, but the mind can draw associations. 

My location: Da Nang, also more popularly known in recent modern history as China Beach.

“China Beach” was a nickname given to Da Nang’s local My Khe beach by American soldiers during the war, and later became a TV series from 1988 to 1991. Interestingly, it was set at an evacuation hospital. 

I looked up the series on YouTube and remember parts of the opening credits and theme song. I must have watched it at some point as a young boy, though it was never a favorite. 

The truth is, I probably have very little in common with those old American GIs, although in fact one is my neighbor, having returned in his twilight years to help find the remains of missing Americans. 

I can’t help wonder though, sitting here now, about my fellow Americans in local hospitals back in those days. I sit in relative comfort in a land I chose to live in, and the door is unlocked. Many of them were drafted and wounded, in a war not of their choosing, in a place they didn’t want to be. They must have missed home terribly. 

I am home, as my family lives in Da Nang. 

Over the past week though, I have sensed a thread of a connection. It was when I thought I could die in Vietnam in isolation, though not particularly in opposition to communism. 

“Fall of Da Nang”

Commemorating today’s “Fall of Da Nang” in Quarantine as an Ophthalmic Contrarian
Da Nang has come a long way in 45 years.

From March 29-30, 1975 — exactly 45 years ago from this past Sunday/Monday — Da Nang was taken over by communist forces. Sunday also coincided with America’s “National Vietnam War Veterans Day,” a U.S. holiday commemorating the last U.S. combat troops withdrawing from Vietnam. March 29 was chosen for the holiday starting in 1973 though — not 1975. That’s because America’s troops were withdrawn from Vietnam two years prior to the actual takeover of Da Nang by the communists. However, the south’s forces continued to fight, finally collapsing on the same exact day in Da Nang, though two years later. The “Fall of Saigon,” meanwhile, happened exactly one month later, on April 30, 1975, which is celebrated in Vietnam as Reunification Day, Victory Day or Liberation Day. 

Well on this date in 1975 in Da Nang, it wasn’t a pandemic — it was pandemonium.

“The last plane out of Da Nang, a civilian Boeing 727 on March 29, was unable to retract its landing gear in flight because at least seven of the 290 passengers had climbed into its wheel wells,” according to Historynet.com, a publisher of history magazines. 

Imagine your life at that point: Making the decision to sit in the wheel well of an actively flying plane, as that choice is superior to the alternative, which is to stay in Da Nang. 

And yet, exactly 45 years later, this is where I have chosen to make my primary home, where it’s common to see flags waving in the wind with hammers and sickles. 

How did I get here, to this very moment, lying in this isolated hospital bed with a peculiar disease where I’m the enemy, once removed?

I’ll tell you how I got here. And the truth is, I couldn’t be in a better place at this time. 

Life of a Comrade 

Commemorating today’s “Fall of Da Nang” in Quarantine as an Ophthalmic Contrarian
A portrait of Matt based on a pose at a Chinese military museum in Beijing, painted by his father, Dennis Young, in the mid 2000s. 

Many of you know my life in ophthalmology, either because of what I wear (banana suits and the like) or what I publish (PIE and CAKE Magazines). Think of ophthalmology like a “major” in university. Much lesser known is my “minor” in communism (less theoretical political philosophy, more practical way of life). 

My preoccupation with communism, I suppose, dates back to a visit to Cuba in 2000. I had flown from Miami to Cuba when limited flights were still legal under President Bill Clinton and certain cross-cultural educational initiatives. We touched down and the flight attendants guided us as best they could from the plane onto the tarmac, but they themselves couldn’t place their feet on Cuban soil, so they remained aboard. So strange, I thought. Delightfully so. 

I ended up writing an article for Delaware’s News Journal (yes, I’m a proud Delawarean by birth) about Cuba’s healthcare system, extolling its virtues (as it did indeed have many compared to America’s cracking system). I also wrote my senior thesis on Cuba’s communist press system in Spanish. While I knew the newspaper Granma was a propaganda tool of Cuba’s government, there was something worthy of engagement there. In my reporting, I conveniently forgot that I nearly had been arrested for associating with a known drug dealer — completely innocently. No, really. 

In 2005, I graduated to working as Washington correspondent for Beijing Review, a publishing arm of the communist Chinese government. I had been to the White House while a student reporter at Northwestern to cover various press conferences, but it was different being back on behalf of an American adversary. I covered it as straight as possible. 

Once a job opened up at Beijing Review in Beijing, I went for it. It was the best job I ever had. My danwei, or work unit, was incredible. I often arrived by 11 a.m., hungover from the night before as we expats were big drinkers. I worked for an hour, then either went to the cafeteria with colleagues or played a round of shuttlecock in the nearby square. Then I went back to work, practicing my Chinese, and giggling with friends. Shortly after 4 p.m. we called it quits, or at least I did. Salaries were paid in cash I think every two weeks by a money counter. There was a ton of it, as the RMB currency was so voluminous compared to the U.S dollar at that time. I left it in a pile on my dining room table, in full view of the housekeeper. It was so disorganized she could have taken as much as she wanted. I would have never known.

I quit the best job I ever had after seven months. I was trying to make a difference — by turning China’s only English-language news magazine into the best “association” magazine possible — and by association, I mean that of the Communist Party of China. I figured I had made a difference at another great association magazine — EyeWorld, the magazine for the American Society of Cataract & Refractive Surgery — during a different career trajectory, so why not the communist government? 

But after failing to achieve even the use of rudimentary rubbish bins by our local danwei — chain smoking workers in the basement had erected piles of cigarette butts several feet high (no joke) —  I realized my more advanced efforts to change were going unnoticed. It was a place for career propagandists. Rumors of murder — of intellectuals being pushed from the rooftops during the Cultural Revolution — also swirled about. It was a colorful place, but it couldn’t keep me, or maybe I couldn’t keep it. 

My communist work life had failed. But my communist personal life was on the horizon. 

I married my college sweetheart, who had diplomatic immunity when we originally met in 2000. Having been fond of the consul-general villain character Arjen Rudd in Lethal Weapon 2, who invoked diplomatic immunity for unscrupulous reasons on American soil, it was a pleasure using diplomatic immunity to get out of more than a few speeding tickets in my wife’s (then $1000) car with diplomatic plates. It must have been the trashiest diplomatic car around D.C., and it worked like a charm. 

It was dicey around the time of our marriage though. My wife was the only member of her family who had not yet sworn allegiance to the communist party. And my grandmother-in-law, who lost a great deal in the war, would need to be notified that my wife was marrying an American. My wife, very nervous, made the approach. She was expecting fire and brimstone. Instead, my grandmother-in-law casually turned to her and said, “Well, that’s globalization for you.” 

Take My Breath Away

Commemorating today’s “Fall of Da Nang” in Quarantine as an Ophthalmic Contrarian
A bottle of Amaretto in Matt’s carry-on luggage by his bedside. In case things go south, it’s one sweet goodbye. 

So you see, there’s nothing in the above statements that makes me a bonafide communist. I haven’t read Marx or Lenin. I don’t necessarily believe in common ownership of the means of production. I do call Ho Chi Minh “Uncle Ho,” but it’s more of a term of endearment I use around my wife to make her smile. 

Rather, I’m a contrarian. I like to observe conventional wisdom, and then buck the trend. In a sea of suits, I wear bananas. In a world where democracy is a virtue, I find virtue in communism . . . which, I know I can be odd as a business owner. Perhaps it’s the style of both ophthalmology and communism to which I’m drawn, and the freedom to reinvent that style as an outsider. I’m neither an actual doctor, nor a card carrying member of the communist party, unlike my in-laws. 

But starting March 16, 2020, I’d have to put my life in the hands of communists. I was awake that night in a local Vietnamese military hospital quarantine, my first night of coronavirus symptoms, short of breath. 

It was an odd sensation. Lying down, I felt like I had just walked several flights of stairs. Rapid breathing. Heart beating faster. I was getting enough air — but if things got worse, I’d be in really bad shape. 

I also had a headache, backache, and there was a deathly darkness under my eyes. I had been hungover and sleep deprived many times before, but I’ve never seen these kinds of dark semi-circles below my eyes. They were ominous. 

I had no fever though, which is a telltale sign of coronavirus in the vast majority of cases. Perhaps I had some other illness, less severe. 

No such luck. On March 18, I was officially notified that tests came back positive for coronavirus. 

It felt like a slippery slope towards mortality. 

A week earlier, coronavirus was starting to have an impact on me. Ophthalmology conferences across Europe and the Middle East — ones which I had planned to attend — were getting canceled. In-person meetings in various countries were becoming virtual meetings. And for my last meeting, my client was actively sick — though we knew not of what. 

Planning my trip back to Da Nang, where I live with my wife and kids, I was getting word that there would be a likely quarantine for 14 days. Things were getting more serious, and that’s exactly what was in store. 

I wrote “Germany” on the list of countries I had visited prior to touchdown, and that guaranteed my ticket to quarantine. In one of the most painful moments of this whole process I called my wife. She was sweet, but I was icy cold. I had been away for more than a month, and this would be two more weeks in a local military hospital. I needed to keep my emotions at a distance — at least for now — for my own sanity. 

I started off well enough. In quarantine, it felt like a minor adventure. I was actively posting on social media about my novel circumstances and receiving well wishes from friends and family. Then I got sick, and disillusioned very quickly — to put it mildly. 

All along I had been running the numbers. What was the chance of being quarantined in Vietnam? Perhaps around 50 percent, I thought. What was the chance of actually having caught coronavirus in Germany, when cases numbered in the thousands and the population is over 80 million? Exceedingly low, I thought. 

Now I was in quarantine with coronavirus. If this was Corona Roulette, I had bet on black, and won, but I also bet on number 68 — my Coronavirus Patient Number in Vietnam — and I also won, where winning isn’t a good thing (the numbers don’t even go that high in real roulette). I was only the second American in all of Vietnam to catch coronavirus. 

The chance of dying from coronavirus — 4.5% globally based on certain statistics — didn’t seem so unlikely. I also had some history with asthma, which could be considered an underlying condition that could exacerbate things. I asked for Ventolin by my bedside, and hoped for the best. 

Breathless nights came and went — at least three of them. I was hooked up to a pulse oximeter and heart monitor — uncomfortably taking vitals. I was glued to the news during daytime, and stories about people younger than me being intubated to breathe. 

On Day 2, I received a diagram from a friend about when coronavirus takes a turn for the worse. It noted around Days 4-6 after testing positive: “Severe cases: Difficulty breathing.” 

I wasn’t even at Days 4-6 yet and I already was having shortness of breath. What would happen to me? 

Day 7: It noted “May need hospitalization as symptoms of severe cases intensify.” Day 8: “Patients with severe or critical cases develop acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), a kind of lung damage that causes fluid to fill the lungs.” Day 10: “Severe cases brought to ICU. Severe cases: acute cardiac injury, acute kidney injury, septic shock and/or liver dysfunction.” 

Even if I survived, I was reading about the possibility of significantly reduced lung capacity and the possibility of pulmonary fibrosis later in life. In ophthalmology, we often speak of the importance of quality of vision. What about the quality of breathing? 

I eyed the bottle of Amaretto in my carry-on by my bedside. It wasn’t vodka for a fallen comrade, but it was enough for a sweet farewell if needed.

Pajama-ism

I’m at Day 15 now after the onset of my symptoms (it’s Day 17 in local hospital quarantine), and I’m happy to report that shortness of breath was the worst that happened to me. No ARDS. System tests say my kidneys look normal, and from what I could understand, I’m within the normal functioning range of other health tests. I’m not dead yet, most importantly, and things are looking up. 

Which brings me back to communism. 

An article in The Diplomat, a news site covering Asia-Pacific politics and culture from Washington D.C., reported that “Vietnam’s Communist Party Finds a Silver Lining in COVID-19.”

“At the time of writing this article, Vietnam has 153 reported cases of coronavirus with no deaths,” the article reported. “While the number of cases is growing, Vietnam has been quite successful so far in containing the spread of the virus relative to other countries . . . The coronavirus outbreak unexpectedly helped the CPV [Communist Party of Vietnam] regain the people’s trust and underscore its leading role in the country.”

Well, I’m one of the no deaths. 

This is at a time when my own native land, the bastion of democracy, now leads the world in coronavirus cases, with almost 2,500 deaths as of today. 

Although I’m grateful, I can’t say once I’m out of quarantine I’ll head right to the bookstore to finally buy a copy of The Communist Manifesto, although it could be a fun read. 

Commemorating today’s “Fall of Da Nang” in Quarantine as an Ophthalmic Contrarian
Not actually The Communist Manifesto, Matt’s reading material these days is an equally relevant book by Nelson Mandela: Conversations with Myself, based on letters and learnings during his confinement on Robben Island.

I am, however, really looking forward to getting back home to my Da Nang neighborhood.

On a little plot of land half a klick from My Khe Beach’s golden sands and palm trees, and another half klick from the Han River and its 10 bridges, sits my home, and inside my wife and children that I miss tenderly. 

We also have a neighborhood resident assistant (RA) that wears pajamas while conducting business. I totally get it. 

But I’d also go the extra mile of conference walkway with a banana suit on, having arrived from my Vietnamese home as an American, to make a point. 

Visual blindness is one of ophthalmology’s most pressing problems. General blindness, however, is one of life’s most pressing problems.

As a non-ophthalmologist, I wouldn’t be able to speak about treating the former. But embracing the contrarian side of the cranium — with certain stances on communism and all — I’d say helps us get as close to actual clarity as possible. 

Oh, and talking to the occasional drug dealer…of legal substances on exhibition floors. 

Editor’s Note: Matt Young is the CEO of Media MICE and Publisher of PIE & CAKE magazines. Mr. Young is not an actual communist. He still appreciates his American passport, except for the double taxation that results from it. Ugh!

The Three Commandments of Matt’s Ophthalmic Contrarian Manifesto

  • See no normalcy, hear no normalcy, speak no normalcy. 
  • Democracy isn’t always the ally. Communism isn’t always the enemy. But Ophthalmology always provides the right vision. 
  • “Free PIE with every surgical procedure,” — Party Platform, Ophthalmologism (Matt Young for President)
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Kat Pham
Kat Pham
3 years ago

Glad that you have recovered and discharged from the hospital now. Take care and enjoy the lockdown. 😉

Dennis Young
Dennis Young
3 years ago

Quite a writer you are, Matt. You obviously are in the right profession. I have enjoyed (?) reading your exposition and musings, though I must say that once again we hear about your close calls AFTER the fact. Another Young trait perhaps. Playing cards close to the vest.