February 19, 2009
I’m home again, after two and a half weeks in Washington. I spent time with a few friends, did a little shopping for things I can’t get here, visited my mother and sisters, and especially enjoyed the time I spent with my daughter, Sara. It felt like a medical trip much of the time. I made five trips my chiropractor and one to my “regular” doctor to request a statement I can give to a medical insurer here in order to get enrolled in Colombia’s universal health care plan. Yes, still working on that…
Living room in Bella Suiza
February is a pretty good time to fly between the US and Colombia. Price was reasonable, and the flights weren’t too crowded. (Three of the four flights, the seat next to me was empty.) In the jetway, boarding my last flight from Houston to Bogotá, a Colombian in a t-shirt, no jacket and no carry-on, asked if he could borrow a cell phone because he was being deported and wanted to let his family know so they could pick him up at the airport. I’ve never had a phone that works internationally, so I couldn’t help him. But he eventually found someone with the right kind of phone, willing to let him make a quick call. I hope his relatives brought him a jacket, because it was a bit chilly for t-shirts in Bogotá at eleven p.m.
Dining room
While I was gone Cristi painted my apartment, so I was eager to see how it turned out. She did a beautiful job! The walls look new! She also had my curtains hemmed. (Drapes pooling on the floor are in style now, they tell me, but likely to get dirty much too fast here.) I think Cristi was glad to get me out of the way for a while. She had the throw rugs washed. And repaired the ceiling in the master bath. And had Humberto (the todero) help her take out the removable windows which allowed her to wash them all, inside and out. Washed the mangled venetian blinds in the kitchen (although I plan to replace them as soon as possible anyway). She even washed a couple of woven Mexican textiles that decorate my living room. The woman must have come nearly every day while I was gone to get so much done!
Kitchen
She turned up bright and early Wednesday to do the “regular” cleaning. It’s a good thing, too. When she arrived, I’d been at the front door for about 15 minutes, trying to get out. There are three locks on my door, and one of dead bolts absolutely refused to open. By the time she rang the bell, I’d squirted at least a half teaspoon of WD-40 into that lock, and was beginning to think I’d have to call the condo administrator to send someone to pry me out. Fortunately, Cristi was able to unlock the door from the outside, so I’m a free woman again! Perhaps I should have Humberto replace all the locks for me! Meanwhile, two will have to do!
Looking into office from hallway
February 23, 2009
Naturally, within about 24 hours of arriving home, I came down with a virus: sore throat, cough, sneezing, congestion, the whole enchilada. Forcing fluids and vitamins, sleeping a lot, OTC cold medicine.
The weather has been quite pleasant since I arrived last week. But I know it won’t last. In fact “winter” is predicted to last through June, this year. Bogotá’s weather has been screwy for about a year. It’s not just Bogotá – the whole country is sopping. For a long time I thought it was just my imagination, but in 2008 we really did get twice the usual amount of rain. I’m glad I spent half of February in the US, because this month Bogotá received almost three times the normal amount of precipitation for this time of year. In the last year, over a thousand people in the city were left homeless as a result of slides or flooding, and respiratory illnesses are up. Nationally, in 2008 something over a million people lost homes temporarily or permanently as a result of heavy rains and the resulting land slides. Looking at pictures of landslides in the newspaper takes me back 30 years or more to a day when my ex and I took a bus to Mariquita in Tolima to visit his aunt’s coffee plantation. Not far from our destination we had to get out of the bus and walk across a slide. After all the passengers were safely across, the bus slowly followed us, swaying back and forth on the loose earth. Then we all boarded again and continued our journey. That kind of experience was not unusual during the rainy season in rural Tolima in the 1970s, but not in Bogotá. 2008 brought 600 climate disasters – landslides, floods, or devastating wind storms – in Colombia. Twenty-six of them occurred in Bogotá. Very unusual.
Hallway from living room to master bedroom
March 4, 2009
At 3 a.m. last Wednesday I woke to a sharp pain on the right side of my back. It wasn’t going to let me sleep so I got up and tried to walk through it. By 5:30 I’d thrown up three times (nothing, since my stomach was empty), and I’d decided this couldn’t just be my usual back problem. I needed to get to an emergency room. But where? I hung on until about six a.m., hobbled down the hall and rang my neighbor, Olga’s bell, looking for advice. Her husband answered the door and suggested I go to Clínica Santa Fé, near here, on 7th avenue. I called a taxi, grabbed all the cash I had on hand, a credit card, and debit cards from the US and my bank here. Cristi was due to arrive at about 7:30 to clean, so I left word for her at the gate and the taxi driver rushed me to the clinic as fast as he could, through the early morning rush hour traffic.
When I arrived an admissions clerk seated me right away. She took my name, phone, and cédula number, asked me a few questions about the pain and took my blood pressure (through the roof), before walking me to a bed in “urgencias.” A few questions later from a nurse and one of the doctors on duty, and they decided it was likely a kidney stone. Took blood for tests, hooked me up to saline, and shot me full of morphine and anti-nausea medicine. A bit later Cristi arrived. She couldn’t bring herself to go home without finding out how I was. The sweetheart stayed with me the whole day.
A “TAC” (CT scan, never had one before!) confirmed the initial diagnosis. A stone on the left and two on the right, though only the right was painful. Several different pairs of doctors wandered in and out all morning having me repeat my symptoms and history. I had a kidney stone in early 1982, but that’s over 25 years ago. I’d long since stopped wondering if I’d ever get another! By about 9:30 the pain was suppressed and I simply dozed, comfortable except that my mouth was extremely dry. Periodically, Cristi brought me cotton balls soaked in water to moisten my mouth, the best moments of the entire experience! At about 11:30 one of the doctors came in and told us he recommended that they do endoscopic surgery to remove the stone or stones on one side to ensure that at least one kidney had full function. I would have to stay overnight. He’d consult once more with the urologist, but he thought that was the best course of action.
A little after noon, the urologist himself came to see me. Everyone who talked to me was very nice, spoke in terms easily understood without treating me like a child or a ‘dumb furriner.’ Dr. Cifuentes was significantly older, portly and jolly, actually fun to listen to. He sketched a picture of my insides and described the endoscopic operation. But he added another option: go home with pain medication, and some pills that would dilate the ureter, hopefully allowing the stones to pass. If I took that option I was to return to the clinic immediately if the really intense pain returned, if I spiked a fever, or lost the ability to pee.
I took the home option, if only because I needed to contact the few clients who had appointments in the next few days. So since last Wednesday afternoon, I’ve been here, drinking gallon upon gallon of water, taking my medication religiously, and coughing and blowing my nose all day long. (Actually, as of this morning, the cold’s much better, thank goodness.) As far as I can tell, the stones have stubbornly refused to pass. But they don’t hurt either, so maybe they broke up and passed without pain? (One can hope!) Yesterday, the “buscapina” (anti spasm medicine) was about to run out, so I called Dr. Cifuentes to see if I should renew the prescription. No, since I’ve had no pain, he said to discontinue it and the ibuprofen they also prescribed. I’ve gone almost 24 hours without it now, and feel fine. Knock on wood.
Tomorrow I’m to head for Dr. Cifuentes office, where he will give me a form to take to the clinic ordering an x-ray. If the stones are gone, fine! If not, he’ll probably want to do the surgery in the next few days. That’ll be interesting on several levels.
This is best timing, and the worst for a serious illness. If it had happened while I was in the US, I can’t even imagine what it would have cost! So it’s good I’m here. On the other hand, I’d returned to Colombia with the document I needed to enroll for medical coverage, but didn’t have time to get enrolled before this little crisis. All morning long, lying on that gurney in the clinic I wondered what the bill would be. It came to 1 million pesos. Fortunately, the dollar has fallen so far (that day’s exchange rate was over 2,560/dollar, the highest it’s ever been since I moved here). So I decided to pay my bill with my US debit card. It worked out to $389. (Not bad, really. Before the financial crisis in the fall, it would have been $500+.) And of that total, about $175 was the CT scan. I have no idea what the x-ray will cost, though surely it will be less than the scan, or what it will cost if I have to have the surgery. Even if I signed up with an EPS today, they wouldn’t cover these expenses so soon, so it’s a good thing medical costs here are significantly lower than they are in the US.
When I left the clinic last Wednesday, still woozy from the morphine, somewhere between the cashier’s booth at the clinic and home, I lost my cédula. I didn’t even realize it until the weekend, when I opened my purse for the first time since I got home from the clinic. Not good at all to be without ID… So Monday I dragged myself out to the mall at Unicentro to report the loss to the police. I’m not sure there are local police department buildings in Bogotá, at least, not the kind a citizen would visit to report a crime or lost ID. Instead there are mobile police vans called CAI (Centro de Atención Inmediata) stationed around the city. The one at Unicentro specializes in lost documents. Next to the van there’s a young woman with blank documents. You give her a tip – the documents are free – and if you need her to, she helps you figure out how to complete it. Then you get in line and when it’s your turn, the policeman in the CAI simply copies your name and the number of the document you’ve lost into a big log book, and assigns a number to your “case.” It took no time at all. But I really do wonder what happens – if anything – with the information in that log book…
After that, I had to stop by the DAS offices to find out how to get a replacement cédula. Needed: a copy of the “denuncio” (the form I filled out at the CAI), copy of my visa and page 1 of my passport, a photo 3×4 cm, a completed application, and about $55 in fees. What with x-rays, possible surgery and recovery, it may take me a few days to get a photo and turn in the paperwork. Once I do, they say it won’t take long. (Like I believe that!) Meanwhile, I’ll have to do some fancy footwork at Bancolombia to get them to release funds to me on the basis of a mere photocopy of my cédula. Sheesh… Fortunately my personal funds are at Banco Santander – all I need to withdraw funds there is my pretty red debit card.
This will all work itself out within another week or two. Meanwhile, Olga down the hall, has offered me her phone number and encouraged me to call any time day or night if I need help. And Cristi is ON me all the time. For a while she called every day to make sure I was OK. She also wants to make me a concoction believed to make kidney stones pass quicker: you take a few “papayuelas” (relative of the papaya) and boil them in 16 cups of water until you get a slimy brew you’re supposed to drink. Maybe it will work, but I’m not really big on slimy brews, so I told her I haven’t yet given up on the medication, thank you… Her daughter recommended beer. I could probably get that down, but I’m sticking with water for now! And vitamins. And maybe a little lime juice.
Lookig into master bedroom from hallway
