Archive for hospital
Maid #6
Posted by: | CommentsSome of you have been complaining that I’m not sharing Maid stories any more, and the truth is I don’t have many to share. We figured things out with Maids #1-5 and so now we have a fabulous young woman and we just don’t have those kinds of stories to share.
Well, until a few weeks ago. Maid #6 has been on time every day and hadn’t missed a day of work. In the middle of the day she took a phone call and got very animated on the phone. Apparently one of her two children had been taken to the hospital earlier in the day and the medicine the Doctor prescribed was going to be 300Q.
Our Maid is one of the better paid maids in town, but even at 1600Q a month they obviously don’t have any emergency savings. She asked to borrow the 300Q and said we could take it out of her paycheck. She also asked to leave right away. The Wife gave her the 300Q and told her to go to see her baby.
The next day she arrived on time and asked if she would be able to make up her hours at some point. We said no problem, and took the 300Q out of her next paycheck.
About two weeks later, she came to me with a long story involving lots of ‘fijese’ and obviously wanted some money. I told her to go talk to The Wife for two reasons; first, I want the Maid to understand she works for The Wife, even if she knows I am giving The Wife the money. (Don’t you FemiNazis think I control all the money; The Wife and I own everything jointly, it’s just that the job of hitting the ATM every other day falls to me). The second reason is that I couldn’t quite figure out what she was asking the money for and don’t really need any more drama in my life.
It turns out the Maid got a new floor for her house and needed 600Q to pay for it. I didn’t get all of the details from The Wife, but apparently the Maid’s husband’s friend had installed it for them and done the job cheaply as a favor but they really needed to get him some money. Now, perhaps this floor was an emergency of some sort and we didn’t get the details, but I was a little reluctant to loan the money when it was a household improvement and not a life or death hospital situation.
However, The Wife really likes the Maid and pointed out that the 600Q was less than two weeks pay and that she had effectively already earned half that and so she gave her the money. I really have no complaints about Maid #6, except I’m worried that the lending could become a habit; let’s face it, when you make 1800Q a month you’re always going to need money, and when you know that your Patron gives you money whenever you ask for it, it’s a temptation.
Last week Maid #6 got a phone call from her mother saying that one of her children had been taken to the hospital. She didn’t share many details but asked to leave and ran out of the house in a hurry. I suspect she would have asked for money but hasn’t paid off the 600Q for the new floor.
The next morning she didn’t show up for work, instead, her older sister showed up about 8:30am and offered to work that day in her sister’s place. On the one hand I was irritated Maid #6 didn’t bother to spend the 1Q to call me (or even try GuateCalling), but instead sent her sister to the house, with the explanation that she was at the hospital with her baby. On the other hand I was impressed as could be that she sent the sister and the sister actually showed up.
Of course, I want her to take care of her baby. I know how often my schedule is disrupted by unpredictable children, and Maid #6 has so far made up any hours and repaid any money she’s borrowed. However, after six months I’m starting to get the feeling that we’re slowly, gradually, slipping. Santiago tells me you simply can’t give an inch or you’re going to be dealing with new requests and changing rules all the time, and that the Maid wouldn’t treat a Chapin Patron this way.
What do you veterans think?
A Trip to the ER
Posted by: | CommentsIt has been a few months since we made a trip to the ER, so I guess we were due. My morning was interrupted
Put a 5 year-old on the table in a hospital under a blanket and tell him 'this is going to hurt' and he doesn't even cry.
by shrieks and screams that someone was hurt “really bad”. This is the threshold in our house to distinguish ‘hurt’ from ‘injured’.
The five year-old was carried to me with blood pouring from his mouth and under his chin. My inspection revealed that he had bit his tongue, but also that there was a gash under his chin with what looked like carne molida hanging out. I prefer tissue to remain on the inside, so I pinched it together, put a band aid on it, and summoned the teenager to keep the pressure on it while we made the trip to Herman Pedro Privado Hospital.
I’ve mentioned our experiences at the hospital before, and they’ve all been good. I would summarize them as: quick, efficient, quality care and inexpensive. What more could you ask for? Well, I guess a full body massage for the Dad who has to wait through these things and pay the bill, but what the heck, it’s Guatemala after all.
Anyway, the sight of a gringo carrying his kid into the hospital caused the assembled crowds to part like the Red Sea before Moses (for you heathens, you can find that story in the old testament, I think it’s Exodus).
It's always the anesthetic that hurts the most...3 stitches later and he's fine!
Anyway, the pretty girls that work the counter and all wear the same uniform of too-tight pants, blouse and high heels rushed to our aid and said the Doctor would see us next. I trust they made this decision based on their knowledge of the other waiting patients’ medical conditions and not my skin pigment or the ever-present bulge in my pants (that’s wads of cash-not the other thing-for you FemiNazis)
Doctor Bonilla saw us within 5 minutes and rather than try to explain the problem I simply said, “Tiengo problema” and pointed to the carne molida hanging from the five year-old’s chin. Dr. Bonilla cleaned it up and tried to patch it up with those tiny little strips of surgical tape that they use for these things. There was no way it was going to work, the cut was gaping too widely and that part of the skin is simply too elastic, but I was glad he had tried.
He made a few phone calls and within 5 minutes he was injecting what I assume was Novocaine. That’s always the worst part about these things, having that needle stuck in your open wound, but the kid did well. Better than the 14 year-old wannabe Marine, who at the site of the bulging wound, blood and needle and dripping pain killer turned first into a bleached white color and then something resembling guacamole. He was escorted to the other room where I could hear heavy breathing and some moaning.
Dr. Bonilla put three stitches in place while the nurse quizzed me about the other children who have been patients at the hospital. I promise to get those stories at some point-those things happened before I was the most notorious blogger in Central America and thought to blog about such mundane things.
Anyway, about 30 minutes after arriving we were standing at the counter with one of the aforementioned young ladies who informed me the total bill was 475Q, (that’s 475/8 or about $60 for you Obama Disciples). It took longer to get my change (you got it, I only had cien bills on me), than it did for the Doc to do the stitches.
After a stop at the tienda for the requisite post-outpatient Coke and candy bar, we returned home, just an hour after we had left.
If You’ve Had the Runs for 5 Days…
Posted by: | CommentsMy 13 year-old had suffered from diarrhea for 5 days but was not vomiting and otherwise felt fine. In the absence of other serious symptoms, 5 days is my trigger point for making a visit to the Doctor’s office.
We arrived at Dr. Bonilla’s office inside Privado Hospital Hermano San Pedro and waited about 10 minutes. In that time Dr. Bonilla saw four patients ahead of us, apparently just refilling prescriptions. He smiled broadly when we were shown in, no doubt happy to see a patient he could bill at the gringo price (170Q per consult).
He asked a few questions and then made an examination of the kid, pushing on the abdomen (apparently it hurt), listening to the abdomen, the heart, lungs and looking in his mouth. He then said he needed a stool sample and so would do an enema.
I had anticipated this and prepared for it, knowing my 13 year-old would likely be traumatized by the experience, complete with having the pretty young Latina standing by to interpret, if necessary, so I had prepared a sanitized tupperware container at home and collected the sample. The Doctor was truly surprised; perhaps he had never had a patient anticipate his diagnosis in this way.
He gave us a referral to the laboratory, which is 10 meters away in the same building. The woman working in the laboratory took the sample and told us to return in 30 minutes. We did, and found a report, which indicated no parasites were present but an ‘abundance’ of bacteria and yeast.
We were then told to wait for the doctor, whom we saw 5 minutes later. He looked at the report and immediately diagnosed a bacterial infection of the intestine and proscribed Floxtat, a generic version of Flaxin/Ofloxacin. Looking it up later on the internet I learned it is an alternative to Cyproflaxin, which is what they use to treat Anthrax. Yikes. The Doctor said contaminated water was the likely cause.
We got the drugs at the pharmacy in the hospital, and the bill for the consult, the laboratory and the drugs came to about 500Q. We spent a total of about 15 minutes waiting for the Doctor, 10 minutes with the Doctor, and 30 minutes wandering around the mercado to get the lab results. Pretty efficient, eh?
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