The Doctor's Diagnosis

Unmade Bed at 6 PM
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl

My awesome friend Ilene, who's interning in South Africa, was recently forced to her bed by a primary and secondary sinus infection. So, I'm wondering, if perhaps in some sort of misguided subconscious attempt at solidarity, my body decided to join hers in feeling miserable...

Yesterday evening I finally agreed that a visit to the Pronto Socorro [emergency hospital], was a prudent idea.

My symptoms began at the beach four days earlier and included a headache, a fever that would come and go accompanied by chills and shivering, nausea, loss of appetite and an aching body. Not the best of times for a six-hour car ride back to Porto Alegre, but so it goes. On Thursday, my fever went down, but I started coughing and my chest felt tight.

On Friday, I was just absolutely exhausted. I put in a little time at my internship (due to some mis-communication, ending up at the farthest location all by myself where I attempted some reading). Later in the day I knew something wasn't right when my boyfriend accidentally elbowed me in the ear as we got up from a couch and I couldn't prevent myself from bursting into tears. "I think I need a nap," I said and fell asleep with Cipote as soon as we returned home.

That evening I checked my temperature and I had a fever again.

I'd been traveling. There were mosquitoes. Who knew, really, what this could be? Dengue? Malaria? Better not to wait any longer.

So, I don't have to keep calling him "my boyfriend" I'll use the alias he chose (perhaps unwittingly?) back in January: Samosa.

Samosa, A. and I, prepared with snacks, water and reading material crossed the street to the pronto socorro. Ready for a long night.

We made it past the door-woman, who would have preferred that I went to another hospital because she really didn't think this was an emergency. But, a nearby nurse, upon hearing of the travels, deemed that it could be, and gained us admission to the line.

"What's been going on?" said the lady who took my passport and was entering it into the computer. "Well, I've had a fever for four days and..."

The lady held her hand up, "That's enough," she said indicating that was good enough for entrance into the facility. I laughed. A. and Samosa reminded me not to smile so much. Gotta look serious about this illness business. All my information from my last visit came up.

Crazy, huh? I mean I have NEVER gone to an emergency room in my life and here I am in southern Brazil and this is my SECOND visit in less than 2 months?!?

We were directed to a second waiting room and eventually A. was allowed to come in with me to help when the intern questioned me. This was invaluable. The intern would have been ready to send me out the door but with some of A's coaxing words to him and the supervising doctor, they agreed to run some tests.

Up we went to the third floor. I thought walking the flight of stairs would be okay, but man was I winded. "Hmmm, perhaps that scary elevator is the way to go after all" I said. A vibrant, curly-haired nurse gave me a cup to pee in. Then, she took my blood. She chatted with me about where she wanted to go in the US: New York and Orlando ("I have to go to Disneyworld") and I admired the vampire figure on the door.

Then, down we went to the second floor for chest x-rays. Here there were two male nurses who seemed to be playing the role of good-nurse bad-nurse. One scowled and told us we wouldn't get the results until tomorrow morning...if we were lucky. He seemed mad just that we asked how long it might take. The other said it would be likely sooner than that and that we could go sit out in the waiting room until they called me name.

Ah, yes, when I appear after they call, "Alison" I still get weird looks. Spelled "Alisson" it's very definitely a man's name here and I don't ever fit the part. Luckily, I got good nurse for the x-rays.

A. chatted with the other patients in her friendly-way and learned about their lives. Most people's injuries served as a reminder to me that whatever I was going through, it wasn't that bad.

We waited about an hour for the x-rays to be read. The results spoke about a concentration of something in the right lung.

Then we took the elevator back to the third floor for the blood and urine results. These were unintelligible to us. We had no idea what to expect. Enough to make a person nervous.

We took all this new material back to where we began and waited for it to be interpreted by the doctor.

"You know," I said to Samosa, "It's one of those situations where of course you want to be well, but if you're well then it doesn't explain why you feel so awful."

A. and I peered over the doctor's shoulders as he read the results. "You have pneumonia," he told me, "You have to stay home for a week."

I felt angry and upset and ready to cry. Later an email from my mother described my problem perfectly. It wasn't exactly the pain of being sick, which of course is no picnic in the park. It was more that, "Being stopped so abruptly in your well-planned and scheduled life is damn hard."

As I processed this news (at least I didn't have dengue or malaria!), I was amused to overhear the intern asking the doctor, "Don't they vaccinate against pneumonia in the States?" in evident surprise that I, as an American, could come down with this illness. I smiled thinking how impressive this was -- this whole experience in the emergency hospital, which was FREE for me, even as a foreigner. I didn't think they realized that I probably wouldn't have even gone to the ER in the United States. Oh, USA, can't we figure out a better health care plan for our country?

And so I'm still raging against the fact that I'm not allowed to go to my internship next week and I feel awful that Samosa has to spend his last week in Brazil as a nurse to me as opposed to being a tourist. However, on the plus side I'm in the best of hands (A. and Samosa are awesome) and A's apartment is the best place I could imagine to recuperate.

Also, it feels really good to finally have an explanation why the last four days of my life have felt so impossibly challenging.