How I Learned There Is No Fun To Be Had in the Squatty Potty of A Sucio Hospital

While having all of my ancestors hail from the West of Ireland does not give me a genetic predisposition towards mental stability or sobriety, it does seem to have made me pretty sturdy. I guess the famine wiped out all the peasants with weak constitutions. I rarely get sick. I take no medications. I have never had an operation. As a result of all my good health, I am a terrible patient. I cry. I whimper. I cringe.  I think I had a exceptionally bad reputation with my dentist in SF because I once left his office with so much Novocain in my face that my eyebrows were numb, both of them.

As you can imagine my anxiety gets turned way up when I have to visit doctors in far off lands. I have had a very traumatic root canal in Japan (which resulted in 3 months of numb lips), oral surgery in Colombia, and stitches in Peru. After listening to me cry like a baby for almost an hour while getting ten stitches for what was essentially a scraped knee my oldest gay boyfriend broke out in giggles when I emerged from the "operating" room. "Oh, Kitten", he said while still laughing, "you need some wine". I didn't mind the giggles because I could certainly see the funny in a grown women crying hysterically over a few stitches, especially one like me who is not usually that delicate of a flower. Obviously, I handle medical issue in far away places extremely well. Therefore, I was absolutely thrilled when I discovered that I was going to have to visit a local hospital a week ago.

I knew something was not right after I had to go to the bathroom 9 times at the mall (which as luck would have it has some pretty good banos in a nation where a good bano is VERY hard to find), but I tried to use the power of The Secret to will the problem away. I spent a full day imagining not having a bladder infection and drinking a lot of juice. Nine more trips to the bathroom later, I remembered that I can't stand Oprah and that the time I made a vision board in Borneo neither Paul Rudd or red wine magically appeared in my life and I had really, really wanted them too. Damn you, Oprah! But worse than thinking about my dislike for the Big O (but honesly, how can anybody trust a lady who is sooooo into that creep Tom Cruise???), I realized I was going to have to find a doctor and this gave me a very big case of the sads.

However, since I don’t live in an area with an international clinic I had to contact my office to take me to the doctors to translate for me. I was not very excited to be discussing my bladder woes with my officer manager. I also spent a lot of time hoping that at no point would I have to take my pants off with my officer manager looking on. As both a never nude and a somewhat regular person, I did not feel that spending an afternoon without my pants on in a hospital with my translator would be all kinds of fun. I spent the car ride over trying to explain to my office manager what my symptoms were and I would get a little uncomfortable. She kept saying, "Don't worry! We're girls!". It was hard to explain that while, yes, we were both girls, that was not what was making me uneasy. I know many other girls I would not really like to discuss my bladder in great detail with.

I printed out some info from the Internet with translations to try and make my trip to the clinic as quick and painless as possible.  I was hoping to get some antibiotics and get out. I wanted as little talking and as little poking and prodding as possible.

Well, it did not work out exactly as I had hoped. Firstly, hospitals here are, not surprisingly, filled with lots of people speaking very loudly. My ears are not used to the tones that people speak in here, so it always sounds like people are in a very loud fight. It sounds like the exact opposite of listening to people whispering in Italian. This did not really help to soothe my nerves. I started to get a little jumpy and began to hope that my Web MD diagnosis was in fact correct and that I would not have to have anything serious done in the crowded and noisy place that I had just arrived at.

Hospitals here are pay as you go. You pay to register. You pay to see the doctor. You pay to have a test. You may to get your meds. You cannot move on to the next step before you have paid. As a result, you have to keep returning to the cashier. This made me very glad that I had not arrived with a gunshot wound or a newly missing finger.

I met with the doctor and had my office manager explain my symptoms. She put a thermometer under my arm which I am pretty sure I had not had happen since my visits to Dr. Gerwitz, my pediatrician. Luckily, I had no temp, but the doctor wanted to test my urine. I was not thrilled by this, but compared to other possibilities I realized I was getting off pretty easy.

I went to the bathroom with my office manager and she handed me a very teeny tiny plastic cup. I then made my way to a squatty potty with very dim lighting. This was when I was certain that my afternoon had somehow taken a wrong turn that would be pretty hard to come back from. I then realized that my TP was in my purse that I had left with my office manager and the hospital apparently did not provide any. No afternoon has ever been improved with a drip dry.

I emerged from the bathroom with my tiny urine sample and realized that I had filled the cup a bit too much and was afraid I might spill some. I also felt a little funny about carrying my pee around a crowded hospital (especially due to my bladder issues, it was not the best looking pee ever), so I tried to cover it with my hand. My office manager kept saying "Don't worry! It's normal here! You don't have to cover it!". However, I still felt like it would make me feel better to try to conceal my not so great looking urine while walking down a busy hallway.

We made our way to the station where you drop off your samples only to discover they needed my sample to be placed in a vial. I took the vile and moved to go back to the bathroom to make the transfer. My office manager told me that was not necessary I could just pour it right in while standing in front of desk. She said this was normal, too. I guess in a nation filled with so many people you just can't get too hung up on things like a little public pee. So, I poured my stuff into the vial and searched my bag for some baby wiped to clean my hands.

I waited with my office manager for my results for 30 minutes. While I am a gifted chit chatter I was having some problems coming up with stuff to talk about with the women who had just watched me walk around with my own urine for the past 20 minutes. I asked her some questions about her son and her husband, but the truth was my heart wasn't really in it. 

Finally, the 30 minutes was up and it was time to get my results. You don't get your results from a person. You go to a machine that looks like a big, orange ATM and you swipe your card and the machine spits out the results. Of course the results were not spit out in English. I took a look at two parts that had a number and an arrow and I logically assumed I was probably dying.

We took the results back to the doctor who told me I had an infection. She then talked to my office manager for what seemed like a long time in their native tongue. When I asked what she said my office manager said "she said drink lots of water". It felt a lot like that scene in Lost in Translation when Bill Murray is asking for instructions on how to pose for Suntory Time, just a little more nerve wracking than humorous. 


So I got my instructions about drinking lots of water and went to go pay for my antibiotics and then go pick them up in a second line. The doctor ended the appointment by telling me if the first round of antibiotics didn't work she would have me come back for IV antibiotics. Since I am deathly afraid of needles, the idea of IV anything was enough to make me break out in a cold sweat. I had had a hard enough time just using the bathroom. I decided it was a good time to pretend I was not an atheist and say a few Hail Marys and ask Jesus that there be no IVs in my future.

While waiting for my antibiotics, I realized that all of the nurses were wearing these old timey uniforms that I was not sure I had ever seen any nurses wear in real life before. Even though I was almost done with my hospital trip I can't say that seeing medical professionals dressed up like they just rolled off the set of Mad Men made me feel more at ease. It is something I just don't like to see at hospitals or airports.

I got my meds and was relieved that it was time to go and that it had been a relatively painless trip. Upon exiting the hospital, the first thing I saw was a women selling hot potatoes out of a tin drum. Needless to say this completely put my mind at ease. What else could make me feel better after exiting a  hospital filled with old timey nurses?

My infection went away and I was fine in a couple of days. I did however spend 2 hundo to visit an International Clinic in a larger city a couple of hours away. I just wanted someone to tell me in my own language that I was fine and that I should drink lots of water. Watching Nat Geo had taught me to not only keep on the straight and narrow while in far off lands (Thank you Locked Up Abroad), but also to keep a close eye on your health because for all you know you could have some sort of worms living in your brain (no, Monsters Inside Us, is not a good show to watch while living outside of the country, but, unfortunately, I learned that lesson a little bit too late).

So now I am all better and have decided to take staying healthy very seriously because I do not wish to make a second trip to the hospital.

I am going to wear my mask around town to come into contact with less germs.

I am going to eat healthy local food, like chicken.

I am also going to avoid the cats that live in the trashcan near my apartment because not only am I pretty convinced that they would like to kill me. I also would not like to contract any Cat Scratch Fever. In addition to this, they are not at all funny like Oscar the Grouch.

Hopefully, if I stick to this plan, I will be able to keep the doctor away. But at least if I get a hankering for some hot potatoes, I know exactly where to go.