Missive From the Land of Don Quixote
I´ve been visiting Jerry in Ciudad Real for the past four days. Ciudad Real is very mellow, a university town with about 80,000 people about an hour south of Madrid by train. I´ve enjoyed my time here and had some fun meeting Jerry´s friends and associates. Several things have kind of struck me as strange since I arrived. The first night, we went to the new supermarket near campus, and they have created an ingenious new way of using those little plastic shopping baskets. Check it out...
This area is really dry and flat. It´s in La Mancha, the land of Don Quixote fame.
Red Soil and Olive Trees from the Train
The first night, when we were waiting for a friend to buzz us into her complex, we were accosted by a tumbleweed from the plain, if that gives you any idea of the climate. Here´s Jerry chatting on his cell phone with our new friend.
The days have been beautiful, around 80 degrees and sunny. An extra added bonus is the snow on the ground from the trees shedding their spring seeds. The trees are cumming, as Jerry puts it :)
Feelin' the Love - Tree Cum in La Mancha
Today I had finally had enough of the frequent bathroom visits, dehydration and delirium from my stomach parasite or whatever the fuck it is, so I told Jerry that I had to go to a doctor NOW. We called the local tourist office and were told that I could go to the emergency room of the new hospital that had just been completed 5 months ago. We grabbed a taxi and very soon I was going through the intake process at the hospital. They immediately led me to a waiting area where they asked my symptoms and gathered the basic medical background information. The nurse asked me to remove my shirt and gave me a short blue pajama top to cover my upper body. After the questioning, the nurse jammed some sort of port into my vein and taped it up to secure it. I then faded in and out of sleep with the ebb and flow of the emergency room chatter in the background for the next hour as I waited for the doctor.
When the doctor finally came, he was nice, but reaked of alcohol. He saw that I was allergic to sulfa medications and said that he thought that I had caught a virus and then had an allergic reaction when I took the antibiotics prescribed by the pharmacy that contained a sulfa component. He said that they needed to take x-rays (huh?) just to make sure that everything was ok. I tried to communicate that they should do some sort of stool test to find out if there was any bacteria left, and he just nodded and made some sort of joke that I didn't understand.
The nurse returned about 30 minutes later and hooked up a large clear bag of fluid to my IV and led me to the next waiting room along with a rolling metal rack for the IV bag. The new waiting room was a long rectangular shape and was lined with large cushy Alice in Wonderland chairs. Each side of the room had 6 light beige chairs and one charcoal gray chair. I imagined the frequency with which they rotated the charcoal chairs, creating different scenarios in my mind.
There were 3 other patients waiting in the room with me - an elderly gentleman, a Type A older auntie type and a crotchety middle-aged man who kept looking nervously at his IV bag that was about to dry up. Finally, when she couldn't take it anymore, the Type A auntie came over to the middle-aged guy and flipped this little switch on the IV tube to stop the flow of liquid. This seemed to appease the middle-aged man for the moment. After what seemed like an eternity of zoning out with my eyes closed and trying not to get involved in the conversation in the waiting room, a nurse finally called my name and brought me to a row of simple plastic chairs to wait for my x-ray.
Also waiting was a small pudgy girl about 9 or 10 years old with a small gash on her forehead with 2 or 3 stitches and a big orange circle of iodine around it. She was wailing incessantly and would not stop, in spite of everyone in the waiting room telling her that everything was ok, she would be fine, etc. Finally the nurse was able to shut her up by comforting her and saying that there was no crying allowed. She soon was called into the x-ray room. The door to the x-ray room had a bright white light above it that said No Pasa (something like Do Not Enter) and a green and red light. The green light was on most of the time, but I think that when the x-ray machine was running, the light turned red. As soon as the little girl entered the room, she started to scream and cry and sob. Then the light turned red and I thought that the world had come to an end. All the people waiting for the x-ray looked at each other nervously, as if awaiting some form of medieval torture. The girl emerged unscathed, but wimpering with her head down. At this point, the two civil guard officers who had been waiting down the hall cut in line to get their charge - a skinny 30's guy rolled up in a ball on a gurney - into the x-ray chamber. I envisioned a Spanish mafioso who had just agreed to enter a witness protection plan in exchange for immunity. Finally my turn came to enter the room of horror. Actually, it was a very normal x-ray experience, aside from the woman insisting that I pull my pants down practically to my knees to get a good shot (a good shot of what, honey?).
Back to the waiting room again. By this time, I was like an old pro, carrying my IV bag around with me and hanging it on the nearest hook when I arrived. Suddenly, I realized that my fluids were beginning to run short, so I used the Type A lady's trick to stop the flow. A little later, I noticed that my blood was actually seeping back into the tube and there was a little air bubble floating in the middle. I remembered stories of small air bubbles getting to people's brains and killing them instantly, so I started to get nervous. I considered pulling it out myself, but decided against that idea. Finally, I was worried enough that I carried my IV bag out and wandered the emergency ward looking for someone to take the tube out. The nurse that I finally cornered was irritated, but kind, and said that it would be fine, that nothing would happen with it.
Bathroom Break with Convenient IV Rack
Finally, after another 15 minutes in the waiting room, I heard my name called, and a new nurse took me to a small side room to tell me that the tests were normal, that nothing was wrong with me, and that I needed to change my diet. I was actually just relieved to be leaving the hospital, but annoyed that they didn't even do any meaningful tests and then told me I was fine. I had told my friend to go ahead back home a couple of hours earlier, so I asked the hospital security guard to call me a taxi back to his residence. Home I went, still feeling like hell.
I´ve been visiting Jerry in Ciudad Real for the past four days. Ciudad Real is very mellow, a university town with about 80,000 people about an hour south of Madrid by train. I´ve enjoyed my time here and had some fun meeting Jerry´s friends and associates. Several things have kind of struck me as strange since I arrived. The first night, we went to the new supermarket near campus, and they have created an ingenious new way of using those little plastic shopping baskets. Check it out...
This area is really dry and flat. It´s in La Mancha, the land of Don Quixote fame.
The first night, when we were waiting for a friend to buzz us into her complex, we were accosted by a tumbleweed from the plain, if that gives you any idea of the climate. Here´s Jerry chatting on his cell phone with our new friend.
The days have been beautiful, around 80 degrees and sunny. An extra added bonus is the snow on the ground from the trees shedding their spring seeds. The trees are cumming, as Jerry puts it :)
Today I had finally had enough of the frequent bathroom visits, dehydration and delirium from my stomach parasite or whatever the fuck it is, so I told Jerry that I had to go to a doctor NOW. We called the local tourist office and were told that I could go to the emergency room of the new hospital that had just been completed 5 months ago. We grabbed a taxi and very soon I was going through the intake process at the hospital. They immediately led me to a waiting area where they asked my symptoms and gathered the basic medical background information. The nurse asked me to remove my shirt and gave me a short blue pajama top to cover my upper body. After the questioning, the nurse jammed some sort of port into my vein and taped it up to secure it. I then faded in and out of sleep with the ebb and flow of the emergency room chatter in the background for the next hour as I waited for the doctor.
When the doctor finally came, he was nice, but reaked of alcohol. He saw that I was allergic to sulfa medications and said that he thought that I had caught a virus and then had an allergic reaction when I took the antibiotics prescribed by the pharmacy that contained a sulfa component. He said that they needed to take x-rays (huh?) just to make sure that everything was ok. I tried to communicate that they should do some sort of stool test to find out if there was any bacteria left, and he just nodded and made some sort of joke that I didn't understand.
The nurse returned about 30 minutes later and hooked up a large clear bag of fluid to my IV and led me to the next waiting room along with a rolling metal rack for the IV bag. The new waiting room was a long rectangular shape and was lined with large cushy Alice in Wonderland chairs. Each side of the room had 6 light beige chairs and one charcoal gray chair. I imagined the frequency with which they rotated the charcoal chairs, creating different scenarios in my mind.
There were 3 other patients waiting in the room with me - an elderly gentleman, a Type A older auntie type and a crotchety middle-aged man who kept looking nervously at his IV bag that was about to dry up. Finally, when she couldn't take it anymore, the Type A auntie came over to the middle-aged guy and flipped this little switch on the IV tube to stop the flow of liquid. This seemed to appease the middle-aged man for the moment. After what seemed like an eternity of zoning out with my eyes closed and trying not to get involved in the conversation in the waiting room, a nurse finally called my name and brought me to a row of simple plastic chairs to wait for my x-ray.
Also waiting was a small pudgy girl about 9 or 10 years old with a small gash on her forehead with 2 or 3 stitches and a big orange circle of iodine around it. She was wailing incessantly and would not stop, in spite of everyone in the waiting room telling her that everything was ok, she would be fine, etc. Finally the nurse was able to shut her up by comforting her and saying that there was no crying allowed. She soon was called into the x-ray room. The door to the x-ray room had a bright white light above it that said No Pasa (something like Do Not Enter) and a green and red light. The green light was on most of the time, but I think that when the x-ray machine was running, the light turned red. As soon as the little girl entered the room, she started to scream and cry and sob. Then the light turned red and I thought that the world had come to an end. All the people waiting for the x-ray looked at each other nervously, as if awaiting some form of medieval torture. The girl emerged unscathed, but wimpering with her head down. At this point, the two civil guard officers who had been waiting down the hall cut in line to get their charge - a skinny 30's guy rolled up in a ball on a gurney - into the x-ray chamber. I envisioned a Spanish mafioso who had just agreed to enter a witness protection plan in exchange for immunity. Finally my turn came to enter the room of horror. Actually, it was a very normal x-ray experience, aside from the woman insisting that I pull my pants down practically to my knees to get a good shot (a good shot of what, honey?).
Back to the waiting room again. By this time, I was like an old pro, carrying my IV bag around with me and hanging it on the nearest hook when I arrived. Suddenly, I realized that my fluids were beginning to run short, so I used the Type A lady's trick to stop the flow. A little later, I noticed that my blood was actually seeping back into the tube and there was a little air bubble floating in the middle. I remembered stories of small air bubbles getting to people's brains and killing them instantly, so I started to get nervous. I considered pulling it out myself, but decided against that idea. Finally, I was worried enough that I carried my IV bag out and wandered the emergency ward looking for someone to take the tube out. The nurse that I finally cornered was irritated, but kind, and said that it would be fine, that nothing would happen with it.
Finally, after another 15 minutes in the waiting room, I heard my name called, and a new nurse took me to a small side room to tell me that the tests were normal, that nothing was wrong with me, and that I needed to change my diet. I was actually just relieved to be leaving the hospital, but annoyed that they didn't even do any meaningful tests and then told me I was fine. I had told my friend to go ahead back home a couple of hours earlier, so I asked the hospital security guard to call me a taxi back to his residence. Home I went, still feeling like hell.
posted by Chromest*r at 6:38 PM
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