The Hospital Story

Last week I spent a little while discovering the ins and outs of the Chilean heath care system, in an all-too-personal way.

Below is the full story, as notated to my parents in an e-mail. Suffice to say, I was quite sick, for quite a while, which resulted in my first ever hospital visit. In a foreign country. Where I don't have a big enough vocabulary to fully communicate with doctors. That's really all you need to know. If you want to know the gross details and promise not to judge... please continue.

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I talked to you on Saturday for Dad’s birthday. On Thursday, Kirsten had felt led to pr-y and fast for someone, and I felt like it was the right thing to join her and support her in that. Jean decided to as well, so the three of us fasted over lunch, and then our team’s time of fasting and -nt-rc-ss--n was over dinner, so the three of us were operating off of just our morning cereal all day. We’ve done this sort of thing in DTS before, so we weren’t too concerned. On Friday morning I had a small piece of bread for breakfast, and made spaghetti and a lettuce salad for lunch. After lunch, I began to feel… not good. Like every Friday, I taught my English class in the afternoon, and then right after, Jeff and Eduardo and I went into the city to do two more visits. We usually don’t get home until very late, and this week was no exception. I began to feel progressively worse, and even fell asleep on a couch during our last visit. Food didn’t sound good, and I was feeling pretty warm. When I got home, the girls weren’t there yet (they were on another visit), and I took my temperature with a disposable thermometer: 100.4.

The next morning was a little bit better, so I went over to Eduardo’s house to get a few things accomplished for the directors, and to make your birthday call. During our call, Juanita was making a really nice cultural meal with oysters and clams and everything, but I only wanted water. Then the explosions began. From that point on, everything that I put in my mouth (mostly just water), came right out the other end, in the form of complete liquid. I visited the bathroom a LOT on Saturday. In the evening, the girls were really sweet and sat on my bed to keep me company, and they got me a popsicle (that resulted in about 5 trips to the bathroom, but it tasted great). I was ridiculously hot all day. We didn’t have any more thermometers, but everyone who touched me was concerned. Sometimes I felt like I was hot, but mostly I felt cold (but hot to the touch). Eduardo and Juanita came over and pr-yed for me, and told me that they were going to come back at 11:30. If I wasn’t better by then, they were taking me to the hospital. I REALLY didn’t want that to happen. At all. I was imagining trying to explain the situation in broken Spanish, and them treating me for the wrong thing, or just being uncertain of Chilean hospitals and their protocol. It sounded horrible to me. Juanita came back a little while later with some medicine, and she said that I felt cooler. I had been lying on my bed with the window open, so I’m not sure if that was why or not. I was so excited to not have to go to the hospital, but what came next proved that I wasn’t moving in the right direction.

We all went to sleep, and Jeff was sleeping in our kitchen because we are borrowing a friend’s car, and it is safer with Jeff here (another story for another time - the gist: while we were on vacation, a friend kept an extra car from his business in our yard, and it was stolen). I got up in the middle of the night with horrible stomach pain. My head had been hurting a lot, too, probably because I couldn’t eat anything. The best I could describe it was that my head felt like a balloon, but with a brick helmet on. I was in the bathroom for a long long time, and I started to feel like I did when I used to pass out in the shower - remember that? My ears started ringing and crackling, and my vision started to get dark. I was so afraid that I wouldn’t be able to compose myself before I passed out. Thank goodness I was able to take care of business, but then I spent some extra time just lying on the bathroom floor. The cold tile felt good on my skin (gross, but true). Jeff asked if I was ok, and I said yeah, but I probably shouldn’t have. That was probably a lie. I didn’t want anyone to have to go to great lengths in the middle of the night. I stumbled back into bed, and Sunday was more of the same. Eduardo said, “No questions. After church you are going to the hospital.” Kirsten’s stomach was hurting by now, but with a little less intensity than mine, so the two of us stayed back from church. At about 2:30 I went with Jean and Jeff and Eduardo to “the hospital.”

G-d really had my back this time, because we had been borrowing our friend Fernando’s car since Friday night. That meant that I didn’t have to get myself to a bus, or make bus switches. SO much less complicated. Plus I was just feeling weak by then since I hadn’t really had much to eat in 3ish days.

The first place we went to was a little health clinic in Alerce. I didn’t like it as soon as I saw it. It looked a bit like a run-down school building, and all of the employees were grumpy. Nobody was wearing uniforms, and there were hand-made posters falling off the walls. Eduardo and Jeff and Jean were so great during this entire day. Eduardo was explaining my situation for me to the people and had my passport, Jeff handled all the money, and Jean kept me company and carried my purse. We waited for a little while and they called me back into a little room. A lady took my blood pressure, and put a thermometer under my armpit - the old glass mercury kind; just reached right down my shirt and everything. I have no idea what the result was (Update: I do, now. It was in the neighborhood of 101.5). Then it was back out into the waiting area to wait some more. I was then called into another room, and Eduardo went with me. This room looked a little bit like a blood drive - purple curtained cubicles with one little bed in each. They asked me a couple questions that Eduard made more simple for me. I was glad to have him there.

The lady then told me to lay down on the bed, and she whipped my shirt up and began poking around really forcefully. She asked me if it hurt, and I said, “Yes.” Of course it hurt! She was jabbing her fingers into my sensitive stomach. She then said, “Yep. Appendicitis.” Eduardo and I shared a skeptical glance. Then Eduardo told me he was going to leave, but after he did, I needed to take down my pants. I really had no idea what was going to happen, but I trust him, so I did, but not before asking, “Are you sure?!”

I buried my face in the wall, and my back side was just open to the world because the curtain wasn’t even closed to my purple cubicle. The waiting room couldn’t see, but still. I’m not exactly sure what she did, but I’m thinking she was taking my temperature. I don’t know (Update: She was. The result: 102). A very horrible experience that I don’t want to do again anytime soon.

That clinic place didn’t charge us anything, and they suggested I go to the real hospital to get my appendix removed. We said, “See ya later,” and immediately Eduardo said, we’re going somewhere else. I don’t trust them here. So we went to another place, this time in the city, that looked much more official and much more hospital-y. Very clean, lots of uniforms, and sliding doors. I didn’t have to wait for very long, and they took me back to a room that looked much more legit. They look my temperature (under the armpit again), and blood pressure again. This time the temperature was 101.7. This doctor was very nice and gentle, and he did the whole feel your abdomen thing, and said that he wasn’t worried because it felt very soft. He recommended that I stay for a while and they would give me an IV of fluids and wait until my temperature went down. I have been looking forward to whenever I would have to have my first IV for my entire life (NOT). I’m sure you can imagine how well I handled that. Eduardo was still with me, and was very kind and understanding. First they tried to put the needle in my right wrist, below my thumb. The nurse guy was having a hard time trying to find my veins, because he said they were so dry. He gave up on that part, and found another place on the top of my left hand instead. I had to lay there for close to an hour. They checked my blood pressure and temperature again, and this time it was normal.

We left with 2 prescriptions, and I was feeling a lot better. It almost felt like I had just woken up. Since it was a Sunday, it was a bit difficult to find a pharmacy that was open. Eduardo was a champ. Jeff drove throughout the city, and Eduardo ran in and out of 4 different pharmacies trying to find what I needed. At the last stop, he got exactly what I needed. And it was very inexpensive, too, since Eduardo is some sort of member at this pharmacy. 

I also have to “lay low” for 3 days, and I have a paper that says what I can and can’t eat for the next 6 days. I can’t have: milk, cream, cheese, butter, pig, lamb, duck, goose, fruits, vegetables, beans, condiments, legumes, fried foods, coffee, chocolate, or alcoholic drinks. I can have: toast, soda crackers, beef, brothy soups, fish, noodles, rice, eggs, jell-o, sugar in moderation, salt, tea, and cinnamon water. And some other things that I don’ t understand, and aren’t in my dictionary. Weird. For the next 6 days. We think that maybe the lettuce we ate made our stomachs feel gross, so we got rid of that, and are a bit leery of produce now. The official diagnosis was, enterovirosis: “WholeVirus.”

I’m still having some trouble keeping things down, well… anything down. But my whole self doesn’t hurt quite as much as before. I have more energy than yesterday, too. It was hard to sleep last night. I woke up at 3:45, and couldn’t sleep for the next 2 hours. I literally listened to my insides gurgle as if there were foam in there, just going up and down my digestive system.

The team just went to get groceries, so I’m all stocked up on jell-o, crackers, and a little bit of Gatorade. We’re going to watch “The Help” tonight, and just hang out, which sounds just perfect to me. They are being super helpful in trying to make me feel comfortable. In Jean’s words they’re being “sweetie pumpkins.”

Don’t worry too much. I feel ok; not very comfortable, but not going to die. In a few days it will all just be a funny story.