2006-01-11
Typhoid, Crocodiles, and Muchos Cerveza
So I am in the middle of the jungle, or what I've been told is the ancient Mayan Empire. Flies buzzing above my head in a partially air conditioned hovel with a sign above the door reading "Internett." Scorpions all around us and poisonous vipers slithering around our sandaled feet as we sit in the hotel bar. The hotel looks a lot like something out of Romancing the Stone -- open aired with mustached men sitting around watching everyone's every move.
Istvan and Detti are at the pyramids today -- Chichenitza or something. (I don't speak Spanish or Mayan and my Hungarian is only coming in handy with Istvan and Detti during the bartering process. (One thing quickly learned here is that one must "barter" for everything -- even a glass of water.) Birgit is in the hotel room, tied up with Typhoid. At first we thought it was Montezuma's Spectre haunting her when it began yesterday at around 4 p.m. But then by 9 p.m. she had a fever higher than 35 degrees outside and was shivering uncontrollably. Vomiting began at 2 a.m., and I was actually worried she might die in the middle of the night or something -- I'm not very good at making evaluations such as these, but I was scared. Unlike the last time this had happened, food poisoning on a plane somewhere over Iceland, there weren't knowledgable persons around to help me out. So we hailed a cab at around 3 a.m. for the hospital listed in our Lonely Planet book -- that book rules by the way.
Mexican hospitals are just as you might imagine them in your most negative of stereotypes. This is one of the poorest regions of Mexico, and the hospital showed this. I was pretty convinced we would get a case of dysentry just sitting there waiting next to the people with whooping cough and limbs dangling off their bodies, but fortunately we were called forward pretty early.
Two doctors or nurses or high schoolers, I couldn't really tell, asked Birgit about her symptoms, then began taking drugs off the rusty shelf covered in dust and mold. Then they chatted a little more, and took one of the boxes back, basically communicating to Birgit that their evaluation had changed and that she didn't need that medicine anymore. They gave us a prescription, told Birgit to start taking the antibiotics, and then said everything was free. (I love state-based healthcare. I think... we'll see if their prognosis was correct first, I guess.) Meanwhile I was flipping through the Lonely Planet book for different stomach diseases that one might contract while in the Yucatan, and the only one that matched was "typhoid." Typhoid is a stomach infection caused by bad water that begins with body aches (which happened to Birgit first), a slowly rising fever, slowing of the pulse, and suddenly an inability to keep anything in you. It will kill you within about two weeks if left untreated. The only real treatment is the exact type of antibiotic they gave her yesterday. I think this was the first day she had typhoid, but I'm sure glad we didn't wait to go to the hospital. The hospital was only the beginning, however!
As we left the hospital at around 3:40, there were no cabs anywhere. So fever stricken, teeth chattering, poor Birgit and I had to walk down abandoned streets with stray dogs fighting one another on nearly every corner. When we got to the 24 hour pharmacy near our hotel, the clerk was so passed out that we couldn't wake him up, even with the help of a Mayan sitting on the curb down the block. This Mayan was very friendly for someone sitting on the curb at 4 in the morning and told us where there was another 24 hour pharmacy. We began walking about ten steps until three rabid looking dogs came charging around the corner at the far end of the block, two of which then went about mauling the third. We turned around and found a cab at the main square there.
He took us to the pharmacy, the person there was still awake, we got the anti-poop medicine she needed and some electrolyte powder, hopped in the cab and made it home at around 5:15 in the morning. At this time the restaurant beneath us began preparing breakfast by washing, and clanging quite loudly, every piece of silverware and porcelain they owned. I still haven't slept. But the good news is that the drugs seem to be working. Birgit is still in bed, but we have cable television for the first time in weeks and she had an opportunity to see Henry VIII, which is an insanely long film that is not actually that informative, and a few Telenovellas. She still can't drink anything but her fever is down and we're just hoping to let the medicine do its work. It should be fine now.
Tomorrow, if she is feeling okay, we are taking our rental car to Merrida. We heard that they just found the Avian flu in the neighboring state of Chiapas. We'll be wary of stray chickens. The coast the first week was great! We didn't swim too much, mostly just relaxed and ate a lot of fish. We went to a UN jungle/lagoon bioreserve and saw a bunch of crocodiles and poisonous creatures. I took numerous pictures, but for some reason I took out the cord I need to attach my camera to computers; so I will have to upload those upon my return.
Almost out of time here. That's all for now. We're fine, but looking forward to coming home. Hasta luego.
Istvan and Detti are at the pyramids today -- Chichenitza or something. (I don't speak Spanish or Mayan and my Hungarian is only coming in handy with Istvan and Detti during the bartering process. (One thing quickly learned here is that one must "barter" for everything -- even a glass of water.) Birgit is in the hotel room, tied up with Typhoid. At first we thought it was Montezuma's Spectre haunting her when it began yesterday at around 4 p.m. But then by 9 p.m. she had a fever higher than 35 degrees outside and was shivering uncontrollably. Vomiting began at 2 a.m., and I was actually worried she might die in the middle of the night or something -- I'm not very good at making evaluations such as these, but I was scared. Unlike the last time this had happened, food poisoning on a plane somewhere over Iceland, there weren't knowledgable persons around to help me out. So we hailed a cab at around 3 a.m. for the hospital listed in our Lonely Planet book -- that book rules by the way.
Mexican hospitals are just as you might imagine them in your most negative of stereotypes. This is one of the poorest regions of Mexico, and the hospital showed this. I was pretty convinced we would get a case of dysentry just sitting there waiting next to the people with whooping cough and limbs dangling off their bodies, but fortunately we were called forward pretty early.
Two doctors or nurses or high schoolers, I couldn't really tell, asked Birgit about her symptoms, then began taking drugs off the rusty shelf covered in dust and mold. Then they chatted a little more, and took one of the boxes back, basically communicating to Birgit that their evaluation had changed and that she didn't need that medicine anymore. They gave us a prescription, told Birgit to start taking the antibiotics, and then said everything was free. (I love state-based healthcare. I think... we'll see if their prognosis was correct first, I guess.) Meanwhile I was flipping through the Lonely Planet book for different stomach diseases that one might contract while in the Yucatan, and the only one that matched was "typhoid." Typhoid is a stomach infection caused by bad water that begins with body aches (which happened to Birgit first), a slowly rising fever, slowing of the pulse, and suddenly an inability to keep anything in you. It will kill you within about two weeks if left untreated. The only real treatment is the exact type of antibiotic they gave her yesterday. I think this was the first day she had typhoid, but I'm sure glad we didn't wait to go to the hospital. The hospital was only the beginning, however!
As we left the hospital at around 3:40, there were no cabs anywhere. So fever stricken, teeth chattering, poor Birgit and I had to walk down abandoned streets with stray dogs fighting one another on nearly every corner. When we got to the 24 hour pharmacy near our hotel, the clerk was so passed out that we couldn't wake him up, even with the help of a Mayan sitting on the curb down the block. This Mayan was very friendly for someone sitting on the curb at 4 in the morning and told us where there was another 24 hour pharmacy. We began walking about ten steps until three rabid looking dogs came charging around the corner at the far end of the block, two of which then went about mauling the third. We turned around and found a cab at the main square there.
He took us to the pharmacy, the person there was still awake, we got the anti-poop medicine she needed and some electrolyte powder, hopped in the cab and made it home at around 5:15 in the morning. At this time the restaurant beneath us began preparing breakfast by washing, and clanging quite loudly, every piece of silverware and porcelain they owned. I still haven't slept. But the good news is that the drugs seem to be working. Birgit is still in bed, but we have cable television for the first time in weeks and she had an opportunity to see Henry VIII, which is an insanely long film that is not actually that informative, and a few Telenovellas. She still can't drink anything but her fever is down and we're just hoping to let the medicine do its work. It should be fine now.
Tomorrow, if she is feeling okay, we are taking our rental car to Merrida. We heard that they just found the Avian flu in the neighboring state of Chiapas. We'll be wary of stray chickens. The coast the first week was great! We didn't swim too much, mostly just relaxed and ate a lot of fish. We went to a UN jungle/lagoon bioreserve and saw a bunch of crocodiles and poisonous creatures. I took numerous pictures, but for some reason I took out the cord I need to attach my camera to computers; so I will have to upload those upon my return.
Almost out of time here. That's all for now. We're fine, but looking forward to coming home. Hasta luego.
