July 8th, 2009: Having a medical issue, I thought it would be easy and economical to give myself the medical attention that was required in the comforts of my own room at the hostel. All I needed was a hanger, couple of pints of some cheap liquor and some solid searches on the internet. Asking Dr. Google, I was given 23,700,000 results. It was a bit concerning that some of the top results were about botched self surgeries. Not feeling it is as easy as Hollywood makes it out to be…I called my nurse back at home and was quickly convinced that I should have “it”…looked at.
Now that I was going to make a pleasant visit to Dr. Feel Good and due to the complexity of my issue, I needed a translator…not a Spanish phrase book. So I invited my new friend Martha, who is from Columbia, for an exciting afternoon at the local doctor’s office, just a short painful walk away from my hostel.
Checking in at the reception desk, I was awkwardly not handed a clip board to involuntary spill my entire medical history. The only thing the nurse asked me for was my name, phone number, address, ID number, signature and how big “it” is…for billing purposes. She didn’t even ask me to place a number on my level of pain. This medical facility must be rebelling against the system because it seems that almost everyone wants you to rate things these days on some numerical scale.
Asking Martha to stay in the waiting area due to the location of “it,” I followed the nurse into the exam room. The nurse said something as she walked around the exam table - not understanding, I gave her my signature “lost look.” Undressing me with her eyes, I hesitantly looked at the curtain hanging from the ceiling which was intended to give a patient privacy but didn’t have enough material to even cover a bath tub of a Barbie playhouse.
Sitting bottomless on the white cloth sheet that partially covered the exam table, hoping I did a thorough job in the shower, I was signaled to roll over by the turning of the nurse’s index finger. Feeling like a dog with his tail between his legs, I obediently obeyed as I spun around lying on my stomach. Nervous, my sweaty forehead bonded me to the exposed vinyl table top as a fly trapped to a bug strip.
During my examination, the doctor painfully poked around getting a better idea on what needed to be done. Legs open, I laid there clinching onto the corners of the table…almost shattering my bones with the massive pressure I was placing on them. My feet hung over the end, as I pressed the tops into the table, trying to prevent myself from mule kicking the doctor as she was examining, “it.” I quickly wore myself out, but continued to hold on to the table, making music with my muffled moans as she pokes around, debating on if it is too early to abort the $0.25 gum ball sized infection.
Focusing on the flaking paint on the wall, I momentarily left my body. I faintly heard the doctor saying something in Spanish and I assumed it was directed toward the nurse because she knew I didn’t speak her language. Then I heard a voice, a familiar voice that slowly brought me back out of my deep state of separation. Turning around, a blurred figure came into focus. It was Martha with her face about 1.5 feet away from “it” as the doctor was making my checks do the splits so my friend could get a better view. I inaudibly said, “Martha?” shaking my head as I turned back around, placing my face on the table, hoping a hole would appear so that I could stick my head inside.
Sitting up, the doctor took my blood pressure and checked my heart rate…laughing at the readings. Obviously it was elevated since I was just stuck by the embarrassment bus as Martha was still in the exam room, smiling at my brown…eyes. Having to come back in two days, I am given a prescription for a heavy dose of antibiotics to hopefully keep the doctor from having to manually abort “it” - which I am guessing that “it,” is an abscess since my translator was unable to explain this part to me.
Going to the pharmacy, I was issued my antibiotics with no packaging or 100 page book that explains the directions, side effects and warnings – not that I ever read them anyhow. I learned from early on in this trip that it is good to have at least the packaging, as I stared at the capsules locked in standard over the counter plastic covering with foil backing…hoping that I was giving an antibiotic and not Benadryl. Leaving, I painfully wobbled back to my hostel thinking that I have two days to get better, not to mention another translator.
June 21, 2011: My Surgeon did not have the power to miraculously heal me by a wave of his hands over my wounds as Jesus was seen doing when he was tramping around the world…nor did he have the power of a Shaman in the jungles of South America to heal me with his powers during a drug induced hallucination. But, my surgeon had the ability to heal me with the assistance of modern technology, an assortment of stainless steel surgically tools and the legal rights to cut someone with a knife and not go to jail for doing it.
