Last Saturday, I awoke with some stomach discomfort. I figured I was paying the price for the previous night. We went out with friends, drank more than is prudent, and had dinner at a restaurant I had never visited before. The dinner was the kicker: a salami and cheese sandwich and French fries. It was a shock to my system. I have become accustomed to a diet that prominently features fish, seafood, and fresh fruit and vegetables.
The discomfort progressed throughout the day, until, in the afternoon, I was experiencing definite pain. But it was bearable. My role model while growing up for pain tolerance was my mother, who broke her foot in four places on the way out the door one day. She tightened her shoe laces and went to work.
By Sunday afternoon, however, I was ready to cry uncle. At 3:00, I asked Chuck to call Dr. Levid Torres. Dr. Torres was enjoying his Sunday with a little trip to Esquinipa, but said he would return to Mazatlan and come by the house. That's right. Come by the house. Doctors here still make house calls. I never had to get out of bed.
Dr Torres arrived at 6:00 and conducted a full exam. He diagnosed me with food poisoning induced gastroenteritis, and told me not to eat at that restaurant anymore. He wrote out some prescriptions for Chuck to have filled. He also wrote out a prescription for an X-ray, just to be safe.
I know what you are thinking: “A prescription for an X-ray?” I was thinking the same thing. There are several independent laboratories, X-ray, and MRI places here. You can walk into any one of them at any time and get whatever test you want done. If you want a strep throat test, you just walk in and ask for one. Blood work? same thing. You don't have to visit a doctor first. And you can just walk into a pharmacy and get whatever antibiotics you need. The only thing you need a prescription for is narcotics. My “prescription” was just instructions for the X-ray tech, so he knew what views the doctor wanted.
Monday morning, we chose a laboratory near Dr. Torres' office. The large waiting room reminded me of of any mid 1950's medical waiting room in rural Texas. I thought, “oh boy”. But then the nurse/receptionist escorted me to a very large room with some very advanced equipment. She showed me a smaller room where I could change and brought a wrap-around gown for me to put on.
For the life of me, I couldn't figure out the gown. It had so many straps that I couldn't figure out what went where. Chuck wasn't much help. I decided to just hold it closed and stepped out of the changing room. The no nonsense nurse spun me around and started threading straps through hidden holes in the gown and tied everything up properly.
She led me to the X-ray table and had me lie down. Then she started tugging on the hem of the gown in an effort to protect my modesty and got everything situated the way she wanted. She called for the X-ray tech. He came in and gave a firm tug on the hem of my gown. Great. I'm flashing the whole world. He positioned my arms then told me to hold still. He took the X-ray, then told me to stand up. He said he needed to take an X-ray with me standing, but with the table, I couldn't figure out how they were going to do it. Maybe another room?
The tech grabbed some joysticks, and the enormous machine started to spin and reconfigure itself. I was reminded of the scene in Aliens where Ripley is proving she can work the loader bot. In a few seconds, I was looking at a standing X-ray machine. They took the X-ray, and we were done.
We waited for about 10 minutes and were presented with my X-rays. Huh? Yep, here your X-rays belong to you. Same thing with all of your medical records. They belong to you, not your doctor. We paid $400MXN for the X-rays and went to Dr. Torres' office, so he could read them.
Dr. Torres looked at the X-rays and declared that I had a lot of gas. No kidding. I hadn't eaten or drank in two days because it made me sick. The doctor gave me a prescription for nausea and said it would take time for everything to clear. Go home and go to bed.
We stopped on the way home to get the prescription filled. Turns out its an injection. Now what? Evidently, it is common to get prescriptions in the form of a pre-filled hypodermic. Its up to you whether you want to administer it yourself or find someone to do it for you. I opted for a skilled third party.
Chuck took me to the Sanitorio Mazatlan, a small hospital near our house. We were greeted by a tiny, hunched nun of indeterminate age who took me into a room and gave me the injection. When she was finished, I asked how much we owed her for the service. I thought hearing “whatever you think its worth” was hard when dealing with service men at the house; its absolutely impossible coming from a wizened gnome in a white habit. We gave her $50MXN and left.
It had now been three days since I had eaten or drank anything. Chuck was starting to get really worried. I didn't realize I was starting to lose coherence, speaking in disconnected thoughts and words, but Chuck was really freaked out. He took advantage of the nausea shot and started force feeding me Pedialyte. Every 5 minutes, he was standing over me with a glass demanding that I drink. I wanted only ice water, but he insisted on the Pedialyte. I wanted to punch him. But after a while, I started coming back, and only then realized what danger I had been in. I tried to nap the rest of the afternoon, and managed to not get too irritated when Chuck kept waking me up to drink something.
By Tuesday afternoon, nothing was improving. In fact, the pain was only getting worse. I was doing Lamaze breathing to get through the waves of pain. Chuck called the doctor again, who referred us to a specialist, Dr. Sergio Acoltzi. We couldn't get an appointment for that day because the doctor was in surgery, so we scheduled for Wednesday at 5:00 pm.
I have never been so glad to see a doctor in my life. I was having a mental countdown. That's how I got through Wednesday: Five hours until I get to see the doctor. Two hours until I get to see the doctor. I just knew that Dr. Acoltzi was going to help me. And I was right.
I must have looked pretty bad when I walked into the office, because other patients waiting to see the doctor volunteered to let me go first. Dr. Acoltzi sat me down and asked what he could do for me. He was so soft spoken, and his eyes were so kind, I couldn't help it. I cried. Damn it. My mother never cries.
I got myself together and gave him a brief account of the past days. He listened closely and gently examined me. Chuck gave him my X-rays. After he was finished with the exam, he told us that he thought there was a problem with either my gall bladder or my appendix and something needed to be done about it NOW.
He sat down at his desk and wrote out instructions for the hospital. He wanted an ultrasound. He wanted blood tests. He wanted me to have pain medication. God bless him. He helped us choose a hospital and gave us directions. He gave us the written instructions to present to the hospital staff and sent us on our way.
We stopped at the reception desk on the way out to pay for the office visit. The receptionist looked at us like we were mad and told us to just go, so we went. And we only drove around lost for about 15 minutes before finding the hospital. Not bad.
The rest of the story:
Getting Sick in Paradise - Part 2: The Hospital
Getting Sick in Paradise - When You're a Dog
Getting Sick in Paradise - Again
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