Hospital

I went to the hospital yesterday. 

It cost $88 and took three hours, most of that time spent waiting and I came away knowing I don’t have pneumonia -yet- but if I’m not healing properly by Monday I need to go back and start antibiotic treatment. Peachy.

There are no private practice doctors in town.  In Uruguay medicine like education is free to all and as you can see in this town the hospital though small is as clean and modern as you could wish. 

They got a bit confused when presented with an actual paying customer but they took my passport and had a consultation and I paid by credit card at the cashier’s window and that was that.  The staff, including the doctor looked to be in their 20s and 30s while the customers appeared to be more our age.

While we sat waiting one older man sat down a few seats away watching something on his phone. Layne was reading our paper copy of The Lonely Planet and I was reading a Longmire mystery on my phone and from time to time we would exchange a remark in English of course, usually about some attraction she had located.

And each time he turned up the volume on his game show, and I mean LOUD. At first I thought he was deaf but it eventually occurred to me we were staining the purity of the Uruguayan ambience. Weird.  It was a relief when they released his wife and they tottered out of the hospital with him throwing a glowering glance at me as he passed. We could mutter again. Being foreign is not always sexy  in case you were wondering. But there again Colonia Valdense is a small farming town where not many travelers are seen. Most people are cheerfully curious, or shy and withdrawn, but some find us rubbing at their inner insecurities. 

She spoke Spanish with us but the doctor was cheerful and efficient telling me she is seeing a lot of patients with my symptoms of heavy coughing, mucus and what I can best describe as malaise. However my blood pressure was spot on 130/70 my lungs are clear and I have no physical pain in my rib cage or back so she was happy about that.

Obviously you can’t photograph people in these environments but my wife did kindly catch me taking 40 winks as I waited. Everyone else was dressed for central heat but I was so cold I was dressed for an Arctic expedition. I really was forced to conclude I am not well. I got pills and stuff on a prescription which required a brief stop at the pharmacy on our way home.

For those in the medical profession the pills taken three times a day are a tongue twister.

Anyway by Monday either I will be ready to drive to Montevideo or back to the hospital for increasingly fierce medicine. If I get atypical (“walking”) pneumonia I’m going to write someone a pretty severe note. Fate needs to back off. I slept much better last night with much less coughing but I am growing weary of feeling better one day and feeling like crap for the next two so I’m reserving judgement.

All this to say if you get sick on the road, you get treated you move on no big deal. I am annoyed at myself for still being stuck here, but at this point GANNET2 has been under the knife, Rusty nearly died, Layne has been in bed with this searing miserable cough so I guess it’s just my turn.  

I need Celia to come caroling and singing “On the road again… “as I’ve almost forgotten what it is to be a nomad. Then I need to get Layne to bring the invalid a nice cup of tea and to fluff his pillows. There’s nothing more heart wrenching, or needy, than a grown man at death’s door.

Packing

 We are getting ourselves in order to leave. We are still coughing and spluttering so we are moving slowly but we are making progress. I’ll post an update when there is something to say, perhaps arriving somewhere new. Seeing something new. That would be fun. Cheers.

A couple of oldies but goodies.  

Farmacia

 The rule in Latin America if you don’t feel well is to see a pharmacist. If you’ve been coughing and spluttering for a week, feeling congested and unable to sleep you don’t go to the doctor. Gringo tourists go to the doctor but they are not used to the local way of doing things.

Our first attempt at seeking powerful medicine didn’t go    well    last     Tuesday.  Layne came out shaking her head saying she didn’t get a good hit off the pharmacist, she didn’t seem like a bright spark. Sure enough we took the powders she sold us, felt better for a day and relapsed.

Friday I was too sick to drive, which tells you how ill I felt as I will drive anywhere anytime. Saturday we tried a different pharmacy and the young woman, possibly my granddaughter if I had one, handed us spluttering old timers a box for our “gripa.”

We went home and I gingerly drank my 20 milliliters of pink goop which tasted of flavorless syrup  and made my tongue feel numb, and yet miraculously I slept last night, quite deeply too, which is why this post is appearing late in the morning.

It is cold outside, winter cold, every day even under the sun the air is cold, no autumnal relief.  Maria José is back from Argentina, Adrián was smiling this morning as he took a load of firewood into his house and we were supposed to have been taking off today. If the young pharmacist got it right we want to be driving away by Tuesday. Rusty loves it here so he will be disappointed I fear but we will do our best for him on the road to Bolivia.  

He stayed out till ten last night refusing to come in enjoying the cold night air. I need a fur coat. I’ve graduated from my woolen Mexican poncho to a puffy jacket and gloves. The chill is real and we need to get north. 

The Fourth

 Happy Fourth of July whatever your continent. 

Update

 Life is nothing if not ironic and by that I mean now that GANNET2 is ready for the road I have been in bed recovering from a fever for two days.  Today, Friday I seem to have peaked and I am on the recovery side of the coughing and spluttering sore throat side of this irritation. I spent Thursday in bed happy to let the fire go out when temperatures here in Uruguay have taken a wintery turn.

Which probably sounds like summer to an Alaskan but not to me. It is definitely time to go and I think today will be time to start the process of refilling our shelves and lockers board GANNET2.

We want to visit an Uruguayan winery, pass by the capital Montevideo and see the coastal town of Piriapolis a little further along the coast. Theres a national park in the hills along the border with Brazil and we’ll need to get Rusty his exit papers to go to Argentina. Then we want to drive north back to Paraguay which was 105 degrees the last time we were there and should be a bit warmer than freezing Uruguay. 

But every journey starts with a first step which I hope we can be ready to do Sunday morning. Yesterday I wasn’t even feeling like driving to the supermarket which tells you how ill I felt. When one says “to good health” sometimes one means it.