Sunday In Paramaribo

 We were sitting in our apartment Friday night when the landlord came by. “Some one is outside and wants to meet you.” Huh? We are Suriname’s only tourists, visitors with absolutely no connections in Paramaribo. Who the hell could it be?

It turned out to be a delightful young man who just happens to be a doctor and a malaria specialist with the government’s malaria suppression program. Something like that and he wanted to get our story straight to establish where Layne probably got the disease and his we were treated in Suriname. We told the story as you have read it here and he took notes. 

He in turn told us a couple of stories which cracked me up. It turns out he was in the St Vincentius private clinic where we started Layne’s recovery odyssey and just two weeks ago he gave a presentation  on identifying malaria  to the staff. He told them if a foreigner shows up with symptoms and they have recently been in Brazil, Guyana or French Guyana you should seriously consider malaria as a high risk possibility. Sure enough Layne showed up with precisely that combination of circumstances and they diagnose… dengue fever! The young doctor put his head in his hands muttering he was going to have to have another talk with them. We were all laughing at this point.

Then he told us he was in the ward at the Academy hospital investigating why we chose to discharge Layne. He said the malaria lab wanted to know why a cooperative patient suddenly chose to walk away from the hospital. He soon found out for himself. The nurses who gave us grief yelled at home telling him in no uncertain terms it was not visiting hours. In vain he protested he was a doctor and he nearly got turfed out of the ward. Our story of abuse gained traction. 

It was an interesting chat and I have to say he was impressed I diagnosed malaria when Layne was shaking on the bed in Guyana. Of course my diagnosis came from literature, Conrad, Maugham those voices from Europe that explored the Far East, but dammit I got it right! Anyway there’s that. 

Saturday morning I took Rusty to his vet’s appointment five minutes away.  He didn’t have malaria but he’s been chewing himself since we got into the heat and humidity of the Avalon jungle. In Manaus he got some pills which didn’t solve the problem and I was hoping for a better outcome here in Suriname where dogs are feared and rarely loved. It went well. The doctor an older (not that old, I’m old) Dutch woman got to work with a razor, cleared his hot spots and gave and a  cream to apply twice a day to the affected area. He has one patch on each side. 

You can see the dark area which was the hot spot in Manaus which hasn’t grown over very well. A day later he’s hardly licking the area and it seems to bother him a lot less. US$35 well spent. They will and supply a health certificate for me to export him to French Guyana  next month.

Monday we go to the lab for a follow up malaria test but this weekend is an at home test for Layne who is getting stronger every day. She’s really back to her usual self so I’m feeling relaxed. I have paid the hospital bill, US$3600 with a monster pile of $12 bills (500 Suriname dollars is the largest bill in circulation) at the office where the employee ran my bills through a counting machine and finally after three tries I got my receipt. Our experience at the Academy hospital is over. I hope. 

This is an interlude as Layne gets back on her feet, GANNET2 is parked in suburbia, serving as our taxi around town, half unloaded and as always a joy to drive on the left, in narrow streets, a daily reminder how we got here.