Today instead of teaching, I had an unexpected tour of Brazilian hostpital. For about five years, I’ve had an abdominal pain that the Czech nor Scottish doctors could explain. I started to think that it was all in my head and just accepted the fact that I feel sick from time to time without an obvious reason. However, last week I found a tiny lump in my groin which started to worry me a bit. When I woke up this morning with no energy and more pain I checked the lump and saw that it was
somewhat bigger. Time to go to see the doctor, I thought.
At the GP they said I could see the doctor only by appointment or tomorrow morning and referred me to the emergency.
Wow, Brazilian emergency is an experience. It seems they’ve got more staff than patients.
At the reception there were four nurses or secretaries registering the new-comers. After the registration, I was immediately seen by a nurse who checked my blood pressure and temperature. The information was passed to another more experienced nurse who made a decision about how urgent my case was and what doctor I should see. A minute later I was talking to a young doctor who even spoke English. She sent me to another nurse who asked me for urine sample.
Straight after that I had my blood taken by another nurse. I was really amazed that I did not need to wait for more than two minutes to be seen by somebody.It seems that all the staff have their own role which fastens the whole check-up process. Or maybe it was this quick because I’m a foreigner. They told me that I’m historically the first stranger to enter the hospital which explains the curious faces all around me.
My thoughts about how it feels to be a celebrity that everybody talks about and smiles at were disturbed by my sensation that I was going to faint. I was receiving some medication via interveneous therapy and it was more than my body could handle. I informed the nurse that my consciousness was about to take a break and in few seconds I was surrounded by other three nurses. Unfortunately, instead of putting me into a lying position with my legs up they rather started to check my blood pressure. Well, I could just tell them that it was rediculously low, there was no doubt about that. I guess they just needed to see and have some kind of proof. In that case fainting seemed to be quite an obvious choice if I wanted to make my point that I was really not feeling well. Everything went black and I was enjoying the pleasant feeling of not feeling anything.
I woke up in a bed, surrounded by yet more nurses. After they checked I was OK, they let me to stay in the bed for another two hours by which time the blood and urine test results would arrive. No kidding, altogether in three hours you can have medical results. In a country which is by many considered part of the so called “third world”. What’s more, during these two hours, a psychologist came to talk to me. I mean seriously, they’ve got even a psychologist at the emergency! And he talks to anyone, regardless how serious the case is. I just couldn’t beleive it.
Two hours passed and I was talking to the doctor again. All the results were negative, which confirmed her initial diagnosis that I suffered from hernia. She said I need a surgery but since it is not life threatening at the moment, they can’t do it at the public hospital. I would need to go to a private clinic and pay for it. Until that I can happily live with that as far as I avoid lifting heavy stuff and stop with sports. Happily live and stop with sports???
I mean how the hell do these two things gotogether??
This is when I am happy.
I love travelling which involves carrying heavy backpack. I love capoeira which she clearly said was forbidden. I love riding a horse which she said would cause me pain. How can I give up on things I love and be happy?
Well, I guess things could have been much worse. I still can enjoy thousands of other activities. I want to learn to play the guitar, I can study portuguese harder and I can finally start working on an academic paper that I have been wanting to work on for ages. I can also give my students more homework so I have things to correct.
It’s not too bad, it’s just not really great either. Therefore, I welcome any suggestions what one can do to keep herself happy without the need to be physically very active.
I should make a note that most of the story happened in Portuguese. That is only thanks to my amazing flatmate Ju who went with me, did an amazing job in translating everyhing and comforted me when I broke down. It feels great to be surrounded by good friends.
Teach in Brazil 