After Iguazu, I decided to get my butt in high gear. After class I went to the gym and did 20 minutes of cardio, 45 minutes of weight training, and 20 minutes of abs. Tuesday I was feeling the sore that comes from exercising. I love that feeling. It’s like a feeling of accomplishment and my body saying thank you. I was, however, feeling a little sorer on the right side of my abdomen than my left. I figured it was because I had done a few more sets on my right side than my left.
Wednesday I was still sore on my right side, but now if felt more like a cramp or I ate something funny. I still went to work out after school and did cardio and weight training. I cut my ab workout short because I didn’t want to aggravate the area anymore than I already had. At night I went out with some of the kids from the group, but cut my night short (at 3:30 a.m.!) because I just wasn’t feeling good. I got home and plopped into bed, but couldn’t get comfortable enough to sleep well.
Thursday I woke up, wasn’t feeling well, ate a light breakfast, and tried to decide if I felt well enough to go on the afternoon excursion to the Plaza de Mayo. I called my mom and told her I didn’t feel well. I e-mailed Coqui and told her I wouldn’t be able to go and then moped around on the couch for an hour before I realized I wasn’t THAT sick and I could still walk around. I called Coqui and said I’m coming and wait for me if I don’t get there right at 2.
After a half hour walk to the ISA office, I was really tired and hot and had to sit down and everyone looked at me like I was crazy! I couldn’t explain the discomfort I was feeling on my right side. Somebody told me it would be really exciting if I had appendicitis. I told her it would only be exciting for her, not me. At this point, appendicitis was a possibility. The lot of us left the ISA office with Coqui leading the way to the subway. We got on and from there it all went down hill. The soreness that had turned into a discomfort turned into pain and then sharp pains.
We arrived at the Plaza de Mayo and went to look at the cathedral where we saw this funny sign…
This is not a great translation...
Then we went on a quest for coffee for Jessie. As we walked I couldn’t quite stand up straight and couldn’t wait to lie down. At 3:30 there was a march for something, I’m not entirely sure for what, but my mind was a little occupied trying not to throw up. I sat away from the group and waited for Coqui to take me to the doctor. After the march was over Jessie, Coqui, and I got in a taxi and drove to the Hospital Aleman (German Hospital) where we waited in the emergency room.
The first thing I had to do was pay for the emergency room visit. Then wait for the doctor to call my name. As I sat there waiting I thought I’m not getting out of here any time soon. They called my name and we went into the room. The doctor had me sit up on the table and tried to get me to lie down. I got half way there before the pain was too much and I started to cry. The pain was less strong when I was in the fetal position, so I had my right leg bent and the other straight and lay down and he examined my stomach. He asked me a lot of questions about the pain and where specifically it hurt. He asked me my medical history and I told him that I had gastritis and two years ago I had a 7 cm cyst on my right ovary. He kept poking and prodding at my abdomen and decided to keep for a 6-hour observation to take some tests.
They hooked me up to an IV, drew some blood, and wanted a urine sample. At this point I really had to go to the bathroom. They told me I could only pee up to the line. I looked at him like he was crazy and told him that it was all or none coming out. They didn’t want me to let all of it out because I needed a full bladder for the ultrasound. I managed to pee to the line and nothing more.
I stayed in the bed, incredibly uncomfortable, for two hours before I got the ultrasound. The wheelchair driver guy came to pick me up and gave me my first ride in a wheelchair as a patient. I got into the ultrasound room and waited for nearly a half-hour, I grew impatient and took a nap. When the ultrasound tech came in she was really short with me and spoke in fast, muttered Spanish and got frustrated when I didn’t understand her. She started the ultrasound, called a doctor to look at the picture, and they talked to each other and not me. This made me upset in my already feeble emotional state. Then they both got up and left without saying anything to me. Fifteen minutes later the wheelchair driver came into get me. Then I was really upset because my shirt was still up and the ultrasound tech hadn’t cleaned up the ultrasound jelly. So I had to do it and I started to cry again, poor wheelchair driver guy.
I was chilling in my bed with Coqui and Jessie when my ER doctor came in and told me I have a “very very very very very, I mean, very big cyst your right ovary.” I asked how big and he said “14 cm” (almost 6 inches). I was a little taken back by that. When I had the cyst before in Mexico the doctor told me that they surgically remove all cysts over 5 cm. This was a doozy. He told me they would have to admit me and operate.
They started the paperwork to admit me and that’s when the gynecological surgeon, Dr. Paris, came in to tell me about the surgery and how they were going to do it. To explain to me in layman’s terms he took the thing that you check blood pressure with and he started twisting it around and around and he said, “This is your ovary, and if we don’t stop it from twisting it could rip from your fallopian tube.”
Wow, I thought, this isn’t good.
He told me they were going to do the surgery laparoscopic and I would have an incision in my belly button and thee other small incisions. They were going to operate in two hours and I would be able to go home Friday afternoon. AWESOME, quick in-and-out, that’s what I like.
After that I sat in the same bed for almost two hours. I was restless and just wanted to have surgery. It was at that point I realized I should probably call my parents and my host mom. Right then, Rachel from the ISA office in Austin, Texas called me. (Side note about Rachel: I talked to or e-mailed her nearly every day before I left. I was so annoying! First I had so many questions about the program and then I had problems with the classes I was taking and then I changed my flights so I had to arrange that. She was great the whole time.) She asked me to tell her what was going on and I told her my problem and I said that they were going to have to operate. She then asked me if I was ok with that, and I said, “You know, Rachel, I don’t have much of a choice.” She told me she was going to call my parents and tell them what was up. A few minutes later my mom called me from Grinnell, Iowa and I said I was fine and they were going to operate in a few hours. It was all good, I just wanted it out.
After I hung up with my mom Coqui went to find Cynthia who works for ISA. For some reason that took a long time and I was alone and bored. So I decided to take a picture.
Coqui and Cynthia came in and waited with me and I was growing more and more impatient and more time past. All I wanted was to get up to my own room where I couldn’t hear the old guy, who was in the next partition, hacking and coughing. As Cynthia left, they came with a hospital bed for me. It was really exciting, look!
Jessie and Me doin' well!
I was in the hospital bed and being rolled to my room with Coqui and Jessie walking behind. As I got situated in my room, my host mom showed up with my glasses, contact case, and clothes. I changed into my surgical gown and waited for the doctor to come up and talk to us. He came up and they did a pre-op medical history and I was ready to get the show on the road.
At 11 p.m. they came up with a portable bed to take me down to the OR. I took off my classed (so I couldn’t see anything anymore), said goodbye to Coqui, Jessie, and Elizabeth and went on my way. We went in the elevator and as I passed people I said hello or good evening until I got to the entrance of the ORs. I changed beds one more time and was rolled underneath a glass wall-like thing and met my anesthesiologist, Alfredo. They rolled me into the OR where I changed beds again. I wish I could describe to you what the nurses, the anesthesiologist, or the OR looked like, but I couldn’t see anything without my glasses. They set me up to the heart monitor and put my left hand with the IV out to give me some medicine to make me a little fuzzy. Alfredo told me that this medicine would make me feel like I’m drunk. After one minute I felt the effects of the medicine and the nurses put on a Shakira CD. Alfredo put the anesthesia mask over my mouth and told me to breathe in deeply. The last thing I remember is Alfredo singing “Hips Don’t Lie” and thinking that Chip Stapleton would find this humorous.
I woke up to the guy who pushed my hospital bed telling me that the surgery was over. I had a few reactions.
1. I was mad because he woke me up from the best nap of my life.
2. I asked him if I still had my ovary.
3. I asked him if he had called my parents yet.
When I got back to my room, Jessie, Coqui, and Elizabeth were waiting for me. Dr. Paris came in and asked me how I was feeling. He asked me if I was nauseous. I said I didn’t think so. I kept telling them I was really thirsty. I asked if I still had my ovary. I asked if he had called my parents. Then I passed out. (Jessie told me this part.)
I fell asleep and woke up two hours later to Jessie snoring on the couch. I don’t like snoring; it prevents me from sleeping. The nurse came in and took my blood pressure and told me that if I have to go to the bathroom I had to call the nurse. So I asked him to bring the nurse and she came back with a bedpan. I thought, “There is no way I’m peeing in a bed pan. I can’t get up and pee.”
So she helped me to the bathroom and put the bedpan on the toilet. I was really confused. She had to inspect and measure my urine every time I went. I felt bad for her.
As it turns out, I woke up about every hour to pee, so she was in the room a lot. Once she came out of the bathroom and was like, “you urinated a lot, good for you.” I responded, “Thanks, I sat there for awhile.” I thought it was a strange interaction, but whatever.
In the morning, Coqui and Elizabeth came back and I ate breakfast.
Two nurses came in and asked me if I wanted to take a bath. I said no and they were surprised.
Dr. Paris came up to check on me and I asked him how the surgery went and all those details. He asked me if I was hurting and did all of the typical post-op things. I asked him again if I still had my ovary and he told me, for the third time, yes I did.
I chilled in the room all day, going back and forth to the bathroom. The nurses came in again and asked me if I wanted to go to take a bath. I said no because I was going home and the doctor had told me I would be able to bathe myself.
A few of the girls came to visit me and brought me flowers and talked for a while. It was really nice. By the time the girls left I was getting really restless and wanted to go home. The doctor came in with discharge papers and we talked about the medicine I had been taking and new medicine he wanted me to take.
Ready to go home
Finally, at 4 I was released. I was excited to go back to the house. Coqui and I left the room, walked to the elevator, and went down to pay. While standing in line everything go really loud, I got really hot, my blood pressure dropped and I had to sit down. They called somebody and took me back to the emergency room in a wheelchair. We left the area without paying.
The hospitals in Buenos Aires have grown accustomed to treating foreigners and have adapted to doing it by making them pay for everything before it’s done. For example, I paid for the emergency room visit before I saw the doctor. I paid for the 6-hour observation before I was given an IV. The same goes for the blood and urine tests and ultrasound. After awhile, my credit card was rejected because I had used it 6 times in less than 2 hours in a foreign country. ISA put a $4,000 deposit on their card to make sure that I was paid for and I wouldn’t get my treatments for free.
We left for the emergency room (without telling anyone) after Coqui had taken the $4,000 deposit off the ISA card and before we paid for the hospital stay and surgery with my credit card. This is a big problem for the hospital.
They took me to see Dr. Paris and I was really upset and scared. He calmed me back down and I said I wanted to stay another night. He said that wouldn’t be necessary. He then informed me that this is exactly why he wanted me to take a bath today. By taking a bath, I would have gotten used to moving around, had my incisions cleaned (avoiding infection), and gotten to rest before going home. Taking a bath probably would have prevented my low blood pressure moment. This would have been excellent information before. Dr. Paris had me go to a pre-op patient waiting room and lay down for a while. I talked to my dad, that calmed me down more, and I drank apple juice and walked around and then I felt all right enough to go home. (People were looking for us in the hospital because they thought we had left without paying. During this time, Coqui went down and paid.)
It was a rough few days, but I survived! The medical care I received was great and I couldn't have asked for anything better.
2 comments:
Oh, so now I'm just "Somebody"??
hahjahahhahahahahah I didn't know if you'd want your name broadcast like that! It wasn't very nice what you said!
luvness
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