Well That Was An Eye Opener!….continued…again…and again

 

 

Back in Leon

 

I had to check in to the hospital in Leon at 1:00 PM the day before the operation, which was scheduled for 8:00 AM the following morning. We arrived about 12:30 PM and as directed, we went to the second floor and explained our situation at the security desk. No one seemed to be expecting us so a nurse was asked to go and find out what was up. When she returned she told us that we were supposed to be on the third floor. I was pleased about this because, even though beggars can’t be choosers, the idea of a staying in the maternity ward did not seem very appealing.

On the third floor we showed our papers to the security guard and were ushered to the nurses station in the surgical ward. After taking my name and checking on my scheduled surgery the nurse asked me to wait outside in the hall until my name was called. Five hours later that had still not happened. Finally about 6:00 PM I was asked to return to the second floor where they would have a bed for me. In the maternity ward.

 

 

So many babies……all crying

 

Once we reached the Maternity Ward Todd had to leave, no men allowed, and I was taken to a small examination room where I was asked about a million questions. The answers to all these questions should have been in my file as I had gone over all of them with La Doctora, but I patiently answered them all again while thinking to myself, “don’t these people talk to each other?”.

After the barrage of questions ended I was given a hospital robe and relieved of all my clothes, toiletries and jewelry. Well all but my wedding ring, which they had to cut off as the knuckle on my left hand is swollen due to arthritis. Much to my relief I was taken to a small room with four beds and not one of the ones like in the photo above.

The room was small, low ceilinged, with four uncovered florescent lights, one above each bed. There was no fan in the room and the temperature had to be above 30 degrees Centigrade. The other three occupants of the room were laying there sweating and trying to fan themselves with what ever they could find. Luckily I had the forethought to bring a hand fan, which was returned to me with all my other belongings in a big plastic bag which I immediately upended into the bag I had brought with me. ????

Now began the longest night of my life. Although I had slept very little the previous two nights I suspected that sleep would elude me again since I was in the midst of about a hundred crying babies. I asked a nurse if it would be possible to have something to help me sleep. Her response was “ no hay”, “we don’t have anything”. Lovely. By now it was about 8:00 PM and I read (thank goodness for my Kindle) for about an hour until the first of a long line of interns came to chat with me.

There were two of them, a young man and woman. He wanted to practice his English, which was so bad that I couldn’t understand him and I had to have the young woman ask all the questions in Spanish as well. They were ALL the same questions AGAIN. Now I had my answer, these people did not talk to each other. As they left they turned out the lights, leaving us all with white spots floating in front of our eyes. About 15 minutes later, on went the lights and a nurse came in to hook me up to an IV. On the ceiling were two metal tracks, like you would use for lighting, but with chains hanging from them. The chains would slide along the metal track so the IV could be hung near the bed. Unfortunately it did not actually reach the bed so movement became very limited. She also took the time to ask me all the same questions again, before she left.

The lights went out again with the nurse. After about a half hour respite on came the lights. A new intern had arrived to take blood samples. I told him I had already had MANY blood tests but he said “yes but that was two months ago”. Fine. He had great difficulty finding a vein and by the time he did he was clearly nervous. Rather than change the vials one after the other he just filled up a very large syringe which he then used to fill the vials. However as he turned away to get a vial, he bumped the syringe in my arm jamming it in to the hilt. Ouch. Now he was REALLY nervous and while filling the vials with the larger syringe he managed to splash blood all over the bed. At least he turned out the lights again when he left.

By now it was about 11:00 PM. The lights were off and even most of the babies were quiet. I lay there reading for about an hour and was actually feeling like I might drift off to sleep when on went the lights and another nurse arrived. It was midnight and time for an enema. I kid you not! I was unceremoniously filled up with water and left to waddle down the hall to the bathroom with my butt cheeks clamped together, carrying an IV bag and using a walker.

Of course there were no seats on the toilets and it was the maternity ward, and midnight, so the toilet bowls were all covered in blood. So now I also had to add wet paper towels to my juggling act in order to clean myself up a spot where I could unload all the unwanted water. When I returned to the room, it was relatively quiet and the lights were out. But not for long. Enter the most obnoxious, cocky little twerp I have ever had the misfortune to encounter. I don’t know if he was an intern or a nurse but he wanted one more blood sample (the other arm this time), and although he seemed much more sure of himself than the last one, he left me with an enormous bruise that I still have as a keepsake. Before he left he picked up his clipboard and asked me all the same questions…again.

2:00 AM. On come the lights. The “English speaking” intern is back and he has a friend. The friend had the ubiquitous clipboard and asked all the usual questions. Then they rolled in an ancient machine that looked like something Dr. Frankenstein might have used, with wires hanging all over it, and informed me that they were gong to give me an EKG. I explained that I had already had an EKG and was told “yes, but that was two months ago”. The two interns, who I was now calling Larry and Curly in my head, wired me up to the machine only to discover that there were only three suction adapters and six connectors. They suctioned three to my chest and proceeded to attach the other three to my left breast with about a half a roll of masking tape.

Then after about ten minutes of consulting with each other about how the machine actually worked they got it turned on. It was feeding out the paper but it was blank. Now what? Aha! More masking tape! All we were missing Moe, for a full set of stooges. I had no idea that masking tape sticks so well to skin. Ouch. As they folded up all the wires and connectors  it was approaching 3:00 AM.

This post has turned out to be much longer than I had anticipated so I am going to leave you here and continue one more time.

Well That Was An Eye Opener…continued… again

 

As I sat in the waiting area for Trabajo Social, back again in the San Miguel General Hospital, I was feeling a little daunted by my experience with la Dra. Hernandez Narango in Leon and what lay before me. I felt very grateful however, to have Tania to help me through it all. As she set up appointments for the long list of tests required by la doctora, she explained that Seguro Popular may not cover everything.

First I had to visit a new lineup, at the administration desk in Emergency, to find out if the CAT scan and EKG would be covered. I guess Tania could tell that I was a little unnerved by the idea that I might not be able to have these tests (OMG what would La Doctora say!), and she told me not to worry and to just come back to see her if this was the case, and she would deal with it if necessary. Thankfully there was no problem as the nice lady at the emergency room desk told me that everything would be covered.

The next three weeks were spent in the hospital, Monday to Friday for anywhere from three to five hours a day, undergoing tests and then returning to retrieve the results. Tania had made another appointment for me in Leon when all the information required by La Doctora, had been amassed. After all she didn’t want me “dying on the operating table”!

Back in La Doctora’s office in Leon the test results were examined and La Doctora deemed me healthy enough to undergo surgery. However that would not happen for another two months. Since I had already had the symptoms of my condition for eight months at this point I was devastated by the long wait. But then Dra. Hernandez Naranjo explained that there are only so many beds available for recipients of Seguro Popular and that it can sometimes take six months to a year to get surgery. Suddenly two months was looking pretty good to me.

She also explained that there is always the possibility that someone might have a life-threatening situation at the time that my surgery is due, in which case I would be sent home and we would have to reschedule. Fair enough, I could understand that. And so we now had a date to return to the hospital in Leon in two months. The doctor told us that I would be located on either the second or third floor, depending on where a bed was available, and that they would tell me where to go when the day arrived. The third floor is surgery, traumatology and internal medicine and the second floor is the maternity ward.

There will be one last installment in what is becoming a tome, but I will make it brief, I promise.

Well That Was An Eye Opener! continued

 

 

Hospital General Dr. Felipe Garcia Dobarganes, San Miguel de Allende

 

Tania, the darling little social worker made an appointment for me to meet with an oncologist in Leon in about 3 weeks. She also arranged for several blood tests and a chest ex-ray to be done here in the San Miguel general hospital. As I mentioned before, when you are given an appointment you are likely to share it with a lot of other people. Bearing this in mind I arrived at about 7:30 AM for my 8:00 AM appointment for blood tests.

The people having ex-rays, sonograms, CAT scans etc, donating blood, having blood tests or other types of lab work are all driven, like cattle, past one administrative nurse at a desk between the two departments. By 7:30 AM the waiting room for blood testing was full and the lineup to the administration desk went all the way past the ex-ray waiting room and around the corner almost to the front door of the hospital, and the nurse had left the desk as the waiting room was full.

She returned about 8:15 AM when some space in the waiting room had opened up and the lineup began to slowly move forward. I reached the desk at about 9:00 AM. The nurse took my request for blood tests and told me to wait until my name was called. By then the waiting room seats were full again and there was a lineup running the entire length of the waiting room along one windowed wall. Some time between 10:00 and 10:30 AM my name was called and I entered the little room where they take blood for testing, which took about a minute and a half, and I was told that I could pick up my test results the following day between 2:00 and 2:30 PM.

And so, of course, could the other 200 or so people who had just given blood for testing. Considering the amount of people that they deal with every day the hospital is really amazingly efficient and organized, but because of the huge numbers, getting anything done it is still very time consuming.

 

Hospital General Regional de León

 

So the day of my appointment in Leon finally arrived and we set out about 6:00 AM for my 8:00 AM appointment knowing that I would not be alone. There were several doctor’s offices surrounding the waiting room in the oncology department but it was still 11:00 AM before I actually got in to see the doctor. The following was my discussion with Dra. Hernandez Naranjo……

Dra. “ Well I sure hope you speak Spanish, because I don’t speak a word of English!”

Me  “ That’s alright I think I can manage”

Dra. “ Do you have test results, let’s see them”

I gave her my test results and she quickly leafed through them.

Dra. “ Why haven’t you had a CAT scan?  Why haven’t you had an EKG? Why haven’t you had this, this, this, this and this blood test? I mean really, what are you doing here?”

Me “ummmm”

Dra, (writing furiously) “Here is a list of all the tests that I need you to have before I can operate. Now go back to San Miguel de Allende and I’ll see you in three weeks!”

Me (meekly) “Yes Dra.”

Dra. “ Well I don’t want you dying on the operating table!”

And so I went, tail between my legs, back to Tania with a list of tests that took every day of the three weeks I had before I had to see Dra. Hernandez Naranjo again.

To be continued……again.

Well That Was An Eye Opener!

I have clearly led a privileged life. When I was growing up our family was far from wealthy, but we always had the necessities. We never wanted for anything essential and my life, until very recently, has continued in the same vein. Even now as we struggle to build a business, pay bills and put food on the table, there are always people far worse off than I. This story is a view from a far less privileged vantage point.

Free Mexican Health Care

Seguro Popular is a government organization that provides health care to those Mexicans who cannot afford medical care or insurance. This is where my odyssey to obtain cancer treatment began. When I discovered that I had cancer and was going to need surgery I was overwhelmed. First by the cancer itself, since there is absolutely no history of such in my family, and secondly by the price the doctor quoted me for the surgery that I would need. While medical care is much less expensive here in Mexico than in the USA or Canada, it is not cheap. Particularly if you have no money.

Much to my surprise and relief Seguro Popular accepted me with no problems. Being a gringa with existing medical issues I had had grave doubts as to the possibility of qualifying. From the Seguro Popular office I was off to Central de Salud, a long narrow building lined on both sides with doors to “consultorios”, little doctor’s offices. The colonia, or neighbourhood in which you live decides to which doctor you will be assigned. Admittedly the doctor’s attitude towards me was less than warm. I can understand this as it is difficult for most Mexicans to believe that a gringa REALLY needs the benefits of a system for the very poor here in Mexico. I tried to be as humble and grateful as possible while explaining my situation and received a grudging acceptance which is the best I could hope for.

A nurse gets all the vital statistics before you see the doctor. Very organized.

We were told to arrive at the Central de Salud at 8:00 AM when they open only to discover that the smart folk arrive at 7:00 AM. The huge, long room was wall to wall people. Some 5 hours later we had seen the doctor and were sent to the other end of the room to find the office of Trabajo Social, the social worker, who would give me an appointment to have a biopsy. Yes, of course, there was another lineup to see the social worker.

The social worker assessed my needs, checked an appointment book and told me to come back the next day and she would have an appointment for me. Yes, of course there was another lineup the next day. The appointment for the biopsy was to be a few days hence at the Hospital General Dr. Felipe Garcia Dobarganes here in San Miguel. That was when I discovered that when you get these appointments they don’t just give YOU the appointment, there could be anywhere from 10 to 150 other people who also have the same appointment depending on what you are there for.

Tip of the iceberg, the rest of the lineup is around the corner and out the door, LOL

In the case of the biopsy, luckily there were only 10 or 12 other people waiting to see that doctor. After explaining once again what a gringa was doing there, Seguro Popular papers in hand, the doctor, much more kindly than the last, directed me behind a screen and explained that he could do the biopsy then but if I wanted anesthetic I would have to wait 2 more weeks. I elected to forego the anesthetic, which in hind sight I really don’t recommend, and was then told that I could take the sample to a local lab and pay for it myself or I would have to wait up to 2 months for the results as they would have to go to Querétaro or Leon. Needless to say I waddled from the office, sample in hand.

A few days later I was again in the waiting room with the biopsy results, thank goodness for my Kindle. The doctor confirmed that I did indeed, have cancer and sent me off to another waiting area for the Trabajo Social office in the San Miguel hospital where I eventually met a beautiful young social worker named Tania, who was to become my best friend. She explained that they would send me to Leon to consult with an oncologist who was a specialists in this type of cancer and that the hospital here in San Miguel was a level 2 and I would require a level 3 facility to deal with my problems. First, however I had to have some tests.

Please stay tuned for the continuation of my foray into the Mexican medical system and my budding understanding of how lucky I have been in my life.

Ramblings of an April Fool

 

 

 

Yesterday was April first…April Fool’s Day. Always fun, especially for my husband Todd who is the greatest prankster of them all. However there was fun and foolery to be had on Facebook yesterday as well. Steve Cotton brought the “Tourist Peso” to our attention in pegging the peso, Todd’s good friend Shawn Farquar, world renowned magician, shocked us with his “retirement from magic” and  Patrice Wynne from Abrazos Designs, here in San Miguel, may have been having some fun with us with her post yesterday as well.

But April first is not only April Fool’s Day, it is also our anniversary. Todd’s and mine that is, and yesterday I found myself thinking of that amazing day in 2006. Actually, lately what with the current health issues, I often prefer contemplating my past rather than looking forward. I guess you could call that cowardly, LOL, but it’s the case none the less.

At any rate Todd and I were moving to Mexico and thought it would probably be a good idea to get married since we were planning on buying property and were not up on the Mexican laws. We had already been together for 18 years and had both been married before (twice for me!) and as such we really didn’t want anything traditional or to make a big deal of it all, we just wanted to have fun.

So we got married in Las Vegas on April Fool’s Day. Elvis presided over the ceremony and even picked us up at our hotel in a 1955 pink convertible Cadillac, once owned by Lucille Ball. Definitely not traditional. We were then chauffeured to the Tropicana Hotel where the garden gazebo had been beautifully decorated for the event.

 

A toast in the hotel before the wedding

 

Since “Elvis” couldn’t legally marry us we had a quick civil service in the Tropicana before going out to the gazebo to say our vows. The venue was beautiful and private and as I approached on the arm of my old friend Jody, who was giving me away, and I thought….”This is perfect”.

 

Viva Las Vegas!

We were both surprised by what a touching ceremony it actually was. We weren’t really expecting a thoughtful and insightful ceremony performed by an Elvis impersonator, but it left us both a little teary.

 

 

I wasn’t all serious though. After Elvis asked “will you take this man” etc. we were expected to answer unha ha. Really, what else, when you think about it?

 

 

And it was done with a final crescendo of Viva Las Vegas. So how do you follow up a wedding like that? Honestly we weren’t really sure. We hadn’t thought that far ahead, LOL.

 

Getting started

 

 

However, being an imaginative bunch we figured it out. A night of debauchery almost unequalled in our past followed, and as they say, a good time was had by all. We won’t talk about the next morning LOL.

 

Introspection

 

So far 2015 has sent me looking inside, both figuratively and literally. For the last five years life has been setting up some pretty rigorous challenges for me. Naturally I can’t help but wonder why.

It began in June of 2010 with a fall from the skylight in my dining room in Patzcuaro. I fell almost 7 meters, about 20 feet for those of you who are non-metric. I landed on tile and concrete…and a ladder, splitting my skull open and actually exploding the femur in my left leg. At this point I wasn’t looking into the whys and wherefores, I just thought “well crap, this sucks!”

 

 

 

After the accident I was rushed to Star Medica in Morelia where young, handsome Dr. Carvajal attempted to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Although he is a very accomplished surgeon his specialty is rebuilding hands, not exploded femurs. A neurosurgeon stitched up my head, leaving a large scar on my forehead that looks remarkably like the Mercedes Benz logo. Then Dr. Carvajal filled the leg up with hardware and packed in as many of the bone shards as he could find, apparently they are absorbed back in the body, and sent me on my way.

The doctor felt that in order to help the bone grow I would need a series of 4 surgeries in which he would implant a combination of collagen and PVC into the vacant space between the wired up knee and the rest of the femur. Yes PVC, strange isn’t it? Are you counting, we are now up to 5 surgeries.

Almost exactly a year after the accident I began to have A LOT of pain, (I always had pain, but this was totally different) and my leg seemed kind of floppy. Back to the doctor for ex-rays and we discovered that almost all the screws in the plate in my leg were broken. I immediately went for surgery number six in which Dr. Carvajal decided to do a bone graft as well. When I awoke and the feeling was coming back to my legs, I noticed that it really was not coming back to the left one from the knee down.

As it turns out the surgery went longer than expected and a tourniquet was left on too long, leaving me paralyzed from the knee down. I had to purchase a strange cast-like thing to keep my foot at a 90 degree angle to my leg as I had, in addition to the paralysis, what is known as drop-foot, where the foot just sort of hangs off the end of the leg. I did constant exercises to try to bring back feeling and movement to my leg and I  wore the odd cast thing for about a year and a half until I did, finally, get some feeling and movement back. At this point I really was beginning to ask myself if I wasn’t having a little more bad luck than was necessary.

Unfortunately a little feeling and movement was all I got back. Month after month each ex-ray looked the same as the last and Dr. Carvajal, like most Mexicans, did not want to give me bad news and just kept telling me everything would be fine. He was clearly out of his depth. Enter Dr. Schmidt.

 

 

 

I had heard marvelous things about the expertise of Dr. Schmidt in  Querétaro, and Todd and I made a trip from Patzcuaro to see him. He told me after examining  new ex-rays that I had complete non-union. Which, in a nutshell, means nothing had happened in my leg for a year and a half and I was now starting over from square one, with surgery number seven. Oh, come on. Really???

Todd and I then moved to San Miguel de Allende for two reasons. One was to be closer to Dr. Schmidt and the other was that we didn’t survive the crash of 2008 well financially and had now been bleeding money into the medical system for two years, and we needed to go to work. We sold our house in Patzcuaro and made the move. Dr. Schmidt did the seventh operation, with another bone graft, the removal of all the dead and rotting bone and replaced all the hardware with titanium, and I was on my way back to health. I thought. Again almost a year after that operation all the screws in my leg broke again and I had to have surgery number eight to repair the damage.

That was about a year ago and a few months after that, during a regular visit for ex-rays Dr. Schmidt informed me that if I was ever going to get this saga finished I would need another bone graft. Well, by then there was no money left. We are working but it takes time for a new business to get off the ground and we are struggling, so the bone graft will have to wait. I was still having what I thought was an inordinate amount of pain though, and when I asked the doctor about it he said that was natural as the smashed knee, as well as having very loose ligaments and tendons (which means another surgery at some point) has also developed Ostio-Arthritis. And so the saga of “The Accident” continues.

In the last few months I have been having some other internal health issues and have recently been diagnosed with uterine cancer. I am no longer able to chalk all this up to s**t happens. I have to ask myself why? What on God’s green earth have I done to deserve this? The answer, of course, is nothing. It’s just the luck of the draw I suppose.

On the up side I am exceedingly lucky and grateful to have been accepted by Seguro Popular, a government health program, since without it, I am unable to pay for the upcoming cancer surgery. This odyssey through the Mexican Public Health System has been eye-opening. It is truly wonderful and my only complaint is how long everything takes to happen. Sadly I haven’t the luxury of time at the moment, but it has given me a lot of time to think while I am in lineups.

I am off to Leon on Friday to see an oncologist, a specialist in this type of cancer, and have a battery of tests, so I will soon know more about my situation. Now I am adding my own mortality to the introspective meanderings, and I expect I may learn a thing or two about myself.

 

Photos courtesy of Todd McIntosh from his blog, Life in el Corazon.

 http://www.life-in-el-corazon.com/2010_06_01_archive.html

The Crypt Beneath The Altar

 

 

 

In the heart of San Miguel de Allende, across the square from El Jardin, stands the Parroquia, the church with the odd façade that has become a symbol of San Miguel. Amazingly, after having visited the city regularly for many years and now having lived here for three years, I had never even been inside. Until last Saturday morning.

I was aware that the crypt that resides beneath the alter existed, but as it is only open to the public one, or occasionally two, days per year I’d never had the opportunity to see it. Finally last year, during Day of the Dead while I was in Patzcuaro, Todd made his first foray into the crypt and his visit resulted in such wonderful pictures that I was determined to visit there myself, and this year I finally did.

 

 

On Saturday morning, as a small group of people waited in hushed silence in the front pews of the Parroquia, a door was opened and an ancient stone staircase became visible descending into the depths below the altar. As we travelled downward cool, damp air and the smell of ammonia reached us from the recently cleaned cavern.

 

 

As we entered the crypt history enveloped us like a cloak. There is some disagreement as to when the crypt was actually built, but the general consensus seems to be that it was the mid 19th century. José Cornelio López Espinoza, a city chronicler, states that it was built between 1760 and 1762, but another historian, Graciela Cruz, says that there is no evidence of that and from the type of burials and the people buried there, that it is far more likely to have been built in the 19th century.

We do know that the crypt was designed by the famous artist/architect Eduardo Tresguerras who is believed to have worked in San Miguel around 1830. Tresguerra was born in Celaya and is most known for his his neo-classic design in the church of El Carmen there, as well as the Fountain of Neptune (1797) and an arch commemorating the proclamation of Charles IV as king, in Querétaro.

 

Set of 8 monochrome murals in the crypt, painted by Tresguerras

 

Before the crypt was constructed there was a cemetery in front of the Parroquia where the esplanade and part of the Jardin now stand and in 1842 the remains of the priests interred in the cemetery were moved into the crypt. During it’s 250 years of service many prominent personages were buried there. One such is former Mexican president Anastasio Bustamente, who first gained fame as a royalist general fighting against the insurgents in the War of Independence, and then later, changed sides to join Agustín Iturbe to help bring independence to Mexico. Oddly enough, though he is buried here, it is without his heart. That organ was removed and taken to the Cathedral in Mexico City where it is entombed near the remains of Agustín Iturbe.

 

 

Other noted personalities present in the crypt, include Padre Francisco de Uraga, who was the the parish priest at the time of the outbreak of the War of Independence. He was a coconspirator of Ignacio Allende and died in 1830 after seeing Mexico achieve independence. Remigio González and his brother Felipe are also in residence in the crypt.

Padre Remigio González was the artist who sculpted the statue of Our Lord of the Column, which is still at the Shrine of Jesús Nazareno in Atotonilco, and is carried in a peregrination to San Miguel each year before Semana Santa, A Day In “El Campo” . He was also padre at the Shrine at the onset of the war, where he aided insurgents Hidalgo and Allende on September 16, 1810. Felipe González was also a coconspirator and joined the insurgents, actually suggesting to Allende that Hidalgo lead the army.

 

 

‘You will also find the stone plaque of Ignacio Hernández Macías, the founder of Parque Benito Juárez, and a primary figure in San Miguel during the office of Porfirio Díaz. I don’t want to overdo the history lesson, LOL, but I would be remiss if I were not to mention Padre Juan Manuel de Villegas who was parish priest of the Parroquia from 1736 to 1776 and was also the commissioner of the Inquisition in San Miguel! He was one of the priests moved from the cemetery in 1842 but unfortunately his grave stone has gone missing.

 

The Crypt, photo courtesy of Todd McIntosh

 

Back outside in the bright San Miguel sunlight it was a different world.

Day of the Dead was underway with the tapetes and altars being made ready for the evening’s onlookers.

Day of the Dead, San Miguel 2014.