Thursday, January 15, 2004
Im sitting here with my beautiful lady-friends who just bought some hot leather straps ummmm belts in the saddle shop quite literally next door....
So today I was ran at by Karla with a piece of mirror because she wanted to paint !ya! and not a las 10 like I said about fifty thousand times. It was a long long long day of tears and discipline and worse perhaps yet that there are two new babies at the hogarcito. They are beautiful and I escaped for a few minutes to hold them and listen to them coo over the drowning droning chaos of the rest of the kids. Each of the babies (one two months and one three months) have some skin condition and are pretty tiny for their age. They are also eerily well-behaved babies. The tia (nanny) said that she does not know where their mother is so, Sarah, they are up to being taken to Texas...
Hmmm... what else...the house is ill and we are off to get laundry (twelve dollars! good lord)
Oh yeah and I feel so much infinitely better I almost fell guilty in a house of illness.
So today I was ran at by Karla with a piece of mirror because she wanted to paint !ya! and not a las 10 like I said about fifty thousand times. It was a long long long day of tears and discipline and worse perhaps yet that there are two new babies at the hogarcito. They are beautiful and I escaped for a few minutes to hold them and listen to them coo over the drowning droning chaos of the rest of the kids. Each of the babies (one two months and one three months) have some skin condition and are pretty tiny for their age. They are also eerily well-behaved babies. The tia (nanny) said that she does not know where their mother is so, Sarah, they are up to being taken to Texas...
Hmmm... what else...the house is ill and we are off to get laundry (twelve dollars! good lord)
Oh yeah and I feel so much infinitely better I almost fell guilty in a house of illness.
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Okay so I did spend the morning in Costa Rican Hospital. But before anyone panics, I´m totally alive and well. So I thought the whole stomach upset was a bit out of hand but I missed work yesturday and so decided to go today. Visions of two parents and sister who don´t miss school or work for anything less than full body amputations perhaps clouded my judgement. But by ten, Jesse agreed to goin me for a trip to the doctor. Viria, the placement manajer at CCS drove us to a wealthier part of town where a two story building stood in good condition with sliding glass doors and a small reception area. A receptionist took down our passport information before telling us to follow an attractive late-thritys female Dr.Chavez into an office adjacent to an examination room. Jesse is having an Exema problem, and without any Spanish, Viria had trouble but ultimate success communicating the details of this back and forth to the Doctora. I was perhaps the most pleased yet with my ability to spèak Spanish, and happy to tell my own story and understand the woman in charge of my treatment. She examined my BP (pretty freaking low surprise surprise), heart rate and lower stomach (which has deeply recessed in the last two days for the wrong reasons). Upon this she communicates that she wants me on an IV drip of saline.
At this point I communicate my concern. I wonder what my parents would do. But in the upscale clinic, with a doctor that condsiders me dangerously dehydrated, I agree. Jesse and I are moved to a hospital room similar in size though not decoration to the one I enjoyed during my most recent hospital stay. We watched with care to see the sealed needles opened in from of us, and I have to say my attractive, well manicured and spotlessly dressed nurse Olga gave me comfort. She entered my IV and extracted blood effortless and with a precision of technique that makes me want to ship her to Thorton to train the San Diego staff. So well...she also had me give some lovely lovely samples for testing. And Jesse and I got to live our previously stated dream of watching Seinfeld as I driped in the cold liquid and waited for the results.
Well low and behold, I had, have actually, a pretty nasty bacterial infection. Yum. And was prescribed antibiotics. Thank God for antibiotics. And also thank God it wasn´t a virus, huh? And I guess the fluid thing was actually a pretty good idea because I felt about 800 times better after that hour--and I ate lunch! So yeah, what is life but a collection of good stories...hopefully ones we get a chance to tell. Children here must have immune systems of steal. Perhaps the tables are turning for Jason Diamond, and plague will change the patterns of subordination world-wide.
But as of now I am resting and drinking powerade and reading Love in the Time of Cholera with a new appreciation for fever and flu in a land on the verge of madness from perpetually unpredictable rain, poverty, and beauty.
At this point I communicate my concern. I wonder what my parents would do. But in the upscale clinic, with a doctor that condsiders me dangerously dehydrated, I agree. Jesse and I are moved to a hospital room similar in size though not decoration to the one I enjoyed during my most recent hospital stay. We watched with care to see the sealed needles opened in from of us, and I have to say my attractive, well manicured and spotlessly dressed nurse Olga gave me comfort. She entered my IV and extracted blood effortless and with a precision of technique that makes me want to ship her to Thorton to train the San Diego staff. So well...she also had me give some lovely lovely samples for testing. And Jesse and I got to live our previously stated dream of watching Seinfeld as I driped in the cold liquid and waited for the results.
Well low and behold, I had, have actually, a pretty nasty bacterial infection. Yum. And was prescribed antibiotics. Thank God for antibiotics. And also thank God it wasn´t a virus, huh? And I guess the fluid thing was actually a pretty good idea because I felt about 800 times better after that hour--and I ate lunch! So yeah, what is life but a collection of good stories...hopefully ones we get a chance to tell. Children here must have immune systems of steal. Perhaps the tables are turning for Jason Diamond, and plague will change the patterns of subordination world-wide.
But as of now I am resting and drinking powerade and reading Love in the Time of Cholera with a new appreciation for fever and flu in a land on the verge of madness from perpetually unpredictable rain, poverty, and beauty.
